[lbo-talk] Happy b'day, Village Voice, RIP

[Doug Henwood]

This is really sad. I started reading the Voice in 1967 or 1968, and 
wrote for it pretty regularly from 1987 to 1992. It started going 
slowly downhill during the recession of the early 1990s, when 
then-owner Leonard Stern (the Hartz Mountain magnate whose son, 
Eddie, was caught up in the mutual fund timing scandal 
<http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/funds/2003-09-05-trading-scheme_x.htm>), 
obsesed with declining profitability at the paper, cut back the news 
hole. Successive owners and editors have only made things worse, to 
the point where it's hardly worth picking up a free copy (except when 
they name my radio show in the Best of NYC 2005 issue). It was a 
great paper throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And now it's guaranteed 
to suck even worse than it has.

Doug