|
Village Voice Media or "VVM" began in 1970 as a weekly alternative newspaper in Phoenix, Arizona. The company, founded by Michael Lacey (editor) and Jim Larkin (publisher) was then known as New Times Inc. It was later renamed New Times Media. By 2001 New Times Media had grown to 13 newspapers in major cities across the United States. These papers included Westword in Denver, Dallas Observer, Houston Press, Miami New Times, New Times LA and Cleveland Scene. ==History== New Times Media won a multitude of local and national awards for journalism throughout the publishing group. The company became known for its fiercely independent journalism and its willingness to take on topics and stories that other "mainstream" publishers would not touch. The newspapers also became touchstones for local arts and culture coverage winning numerous awards in these categories as well.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.voicemediagroup.com/ )〕 In 2002, New Times Media entered into an agreement with Village Voice Media, also a publisher of a number of alternative newspapers including the Village Voice (New York), LA Weekly and the Cleveland Free Times, whereby Village Voice Media would sell the Cleveland Free Times to New Times Media and New Times Media would sell New Times LA to Village Voice Media. This resulted in the weaker, money-losing paper in each of the two markets being closed by their new owners. This agreement led to an antitrust investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. The investigation resulted in a settlement, requiring the companies to sell off assets and the old newspapers' titles to any potential competitors. By the early 2000s the internet, particularly the website Craigslist, was destroying the classified advertising business in newspapers nationwide. Classified advertising in daily newspapers as well as weekly alternatives, suburban papers and community papers were all moving to the free adverting model of Craigslist and other smaller websites. In response to this phenomenon, New Times Media launched a free classified website called backpage.com in 2004. It soon became the second largest online classified site in the U.S. The site included all the various categories found in newspaper classified sections including those that were unique to and part of the first amendment driven traditions of most alternative weeklies. These included personals (including adult oriented personal ads), adult services, musicians and "New Age" services. On September 4, 2010, in response to pressure from a variety of governmental agencies and NGO’s, Craigslist removed the adult services category from its U.S sites. Backpage.com soon became the highest profile website to include this category although a significant number of other sites (including Craigslist) continued to include adult services ads, though not directly labeled as such. Backpage was then targeted by the same forces that had pursued Craigslist. Village Voice Media (formerly New Times Media – see following paragraph) refused to buckle to this pressure. In reaching this position, VVM felt that the First Amendment rights implications coupled with the protections given to Interactive computer services in section 230 of the 1996 Communications and Decency Act were paramount. Over the next five years, Backpage won every legal challenge to its right to continue this category on the Backpage site. Backpage also continued to increase its efforts to root out any illegal activity, particularly focusing on the identification of ads that might feature underage victims of human trafficking. See the Wikipedia entry on Backpage here. On October 24, 2005, New Times Media announced a deal to acquire Village Voice Media, creating a chain of 17 free weekly newspapers around the country with a combined circulation of 1.8 million. After the deal's completion, New Times Media assumed the Village Voice Media name. In October 2007, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, now the company’s executive editor and chief executive officer respectively, were arrested in Phoenix on charges that a VVM publication, the Phoenix New Times, had published secret grand jury information. Dennis Wilenchik, a state special prosecutor, was investigating the newspaper's long-running feud with Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, including the publishing of Arpaio's home address, a crime under Arizona law. The special prosecutor's subpoena included a demand for the names of the readers of the New Times’ website. It was the information about the subpoena which was deemed by prosecutors to be secret grand jury information. Lacey and Larkin sued Arpaio, the Maricopa County attorney Andrew Thomas and Wilenchik for violation of First Amendment Rights and abuse of power. In 2012 the 9th US Circuit of Appeals ruled there had been no probable cause for the arrests and that the subpoenas were invalid as Wilenchik never consulted a grand jury (this claim had been fabricated) and that the arrests were without regard to due process. In 2013 Maricopa County settled the case with Lacey and Larkin, paying them $3.75 million. Subsequently Lacey and Larkin used the money from the settlement to establish the "Frontera Foundation" to assist the Hispanic community. Arpaio had frequently been accused of racial profiling and unfairly targeting Latinos for detention and arrest. The US Justice Department investigated the charges, which later led to a lawsuit being filed by the Department. Maricopa County settled the lawsuit with the Justice Department in July 2015. In 2012, Village Voice Media owners sold the papers and their web properties to a group of longtime executives, leaving the online classifieds site Backpage in control of shareholders Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin. Executives for the spinoff holding company, called Voice Media Group and based in Denver, raised "some money from private investors" in order to separate the newspapers. In December 2014, VVM sold its interests in Backpage.com to a Dutch holding company. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Village Voice Media」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|