The Life and Death of the Alternative Press

IF it weren't for the '80s Village Voice, I probably would not be a journalist. (The world, I expect, would be a better place.)

This weekend I have a story in Al Jazeera America about good times and bad for alternative weeklies. I talk about the crystalline sense of mission these publications had during conservative times, and the troubles they've had more recently. And I try to shine a light on the good and important work they still do.

In the piece I get into my youthful infatuation with the alt-press -- I interned at the Voice, freelanced for the now-defunct Boston Phoenix soon after leaving college, later worked for New Times Los Angeles. As nasty as that company could be, we had a blast there, some of the time, and I'm still proud of the work my colleagues and I did there. (Even if New Times responded by killing the paper and destroying its online archive.) Where is the alt press now?

And I try to sketch out what various weeklies have meant to the city of Los Angeles, which remains the Misread City.

Happy holidays to all my readers.

LA WEEKLY, NEW TIMES, VILLAGE VOICE, ETC

Readers and media-watchers here in LA have followed the dismantling of the LA Weekly as editors like Joe Donnelly (who i once worked for) and film critic Ella Taylor were shown the door... here's a long, provocative "autopsy" by longtime lefty journalism Marc Cooper that is a kind of mini-history of the alt press, perhaps the bookend to the elegantly written but somewhat puzzling louis menand piece on the village voice in the recent new yorker... 

scroll down for comments by donnelly, former new times LA editor rich barrs, and others.

and i will maintain my policy of not taking sides in the endless new times vs. LA Weekly battles -- having worked for the former (and been weirdly both fired and rehired) and later marrying a former freelancer associated with the latter it's just full of too many weird contradictions for me... but here is a first-person column i wrote in 02 when new times LA suddenly shut down. i think parts of this are still pertinent today...

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