The Media Equation: Voice Lesson: An Outsider In Charge

Early in 2006, before The Village Voice went into the ditch — before one of its writers was found to have fabricated an article, before its interim editor was fired by a notice that was scrawled on a napkin, before another new editor was hired but then did not take the job, before another one was hired and then fired in six months — I was sitting at the Odeon restaurant in downtown Manhattan with Michael Lacey, one of the partners of New Times, a chain of weekly newspapers that merged with the Voice newspapers in 2005.

We had a New York moment, talking about the history of The Village Voice and its glorious journalistic tradition. And I remember thinking, this just might work.

So far, it looks like I was wrong. Under the New Times (now renamed Village Voice Media), The Voice, which has always been the home to permanent revolution, continues to flop from one crisis to another.

Donald Forst, the editor of the paper, left as part of the merger. The interim editor who followed was let go with that note written on the napkin. Erik Wemple, the editor of the Washington City Paper who (disclosure moment) I had suggested to Mr. Lacey would be good at the job, was announced as the new editor, then declined to take the job because he said it was clear that he would not have editorial control.

David Blum, a New Yorker, was hired and lasted six months. Last week, Tony Ortega, an experienced editor and writer with the chains Broward-Palm Beach New Times, was brought in.

In the past year, there were allegations of racism, purges and, along the way, the confirmation of the employees worst fears — not only did the New Times gang have a cookie cutter, but they seemed willing to use it. James Ridgeway and Robert Christgau got the heave-ho and others, like Sydney H. Schanberg, left.

Mr. Lacey said that The Voice was a mess when New Times took over and pointed to a number of articles The Voice had done, even with the parade of editors.

We didnt expect things to go smoothly. They never do, he said. I hate to break it to New York, but all of the papers we took over have their own way of doing things.

Mr. Lacey made the changes in part because he believed that there was too much punditry and not enough reporting at the paper, and in part because the new team was trying to cut costs to insure the long-term survival of the 51-year-old paper.

Hey, everybody is welcome to their opinion on this thing, Mr. Lacey says now. Anybody who wants to say that Blum was a mistake can blame me, I personally hired him. We have a lot of confidence in Tony. We didnt expect things to happen overnight, and I am not losing sleep over any of this.

If, as E. B. White said, the primary requirement for success in New York is a willingness to be lucky, Mr. Lacey seems to qualify. Born in Binghamton, he moved to New York City and then went to high school in Newark. He co-founded the Phoenix New Times in 1970, because campus officials at Arizona State refused to put flags at half-mast to recognize the students who had been gunned down at Kent State. (He sold blood to help finance the newspaper.)

He has since moved on to write and edit stories that got people fired, bought or started newspapers that won many national awards, and paid journalists a living wage in a part of the business where they are often compensated as quasi-volunteers.

There were a lot of good Michael Lacey stories along the way. My personal favorite: at an industry conference, he offered a bounty of $100 to anyone who would find Richard Lieby, a writer at The Washington Post who he suggested was at the conference for the primary purpose of recruiting rather than reporting, and kick him in the backside. (Jack Shafer, now the media columnist for Slate, issued the kick and claimed the prize.)

But running a newspaper chain — the company took over six papers in markets all over the country when it bought The Voice — meant that Mr. Lacey would be doing most of his management of the editorial destiny of The Village Voice from the corporate headquarters in Phoenix.

Robert Christgau, the long-time Voice music writer, said, in this instance, geography is destiny.

Anti-intellectualism has an honorable history in American journalism, he said. I regard Jimmy Breslin as a great journalist and I would not expect him to return the compliment. But Breslin is a New Yorker, Michael Lacey is not.

Mr. Lacey said, in an interview with New York magazine, he was sick of the idea that outsiders couldnt cut it here. Like were from Phoenix or some Wild West dung heap and were hayseeds. Like we dont know whats up, he said.

As I watched events unfold, I cant help wondering what might have happened if Mr. Lacey had gotten up from that table at the Odeon and gone to work remaking the paper with the vinegar and finesse he has displayed throughout his career. In a town full of journalistic raconteurs and media barons, he would have fit right in.

Mr. Lacey said that time may still come.

I love New York City and would love the opportunity to live there, which I will when my boys are in college, he said. Im not going to edit the paper hands-on, but I will be close enough to make whoever is editing the paper more miserable than they already are.

Despite the myth, outsiders have always thrived here. William Randolph Hearst, a rube from San Francisco, came here at the turn of the last century and bought a newspaper that became the legendary New York Journal. Harold Ross, a rustic from Colorado, conjured up The New Yorker, while Harold Hayes came from the wilds of North Carolina to all but invent the modern magazine at Esquire in the 1960s.

But none of them worked from Phoenix.

Tag Cloud

External Information

Additional Information

Where Am I?