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Village Voice Shakeup: Top Investigative Journalist Fired,
Prize-Winning Writers Resign Following Merger with New Times
Media
The End of the Internet? Net Neutrality Threatened by Cable,
Telecom Interests
Village Voice Shakeup: Top Investigative Journalist
Fired, Prize-Winning Writers Resign Following Merger with
New Times Media
We focus on the shakeup at the Village Voice, where one
of the paper's top investigative reporters was fired and two
of its prize-winning writers resigned following a merger with
the New Times Media - a chain of weekly newspapers based in
Phoenix. In this week's issues, about 20 staffers wrote an
open letter protesting the dismissal of James Ridgeway - the
paper's Washington correspondent and one of its chief investigative
reporters covering national news. Ridgeway had written for
the paper for over 30 years. We speak with Ridgeway as well
as Village Voice reporters Nat Hentoff, Tom Robbins, Sydney
Schanberg - who recently resigned from the paper - and two
reporters who have been following the story closely, Mark
Jacobson and Tim Redmond. [includes rush
transcript - partial]
We turn now to the situation at the Village Voice were one
of the paper's top investigative reporters has been fired
and two of its prize-winning writers have resigned.
The shake-up is taking place just months after the Voice
merged with the New Times Media - a chain of weekly newspapers
based in Phoenix.
In this week's issues, about 20 staffers wrote an open letter
protesting the dismissal of James Ridgeway - the paper's Washington
correspondent and one of its chief investigative reporters
covering national news. Ridgeway had written for the paper
for over 30 years.
Major changes have already been seen at the paper since February
1 when the new owner and executive editor of the paper Michael
Lacey first traveled to New York to meet with Voice staffers.
After that initial meeting the Voice's prize winning press
critic Sydney Schanberg quit.
According to one account of the meeting, the new owner criticized
the news section of the Voice because it was full of commentary
and criticism of the Bush administration. That same week the
new owners cancelled the Voices" online blog called "The
Bush Beat." Then last week Jennifer Gonnerman resigned.
On Wednesday, we reached longtime Voice reporter Tom Robbins
who is leading the effort to get management to re-hire Ridgeway.
- Tom Robbins, reading letter signed by 20 Village Voice
reporters calling on management to "reverse discharge"
of James Ridgeway.
We also reached Nat Hentoff at his home in New York. He has
been writing for the Village Voice since 1957. We asked him
about his thoughts on the firing of Ridgeway and about the
new management.
- Nat Hentoff, longtime Village Voice columnist.
For more on the Village Voice, we are joined by three guests:
- James Ridgeway, in addition to being the paper's former
Washington correspondent he is the author of several books.
His latest is titled: "The Five Unanswered Questions
About 9/11." He also runs a website on video journalism
at Ridgewayng.com
- Sydney Schanberg, former press critic at the Village
Voice. He resigned in February following the sale of the
paper. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in Cambodia
during the 1970s and his story inspired the film "The
Killing Fields."
- Mark Jacobson, a reporter with New York Magazine. In
November he wrote a major piece on the Voice-New Times merger
titled, "The Voice From Beyond the Grave." He
is a former writer at the Village Voice.
- Tim Redmond, executive editor at the San Francisco Bay
Guardian.
The End of the Internet? Net Neutrality Threatened
by Cable, Telecom Interests
The vital concept of net neutrality - universal and non-discriminatory
to the Internet - is at risk. Phone and cable companies are
lobbying Congress for legislation that would permit them to
operate Internet and other digital communications services
as private networks, free of policy safeguards or governmental
oversight. We speak with Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital
Democracy.
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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