Las Vegas police officers have arrested a high-ranking Scientologist in a bizarre plot—allegedly inspired by right-wing "Sovereign Citizen" beliefs—to kidnap and kill a local law enforcement officer.
Village Voice editor-in-chief and anti-Scientology crusader Tony Ortega announced today that he's leaving the alt-weekly, which he'd edited for five years. What is he doing? What else: writing a proposal for a book about Scientology. As he writes,
The Village Voice has problems. The paper had yet another round of layoffs last month, as part of a nationwide cull by its parent company. (Not to be confused with the other layoffs earlier this year.) Like most alt-weeklies, the Voice depends on sex and drug ads for its very survival. The paper's so desperate for…
Rob Sgobbo (pictured), a young writer for the New York Daily News, has had a freelance story he wrote yanked from the Village Voice's website. He apparently fabricated sources and lied about his reporting. (Update: the NYDN has canned him.)
The New York Times has a lengthy, front-page story about Scientology today and while it doesn't break much new ground—many of the more salacious tales first appeared in The St. Petersburg Times over the past year—it's worth reading.
Google has put the complete archives of the Village Voice online, going back to 1955. So go while away the hours by traveling back to a New York with a fascist mayor, a groundbreaking music scene, and closeted gay people.
Village Voice EIC Tony Ortega has nothing to do during the weekend but read us. Yay, readers! :) ANYWAY. Ortega made an item out of Ian Speigelman's anti-Nick Denton screed in yesterday's comments. But: irony.
Tony Ortega is editor-in-chief of the Village Voice. He's also the man who accidentally came across a big pile of Harvey Weinstein's trash on the street in Tribeca, papers he kindly shared with readers this week. Of course, this was the same week that a recording of a private conversation between Weinstein and…
The owners of wilting alt weekly The Village Voice continue to condemn their staff to the torture of a thousand cuts. Last week, the Voice's overlords at cost-cutting conglomerate The New Times laid off dance critic Deborah Jowitt after she'd served forty years at the paper. Now, an insider tells us that writer Chris…
Well that didn't take too long. In an online statement today from editor Tony Ortega, the Village Voice announced it has separated itself from art critic Christian Viveros-Faune, whose direction of two commercial art fairs was raised yesterday by a blogger as a possible conflict of interest.
Yesterday we heard the Village Voice newsroom might be headed for another round of budget cuts. Last year the paper saw quite a bit of editorial turnover—at least 15 staffers we can think of quit or were let go. In December, the paper fired its new art director. But any additional cuts coming down the pike are…
The co-founders of New Times, now known as Village Voice Media*, were arrested last night ("led away in handcuffs," according to their press release), at their homes in Phoenix, AZ, on misdemeanor charges related to revealing details of a grand jury investigation. Mike Lacey, the company's executive editor, and Jim…
The Village Voice's annual "Best of New York City" issue is out today, and their suggestions include the expected: the best bookstore "that's not The Strand" (Alabaster on 4th); the tortured: "Best place for my mom to cruise for young gay men" (The Container Store? Bleary midnight headline session maybe?); and the…
From the mailbag: "I've been writing for the Voice off and on for five years, and I can say that [editor] Tony [Ortega] is the first editor-in-chief who personally responds to pitches. I think his rejection of what sounds like a totally unoriginal idea for a column (don't we have enough dating/relationship/sex columns…
From the mailbag: "When I pitched [Village Voice editor] Tony Ortega a piece (after he killed an article I spent months writing for [former Voice editor David] Blum), he replied, 'Ward [Harkavy; Voice senior editor] and I like this idea a lot. Think you could have something in to me by Thursday?' I asked him how many…
Recently Village Voice editor Tony Ortega was pitched a relationship/dating/sex column by someone who'd pitched him when he was an editor at one of New Times' papers in Florida and had received an encouraging response. And this writer probably thought that since one sex column at the Voice is about cybersex (what is…
We got some rumblings from inside the Village Voice about last week's porno-hooker-classified-ads cover; it was intended to be a commentary on how some weeklies are pulling the R-rated ads, but the staff didn't much care for it. And the paper never explained the weird little in-joke to its readers. And now, uh oh!…
In 2004, when then-Village Voice editor in chief Don Forst fired executive editor Richard Goldstein, he told the Times it was a restructuring issue:
Village Voice editor Tony Ortega likes "Flight of the Conchords," gossipy websites. "What the hell, I guess I want to read about Paris and Britney as much as the next schmuck." [Jupitermedia]
If you read this week's "Fly Life" column in the Village Voice you might have noted that it carried the ominous title, "A Full-Circle Farewell," and ended on the following note:
