Commie Girl consorting with Republican lawyers? That's one of the odd side effects of last week's announcement that former OC Weekly publisher Will Swaim would launch a new alternative paper in Long Beach.
Swaim quit OC Weekly six weeks ago, citing philosophical differences with the renegade paper's new owner, Phoenix-based Village Voice Media, formerly New Times.
An exodus of writers and editors followed, throwing OC Weekly into turmoil. Even the paper's two interns quit. Most of the defectors have resurfaced at Swaim's Long Beach paper, the District, which is to debut April 11.
Such a massive brain drain to a start-up publication is "pretty unusual" in the alternative press world, said Richard Karpel, executive director of the Assn. of Alternative Newsweeklies.
Even more unusual is that Swaim and his notoriously anti-establishment staff, which includes former OC Weekly columnist Rebecca "Commie Girl" Schoenkopf, are being bankrolled by a team of Republican lawyers from Orange County, he said.
If the new paper flops, Swaim said, the unholy alliance would make "a great premise for a TV sitcom." He declined to name the paper's investors, saying they wished to remain anonymous.
Swaim, who lives in Irvine, predicted that the District would look and sound more like OC Weekly than the real OC Weekly, which is scrambling to replace lost staffers. He described the upheaval at his old paper as "the fast and furious meltdown of a once-great" publication.
Nonsense, replied Gustavo Arellano, one of the writers who stayed put after Swaim left.
Although OC Weekly has lost some distinctive personalities, "the tone of the paper will be the same -- irreverent, with hard-hitting news stories," he said.
Arellano, who pens OC Weekly's popular and sassy Ask a Mexican column (and contributes to The Times' opinion section), acknowledged that some readers were skeptical.
"There's a perception that anybody who would stay with this so-called evil company must have sold out to the dark side," he said. But Arellano disputed allegations that Village Voice Media interferes with editorial content and downplays political writing in its publications.
Even Swaim said his differences with the new owners involved business matters, not articles.
Seeking to restore equilibrium, OC Weekly just hired a new music editor, Dave Segal, from the Stranger, a Seattle alternative weekly, and writer Luke Y. Thompson from LA Weekly. More hires are in the works, including a new publisher.
