Reaction to the Voice/New Times Merger
We quizzed a handful of experts and some Village Voice alum about their reaction to today's news of the merger between the Voice's parent company and New Times Media (See previous post.) Their verdict wasn't very positive.
Kit Rachlis, former executive editor of the Voice, former editor of L.A. Weekly, and now editor-in-chief of Los Angeles magazine: "This is not a good thing for the alternative press. It's not a good thing that a single company will own a greater percentage of alternative weeklies" than any mainstream company's share of the daily newspaper universe. "The alternative press thought this was bad for daily papers, I don't know why it thinks it's good for itself."
Alexander Cockburn, former Voice staffer and now editor of Counterpunch: "It's sort of contrary to everything the Voice first stood for when it was founded in the 50's....It's a mega-media conglomerate. I think it's a bit late in the day for a mega-media conglomerate. I just don't think it's interesting."
Karen Durbin, former Voice editor and now film critic for Elle magazine: "I'm inclined to be pessimistic. There are still a number of very good people at the Voice and I can't help feeling dismayed for them...I do think what's been happening at the paper over the past few years bodes ill for the future. They're just slicing and dicing like crazy."
Jonathan Larsen, former Voice editor, had a more upbeat take in this email: "I think this will be good for all concerned. As both a reader and a judge for the Oakes Award for enviromental reporting, I have run across a lot of excellent New Times stories in the last decade. I think the company will bring fresh energy to the Voice, which is looking as if it could use some."
Ben Bagdikian, former Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and author of The Media Monopoly: "This is kind of a rapid closure of the alternative papers." The Voice has "been bought by people who are really making a conglomerate of the alternatives. They are no longer really an alternative voice in the media...I think that the Village Voice, which has gone through some previous transformations, now joins that kind of conglomeration."
Kit Rachlis, former executive editor of the Voice, former editor of L.A. Weekly, and now editor-in-chief of Los Angeles magazine: "This is not a good thing for the alternative press. It's not a good thing that a single company will own a greater percentage of alternative weeklies" than any mainstream company's share of the daily newspaper universe. "The alternative press thought this was bad for daily papers, I don't know why it thinks it's good for itself."
Alexander Cockburn, former Voice staffer and now editor of Counterpunch: "It's sort of contrary to everything the Voice first stood for when it was founded in the 50's....It's a mega-media conglomerate. I think it's a bit late in the day for a mega-media conglomerate. I just don't think it's interesting."
Karen Durbin, former Voice editor and now film critic for Elle magazine: "I'm inclined to be pessimistic. There are still a number of very good people at the Voice and I can't help feeling dismayed for them...I do think what's been happening at the paper over the past few years bodes ill for the future. They're just slicing and dicing like crazy."
Jonathan Larsen, former Voice editor, had a more upbeat take in this email: "I think this will be good for all concerned. As both a reader and a judge for the Oakes Award for enviromental reporting, I have run across a lot of excellent New Times stories in the last decade. I think the company will bring fresh energy to the Voice, which is looking as if it could use some."
Ben Bagdikian, former Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and author of The Media Monopoly: "This is kind of a rapid closure of the alternative papers." The Voice has "been bought by people who are really making a conglomerate of the alternatives. They are no longer really an alternative voice in the media...I think that the Village Voice, which has gone through some previous transformations, now joins that kind of conglomeration."
7 Comments:
The Justice Department sued these two companies when they agreed to reduce competition by folding a Los Angeles and a Cleveland paper. Why would the DOJ now allow them to merge?
Perhaps irony is not dead after all and they prefer to see them hoist upon their own petard?
Despite all the frightened nay-sayers, who automatically think big is bad, New Times papers are good papers. New Times pays its people well and takes care of them, and doesn't have an auto-leftie agenda, but looks objectively at issues. The fact remains, LA was a much better-covered town when New Times was in it. At the moment, there are only a few irate bloggers watching the LA Times. Maybe that will soon change. Let's hope.
Isn't that a good argument for keeping the companies separate instead of merging them?
Let LA have a New Times paper to compete with LA Weekly.
Am I alone in saying, I really don't care either way and that the press at large and the public at large don't seem either excited or concerned about this merger or any alt newspaper.
Only people talking about it out thre are bloggers who are former alt contributors.
alts do some great reporting and have some gem staff in them very often -Dan and now Mark ore rare two reasons I pick it up at all and a couple of other guys in the Phoenix- But they also seem to have stayed largely irrelevant.
I don't know which is more confused, the alt papers or the young adults they cater to. They capitalize on some polarizing issues and beat to a different drum beat than a young person whose personality is brewing and forming and enriching needs to hear.
I don't care how high of a circulation any might get, they are still not setting the tone. Why?? Can someone enlighten me??
And why are there many more alts in other major cities and there is onlly one in one of the smartest and most affluent towns in the world, Boston??? I don't want one, I don't need one nor am I calling for more but just wondering???? Does d.i.g count? Didn't it just get bought out??
And isn't there a disconnect between the types of people that own these things, mostly millionaire affluent living in $1mil+ mansions and the people they usually are preaching to and psychying out one way or another???
John Dicker over at Huffies has a good column and a couple of years back Matt Welch had a telling encounter useful to read at Columbia School of journalism.
N.
(I was not pleased AT ALL to have picked up a Phoenix copy titled "Your Guide to Pot" or pot rally or some such title with detailed info and advice on how to and assuming that the totality of its audience is a pot-head...WHat was that all about..where I picked it up there are kids going by all day, from toddlers withtheir parents to more importantly packs of school kids that open those newspaper stand frequently...
What kind of message do they care sending or they don't care anymore..it is way to libertine to contain...I am no prude at all...but that crossed the line for me and I hate any kind of drug advocacy. ANY. I don't care how mild..or defeatist or elitist or collegial ...)
This merger is far from the first anti-alternative practice within the industry...The Boston Phoenix is part of it's own huge media conglomerate that owns several newspapers and radio stations, as well as telepersonal and web technologies that have generated hundreds of millsions of dollars of revenues over the last 30+ years.
All of this has allowed them to shut down competition by offering to purchase them outright (the Real Paper) or sell ads below cost until they fold (Casco Bay Weekly) in order to monopolize the alternative ad dollar in the northeast. They were the first within their industry to be predatory, squashing competition in the name of homogeny and monopoly. They'd still be the only game in town if not for the Weekly Dig.
The Weekly Dig is clearly the most popular read amongst the young people of Boston today for the simple fact that it does not kiss leftist feet and run rabble written by their own first amendment lawyer, and was started by people who actually had their ears and eyes in the scene. They never set out to be something or someone other than themselves. Now THAT'S truly alternative.
The New Times/VVM merger is nothing new in this industry and will not spell doom for it. The bigger question ought to be... who will the Phoenix sell to when old man Mindich retires?
How can the Dig not "kiss leftist feet" and be a hip alt-weekly? Isn't alternative culture supposed to be liberal? I thought conservatives didn't like alternative music and preferred classic rock, country music and Jesus music. Don't the wingnuts hate *all* pop culture in general? How can alt-culture be called conservative?
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