-By Warner Todd Huston
Troubles are growing for New York City’s venerable “alternative” weekly newspaper, The Village Voice. With multiple layoffs, ad revenue at an all time low, and resignations by key staffers over the paper’s management, the 58-year-old publication is coming to what one commenter is calling “the end times.”
In a show of protest the paper’s top two editors resigned rather than be part of initiating a new wave of layoffs. On May 23 editor Will Bourne and deputy editorJessica Lustig both quit the paper. Bourne had only been at his post for about 7 months.
The pair said they resigned over plans by the publishers to further reduce the paper’s staff. According to The New York Times, Bourne was told to layoff five of the remaining 20 Village Voice staffers.
“We are both leaving because I was summoned to a meeting and asked to get rid of five people, and we are on a short string already. When I was brought in here, I was explicitly told that the bloodletting had come to an end. I have enormous respect for the staff here and the work they have been doing, and I am not going to preside over further layoffs.”
The owner of the paper, Voice Media Group, disputed Bourne’s characterization of the changes in staff. The publishers said they were reorganizing, but would do so with “minimal staff reductions.”
The company announced that its blogs editor, Pete Kotz, would temporarily take the editor’s chair during this newest round of reorganizing.
This is only the latest bout of layoffs at The Village Voice. Earlier this month, the paper laid off Michael Musto, one of its most well known writers. Musto started with the paper in 1984. The paper also eliminated food writer Robert Sietsema and theater critic Michael Feingold. At the same time the paper’s last food writer, Tejal Rao, resigned in protest.
Alex Ashe reports that the mass turnovers have “disheartened the paper’s remaining staff” and evoked a “dour mood” in the news room.
“By releasing esteemed, long-tenured writers in favor of cheaper alternatives, the Voice has trivialized its content, as well as its writers’ achievements and loyalty,” Ashe wrote. “While its bottom line is undeniably crucial, the paper has sent the wrong message to its staff, who have now witnessed the industry’s ceiling firsthand.”
As for me, well I will mourn the end of the Village voice because hatemonger Roy Edroso features my work quite often in his “I hate all you conservatives” column. I have always appreciated his hate for me and have been grateful for the mention… and the publicity.
I’ll miss ol’ Roy hatey-McHater a lot when he’s gone. But, I’ll still be here.
Muwhaaaahaa, Muwhaaaahaa, Muwhaaaahaa.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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