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Top Editors Abruptly Leave Village Voice Over Staff Cuts (NYT)
The tumult that has characterized The Village Voice in recent years resurfaced on Thursday when the top two editors said they were leaving the weekly newspaper. Will Bourne, who became editor last November, and Jessica Lustig, the deputy editor since January, met with the staff at 11 a.m. on Thursday to announce their departure. In a phone interview, Bourne said that Christine Brennan, executive editor of Voice Media Group, had told them to lay off, or drastically reduce the roles of, five employees on the 20-person staff. Rather than carry out the cuts, he and Lustig resigned and left immediately, in the middle of closing next week’s paper. Gawker We hear that Michael Musto, the Village Voice‘s longtime society columnist and the last remaining vestige of the “classic” Voice, is one of the five Voice staffers targeted for layoffs — the proposed layoffs that caused the Voice‘s editors to quit today. Musto’s column, La Dolce Musto — a quirky mix of nightlife gossip, party talk, gay issues, and whatever the hell else has been happening in his life in the past week — has been running in the Voice for almost 30 years. NY Observer The downtown alt-weekly has been floundering of late. Last August, they had a significant round of layoffs and switched some full-time positions to part-time. Former editor-in-chief Tony Ortega left in September to focus full-time on debunking Scientology, prompting rumors the he was pushed out. Shortly after that, the newspaper chain underwent a corporate restructuring that separated the company’s papers from Backpage.com, the controversial and highly profitable adult online classifieds site that was a key source of revenue. FishbowlNY Bourne succeeded Ortega as editor of the Voice in late November.

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Almost half of all pageviews for Village Voice Media papers (which include the LA Weekly) are from blogs. That’s a big reveal on the future of the alt weeklies.

From Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch:

Bill Jensen, the director of new media who oversees all the Village Voice Media sites tells me that 40 percent of pageviews comes from the blogs on the sites, up from 20 percent a year ago. Some of the more popular ones include columnist Michael Musto‘s blog, Nikki Finke‘s Deadline Holywood Daily, and Topless Robot.

Of course, the sites feature music listings, restaurant reviews, and articles from the print editions as well, but the blogs are driving an increasing portion of the traffic. The online and print newsrooms are combined and everyone is expected to post on the Web. Long gone are the days when a music reviewer could attend a rock show and turn in his copy three days later. “I don’t care how drunk you are,” says Jensen, “you post by 9 AM.”

Via IWantMedia.com

Previously on FBLA: Police Chief Bratton Says LA Weekly’s McDonald is ‘Smoking a Little Weed’

As the Oscar ballots were just sent out to hungry voters for those pesky gold statuettes, the pressing question hovers around Dirty Harry and whether he’ll get the acting nod, the L.A. Times predicts.

The critics, well faux critics or columnists or whatever you want to call them, are in disarray as to whether Clint can cull an acting statue. Michael Musto of the Village Voice (who is not a critic), Anne Thompson of Variety (who also is not a critic) and blogger Jeff Wells of Hollywood-Elsewhere.com (who, surprise, is also not a critic) all like Clint for best actor. They seem to think he does feel lucky, punk.

But competition is pretty stiff this year. Frank Langella is likely to get nominated for “Frost/Nixon,” Sean Penn looks like lock for “Milk,” Brad Pitt for “Benjamin Button” and dark horse Mickey ‘They took my fuckin’ thumb’ Rourke for “The Wrestler.

Now remember, the noms haven’t even been announced yet, so these could all be false conjecture.

But Clint is definitely a special case. He’s won for directing and producing but acting has always been a non-starter. Not that Clint couldn’t pull off a decent “Hamlet,” if needed (or maybe “Lear”), but he’s worth voting for because he’s Clint.

And because we here at FBLA aren’t quite sure whether he shot five times or was it six and we don’t want to be the sixth.