the latest in the long, sad decline of the Village Voice
Breaking: David Blum Out At Voice
Editor David Blum has left the Village Voice, the staff has just been
informed. A meeting took place at 5:15 p.m. today at which staff were
told that Blum was “no longer the editor of the paper” because he’d
“made comments that were unacceptable,” presumably, staff assumed, at
the story meeting on Wednesday when the subject of race came up.
According to one staffer present at that story meeting, nothing
“outrageous” was said. According to another staffer, Blum was called
on his heavily white hiring; Blum said he made no apology about being
a “white male Jew from the Upper West Side,” and was sorry he
couldn’t reach “Joe Jones from Flatbush.”
After this evening’s meeting, the staff was told to go on and “get
back to work.” Blum took over as editor six months ago; he had just
finally hired a managing editor for the paper.
From what we hear, this staff meeting oddness wasn’t an incident for
which Blum would have been removed; instead, it’s regarded as a last
straw, with management having a number of complaints, including the
way the paper was perceived (which is to say, badly).
The scoreboard now stands: After Don Forst resigned in December,
2005, Doug Simmons took over as editor. He was fired in March, and
Ward Harkavy took over. Then Erik Wemple was hired in June, and then
unhired himself two weeks later. Blum came aboard in September.
We hear (as do others) that Bill Jensen, of crazy Pazz and Jop essay
fame, was the editor who conducted today’s meeting, and that he will
also serve as the interim editor.