By Tim Redmond
Damn, I’d sworn off going after New Times/Village Voice Media, the parent company of SF Weekly, for at least a few days, but shit keeps happening.
Will Swaim, the editor of the OC Weekly, which was one of the papers absorbed when New Times took over the Village Voice, has resigned, citing “philosophical differences” with management. That was inevitable, but it sucks: Swaim is a good guy, a good editor and ran a good paper.
And the editor at the Minneapolis City Paper (ditto, formerly a Village Voice paper) resigned under pressure and was quickly replaced. Why? Here’s what the Star-Tribune says:
“I’m not sure anyone was surprised that it happened, only that it took so long,” said David Brauer, a media analyst for Minnesota Public Radio who once wrote for City Pages. “Village Voice/New Times is known for being aggressively apolitical or libertarian. Steve, although he had a pox on both Democrats and Republicans, was mostly a lefty radical guy.”
So the dismantling of the progressive papers that used to be part of the Village Voice franchise continues.