DENVER (AP)
-- The Village Voice is being sold, along with all of its affiliated
free arts weekly newspapers, but the deal excludes the online classified
site Backpage.com, whose listings have drawn fire for promoting the
illegal sex trade.
The buyout is being led by
Scott Tobias, the chief operating officer of Village Voice Media
Holdings LLC. Tobias will become the new organization's chief executive.
He
said he has lined up private financing to buy almost all of the Phoenix
company's assets, which include LA Weekly and SF Weekly, from the
current owners, Jim Larkin and Michael Lacey.
Larkin and Lacey will keep ownership of Backpage.com. Terms were not disclosed Monday.
Tobias said in an interview that controversy around Backpage.com "has been a distraction, there's no doubt about it."
"This is about two businesses moving forward," he said.
The
purchase is being made by Voice Media Group, a new holding company
based in Denver. The deal includes all 13 weeklies and their websites,
the national sales arm and events such as LA Weekly's Detour and New
York's Siren music festivals.
Tobias said
Voice Media Group's publications will continue to focus on investigative
journalism, coverage of food, arts, music and culture in the markets it
serves. The company will also continue looking for new ways to serve
readers on the Web and over mobile devices, he said.
The
group's flagship newspaper Village Voice, launched in 1955, was the
nation's first alternative newsweekly and remains among the largest.
Founded in an apartment in New York's Greenwich Village, the newspaper
is known for its coverage of the arts and culture, as well for its
investigations into New York City politics. Over the years, it has won
three Pulitzer Prizes.
In 2005, the company merged with Phoenix-based New Times Media.
Backpage.com,
a digital descendant of the Village Voice's sometimes racy print
classified ad listings, has become the nation's top forum for ads for
"escorts," "body rubs," and other thinly veiled references to
prostitution since Craigslist.org shut down its adult services section
in September 2010.
In July, three Washington
state teenagers who said they were sold online for sex filed suit
against Backpage's owners for allegedly enabling their exploitation. At
the time, Village Voice Media said the suit wouldn't pass legal muster
and is barred by federal law.
Connecticut Sen.
Richard Blumenthal called on Backpage.com in an open letter in March to
"stop promoting and profiting from human trafficking" by shutting down
its adult services section as Craigslist had done.
In
a statement on the deal, Larkin and Lacey, the founders of Village
Voice Media Holdings, said they were "ready to move on and hand the
reins to a new generation of writers, editors and publishers."
Backpage.com
will "become the centerpiece of a new online classified advertising
company with business worldwide," the statement said.
The
deal also includes Westword in Denver; New Times in Phoenix, Miami and
Broward, Fla.; Houston Press; Observer in Dallas; Riverfront Times in
St. Louis; City Pages in Minneapolis and OC Weekly in southern
California.
Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
