How New Times ruined the LA WeeklyBy Tim Redmond
Wow, this is nasty. But real. Marc Cooper, longtime alternative press reporter and columnist, dissects (with a nice, sharp scalpel) the decline of the LA Weekly under the chain now known as Village Voice Media, nee New Times Newspapers.
His nut:
Weekly readers were informed, quite simply by its out-of-town owners, that they have been wrong, wrong, wrong for the last 30 years. They might think they like opinion and commentary and national news and sober and thorough investigative reporting, and all with a progressive tinge. But they've been wrong. Dead wrong. Instead, they want a smart-alecky, sophomoric, barely edited, thinned out, often reactionary sensationalist stew that displays little or no editorial rhyme nor reason. Yeah! That's the formula.
Sound familiar?
(Oh, and by the way: Here's the last column from Nat Hentoff, who these same chain owners just fired at the VIllage Voice.)
digg •
del.icio.us •
sphere •
google
•
Comments (4)
... how Tim Redmond will be unemployed soon...
Posted by I can read | January 7, 2009 03:42 PM
Andy Van De Voorde fucks goats
Posted by van de voorde | January 7, 2009 07:27 PM
Marc Cooper writes: "...dozens of Weekly staffers...slashed from the payroll...let go its top deputy editor...fired its managing editor...fired its dazzling News Editor...two prize-winning investigative reporters quickly bailed...The Weekly's fact-checking department has been abolished. Its copy editing department has been decapitated...design staff decimated...free-lance rates...chopped...overall free-lance budget...almost obliterated..."
Has Cooper not accurately described what the Bay Guardian would require the SF Weekly to do, by court order, under the banner of "living within its means"?
Now that you ask, what Cooper describes does sound familiar...
Posted by Listener | January 7, 2009 09:19 PM
Tim,
I was wondering if you had a SFBG email I could shoot some questions at you about Alt-J Fellows Prog? Thanks
Posted by mike pistorio | January 8, 2009 10:46 AM