The terms of the deal were not disclosed. In a news release, Street Media said the acquisition did not include the Obie Awards, the Off Broadway honors that will continue to be presented by the American Theater Wing.
Mr. Calle has experience running an alt-weekly, but his time as publisher and chief executive at LA Weekly has not been without incident. Formerly an opinion editor for The Orange County Register in California and other newspapers, Mr. Calle bought LA Weekly with a group of investors in 2017 from the Voice Media Group. (From 2012 to 2017, the Voice Media Group owned LA Weekly in addition to its flagship paper in New York.)
LA Weekly’s newsroom was quickly gutted after the sale, and former writers organized a boycott of the paper, pressing advertisers and other journalists to cut ties. Mara Shalhoup, the editor in chief of LA Weekly when Mr. Calle bought it, said that nearly the entire newsroom staff was fired. Ms. Shalhoup, who next week will start as ProPublica’s South editor, said she felt LA Weekly was not as focused on serious journalism after the acquisition by Mr. Calle.
“I think my opinion is shared by the community of readers in Los Angeles,” she said. “It was not the same quality publication after he purchased it as it was before.”
In 2018, David Welch, one of the investors, sued Mr. Calle and the other LA Weekly backers, alleging that they had mismanaged the paper. The suit was settled in 2019.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/business/media/village-voice-new-owner.html
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