Village Voice Media being acquired by New Times very soon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKPvdcEfETA
damn, you're serious: he IS writing about hip hop for the voice

i googled up a few articles of his and they don't seem particularly offensive.

http://www.lowtimespodcast.com/the-la-weekly-posted-some-garbage-now-i-want-to-talk-to-them/

even when held up against the rest of the paper/site, west coast sound is particularly terrible.

Was just going to post that. The Voice has been posting piles and piles of perv pic features from various events around the city, but there's something even more creepy about it being gifs. Plus at least most of the Voice pics are from like "sexy" events where people are all publicly displaying sexuality on purpose, iirc.

Welp:

Will Bourne, who became editor-in-chief of The Village Voice in November, and Jessica Lustig, the deputy editor since January, are leaving the weekly publication.

They met with the staff at 11 p.m. on Thursday and said that Christine Brennan, executive editor of Voice Media Group, had instructed them to cut five positions from the 20-person staff. Rather than implementing the cuts, they resigned and left immediately.

the Voice is soon going to be a single guy in his underwear posting clickporn photo sets of sex events

"From your mouth to God's ears," says a lurking Ben Westhoff.

lol staff of 15, i really had no idea.

Is that editorial staff or total? I mean either way damn.

how small can the staff get before 'editor-in-chief' is a bigger title than the organization can bear

editorial staff, apparently.

As someone who put out a monthly mag with a total staff of 3, plus freelancers, I'm kinda surprised it takes 20 people to put out something as shitty as the 2013 Voice.

1) its weekly. 2) it has lots of bloggyblogs. 3) actually i don't know beyond that i don't pay attention anymore.

oh right 4) it occasionally still has real legwork in actually reporting feature stories and it theoretically pays staff to do that and not just freelancers.

there is admittedly a lot of legwork even in digging up salacious details on stories like that one about the real estate magnate's wife who did cocaine and had an affair with a cartel hitman who owned a monster truck racetrack which was a cover for snuff film production.

http://www.villagevoice.com/about/staff/

Editor in Chief Will Bourne
Deputy Editor Jessica Lustig
Arts and Culture Editor
Film Editor Alan Scherstuhl
Music Editor Brian McManus
Copy Chief
Web Editor Nick Greene
Senior Associate Editors Angela Ashman, Araceli Cruz, Nick Murray
Staff Writers Michael Feingold, James King, Michael Musto, Nick Pinto, Graham Rayman, Tejal Rao
Contributors Melissa Anderson, Allen Barra, Roy Edroso, Deborah Jowitt, Chantal Martineau, Nick Pinkerton, John Surico, Robert Sietsema, Alexis Soloski
Contributing Copy Editor Benjamin Mercer
Editorial Fellows Emily Gogolak, Jason Lewis
Editorial Interns Alexandra Bell, Brittany Spanos, Christopher Weller, Diana Clarke, Leah Butterfield
Associate Editor Heather Baysa
Arts Assistant Eric Sundermann

xpost -- why are you not linking that story right now.

I wonder if McAnus will get a promotion. Failing upwards, etc.

Fin:

Last week, top editors at the Village Voice resigned in protest when they learned that management wanted them to lay off several members of their already-decimated staff. This morning, those layoffs came down. They're not pretty.

We hear that executives from the Voice's parent company flew in for today's massacre. Michael Musto, the Voice's nightlife columnist and most high profile remaining staffer, has been let go, as was rumored last week. (There had apparently been some talk of Musto's column hanging on in some form, but that does not seem to have worked out.) Also let go, sources tell us, was Robert Sietsema, the Voice's longtime food critic, and Michael Feingold, the paper's theater critic. Feingold was scheduled to host the Obie Awards for the Voice next week.

Should be polled: http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-06-22/columns/why-i-hate-being-gay/

those are the last 3 columnists I read, btw, and obv the last 3 longtimers.

tho Zacharek on film I will still look at

man, gutted. they're done huh.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/business/media/michael-musto-and-robert-sietsema-leave-village-voice.html?_r=0

more reaction to firing of Musto, Sietsema, & Feingold

http://nypost.com/2013/10/23/spinmedia-to-slash-staff-again/

lol @ owning "absolutepunk.net"

Break For Killer Kennedy Cuz!

Forks, there is discussion of that on the Pitchfork thread:

pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

gotcha. I've stuck my nose in that thread lately; the discussion seems pretty good.

Is there gonna be a Pazz & Jop poll?

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/12/28/how-the-village-voiceandotheraltweeklieslosttheirvoicein2013.html

Long think piece on the decline of American alt-weeklies and New Times

how many interviews does a reporter have to do before his piece can be called something other than a "thinkpiece"

call it a feature if you like... whatev

Yes, he interviewed many people for this piece

is there gonna be a Pazz & Jop poll? Yep:

All ballots are due by Tuesday, December 24th; results will be published in print and online the week of January 8th.

Also: the return of longform journalism? (Pitchfork's even gonna do a print edition, I heard; prob fairly expensive, but hey return of vinyl)http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/why-long-form-journalism-everywhere-these-days

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/ct-ae-1229-jones-20131228,0,1284205.column

The future of arts journalism? by Chris Jones

the Chicago Symphony Orchestra are creating their own online media magazine to preview music events because they think there are not enough previews of their events and those of others

is

TAKE THE POWER BACK

Seriously, Chicago may have the right idea.

Despite possible conflict of interest issues, I guess it has to be better than this:

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2013/07/most_bangable_members_ny_philharmonic.php

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/news/we-broke-the-internet
this feels right on

This opens here next week--hadn't heard anything about it until yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp-D_ga6UHg

heh, my friend regina is in that trailer.
yeah, i wanna see that for sure.

what was the video? gone now

It was a trailer for this:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2312616/

Not sure why that would come down just as the film's opening.

Oh, Nat Hentoff. I see his recent writing can be found at this rightwing site:

http://www.wnd.com/author/nhentoff/

well he did engage in clinton conspiracies w/ the best of them

Today on Twitter:

@villagevoice: Nigerian Independence Day Parade 2014: Cloudy With a Chance of Ebola?

dear lord

SHUT IT DOWN