Finding Their Voice: Editors Quit NY Weekly Rather Than Fire Staffers

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After a six-month tenure as Editor-in-Chief, Will Bourne has resigned from the Village Voice, joined by Deputy Editor Jessica Lustig, Web site www.mediabistro.com Fishbowl NY reported yesterday.

According to Fishbowl, Bourne and Lustig quit, rather than carry out Executive Editor's Christine Brennan's directive to terminate five of the alternative weekly's 20-member editorial staff.  The once-revered weekly has been weakened by sagging ad revenues and circulation that has plagued the newspaper industry overall. In recent years, the Voice lost many of its most prominent writers, including film critic J. Hoberman, Nat Hentoff and Tom Robbins (see "TUOL" post 1/5/12).

Rhino Times Extinct

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After a 21-year run, the Greensboro, North Carolina-based conservative alternative weekly newspaper Rhino Times published its last issue this week.

Publisher John Hammer said the paper simply ran out of money, according to accounts on the Greensboro News-Record, bizjournals.com and Romanesko.com Web sites. Shrinking ad revenues and a failed six-year expansion into Charlotte that ended in 2008 were blamed for the publication's heavy indebtedness.

Hammer, who laid off his entire paid staff this week, hopes to maintain the Rhino's Web site for now, though the prospects are not encouraging.  The paper was a staunch advocate of government transparency, but didn't attempt to cloak its partisanship, freely combining news and editorial content in its articles.

The Rhino Times launched in 1991 printed its final issue on April 25.

Village Voice Sold; Jettisons Backpage.com

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Village Voice Media Holdings, which includes its namesake free newspaper and a dozen other alternative weeklies, has been sold for an undisclosed sum to the company's CEO Scott Tobias and a private equity management team, Forbes reports.

Among other papers included in the sale are the Dallas Observer, LA Weekly and Phoenix New Times. Christine Brennan has been tapped to be the newspaper group's Executive Editor.

Former Village Voice Media heads Michael Lacey and James Larkin will retain Backpage.com, the controversial Web site that has attracted harsh public criticism and the interest of authorities over its adult ad services offerings (see "TUOL" posts 6/7/12 & 4/3/12).