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The merger mess New Times deal creates ugly stir By Tim RedmondThe alternative press hit the big time last week – and the news wasn't at all good. The proposed merger of New Times and Village Voice Media attracted the attention of the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation, and numerous local publications, and while the flaks for the emerging media monolith tried their best to spin it as a happy marriage, a lot of people weren't quite buying it. Perhaps the most noteworthy (though hardly surprising) statement came from Mike Lacey, the executive editor of New Times, who effectively announced on TOTN Oct. 27 that he's going to wipe out the Village Voice as we know it. Lacey had already demonstrated his attitude toward his soon-to-be employees when he blasted the managing editor of the Seattle Weekly, calling him lazy. On TOTN, host Neil Conan put the question to Lacey directly: "The Village Voice, I think it's fair to describe, over the past half-century has been a newspaper of the left. Would that change?" Lacey's response: "You know, I think I'm sort of infamously criticized for not driving newspapers based on politics. And it's my feeling that, generally speaking, there's a pox on everybody's house, left or right." That's the first direct statement from Lacey that he intends to ram the New Times format – magazine-style writing, a de-emphasis on news, and absolutely no editorials, endorsements, or political stands – down the throats of the VVM papers, which include the Voice, LA Weekly, Seattle Weekly, OC Weekly, and Minneapolis City Pages. That has a lot of observers worried. Donnell Alexander, writing in Los Angeles City Beat, has a nice quote from Ed Bishop, editor of the St. Louis Journalism Review and former managing editor of the Riverfront Times, which was bought by New Times a few years back. "People here could depend on the Riverfront Times for progressive news. Now that's no longer true," Bishop said. "We thought our journalism was more fair because we didn't pretend not to have an agenda. We saw 'alternative' as having a point of view. We were pro-gay rights, pro-choice, pro-environmental. A lot of people in St. Louis didn't have a voice after New Times came." Lacey, as is his practice, didn't respond to my e-mail requesting comment. But he made a point of blasting Chuck Taylor, managing editor of the Seattle Weekly, for allegedly failing to contact him for comment on a story. Liz Garrigan, editor of the Nashville Scene, let Lacey take his swing in a column almost breathless in its excitement over the New Times deal. "We take no glee in publishing an admonishment of a colleague," Garrigan writes, "but just as an example, Lacey offers a choice critique about a recent column by Seattle Weekly writer Chuck Taylor, who offered a skeptical rumination about the rumored merger. "Well, the entire thing was pasted together from clips and press releases," Lacey says. "... I'm not all that hard to run down. He never called, he never wrote, and I think that's just lazy. There won't be any kind of lazy journalism going on. Chuck will pick up the phone and call people." Garrigan mentions in passing that Taylor did, in fact, call Lacey – twice – but the oh-so-tough-and-ethical gentleman from Phoenix never bothered to call back. As Taylor noted in a letter to Poynter.org: "I would like everyone to know that I wrote the story about the Village Voice-New Times merger very late Sunday in an effort to get something online. I called him Monday and Tuesday for comment, and he never called me back. He never responded the last time I wrote about this topic, either." No surprise – he never calls me either. In fact, he's notoriously hard to reach, often refuses to return media calls, and when he does, is known to shout obscenities and hang up. And so the merger moves forward. It's not going to be pretty. PS: There's real opposition developing, and not just in the alt-press world. The Seattle Times ran an editorial Oct. 28 calling on the US Department of Justice to reject the merger, which it called "a blow to democracy and a loss for Seattle." Go to sfbg.com for the key links.
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