A few thoughts on the closing of the Village Voice (which have already been echoed elsewhere):
Obviously, the internet destroyed classified ads & ended print media’s ability to effectively print money, but any autopsy has to squarely blame the ravenous ghouls at New Times Media.
Obviously, the internet destroyed classified ads & ended print media’s ability to effectively print money, but any autopsy has to squarely blame the ravenous ghouls at New Times Media.
Even a decade ago, it felt like a lifetime achievement to get a byline at the Voice. Sure, it was past its prime but it still employed brilliant writers & editors, & still represented a glamorous bohemian ideal to a naive writer staring across the continent.
The decline & degradation of the Voice was a slow-motion car crash. The New Times owners did what they did at every paper in their chain. Slashed rates, placed insane click bait demands on employees and tarnished the brand to where no new owner could save it.
The New Times people are the same gilded idiots who sold the LA Weekly to the glue factory, rather than attempt to find an owner interested in preserving the paper’s dignity & those who saw it as a bastion of community, rather than an impersonal asset to be stripped for parts.
Out of town corporate raiders from Phoenix should never have been allowed to control essentially every major US alt-weekly. They were more interested in running a prostitution site than publishing a newspaper that served the civic interest. Fuck them & their Vichy successors
And yes, don’t be fooled. Part of the Vichy LA Weekly sale included a contract that involves New Times handling the digital side of the ad business for Brian Calle’s gang of crooks. They’re still very much in business together, no matter how much Vichy tries to claim innocence
I’m sentimental by nature, so the shuttering of the Voice is profoundly sad. It’s awful that people lost their jobs trying 2 salvage the bleak ruins of a once proud institution. Still, the dead make space. There’s an opportunity for journalists & concerned citizens 2 take it back
The alt-weekly model of the last century is dead. Most of the great papers are gone. But I can’t help but think the void creates a legit chance to build something new that reflects this new era, offers real value to cities, and is locally owned and intensely community focused.
None of this will be easy and failure will be common but I refuse to believe that people don’t want to know about the inner-workings of their city & the richness of its culture. I refuse to believe that print is dead. RIP to the Voice; May the spirit that started it live forever.
