L A Weekly Magazine

When the LA Weekly wrote a lengthy story last September about how little Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa attended to his official duties, it wasn't plowing fresh soil. The mayor's exuberant fundraising and his frenetic campaigning on behalf of presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton had already received plenty of attention, in this paper and elsewhere.

"It's good to be part of the in crowd," said X's John Doe as the group accepted lifetime achievement honors during the LA Weekly Music Awards show at the Henry Fonda Theatre on Tuesday. "But if you're not part of the in crowd, it's OK, because in Los Angeles there are plenty of people who will be your crowd."

Three years after packing up and leaving town, New Times announced Monday that it was returning to Los Angeles, buying former rival LA Weekly as part of a deal that would create the nation's largest chain of alternative newspapers. New Times said it was buying Village Voice Media Inc., which also owns New York's celebrated Village Voice, OC Weekly and sister papers in three other markets. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

It used to be that alternative weekly newspapers were like that Marlon Brando line from "The Wild One" -- when someone asked him what he was rebelling against and he replied, "Wadda ya got?" There was war in Vietnam and an international nuclear stare-down, economic injustice and racial inequality, and a dominant corporate culture against which nonconformity was a political statement. Cut to late 2005.

One might assume startling prescience was at work. But in fact, the LA Weekly's cover story on the Santa Monica Farmers Market was an unavoidable coincidence. "The Birth of the Santa Monica Farmers Market," written by Michelle Huneven, along with a two-page photo essay by Anne Fishbein, was printed on Monday morning -- two days before an elderly man drove through the shoppers perusing produce stands on Arizona Avenue, killing at least 10.

A bitter dispute over unionizing the LA Weekly's advertising department has deeply divided journalists and managers at the traditionally pro-labor paper, leading some reporters there to question the state of alternative journalism itself. Since 1989, the Weekly's 50-odd editorial employees have been members of the International Assn. of Mahinists and Aerospace Workers, a union the paper's original organizers chose because they regarded the Newspaper Guild as insufficiently assertive.

Gamely hosted by an alternately amused and confused rapper Ice-T, the LA Weekly Music Awards started late, ran long and at times descended into chaos at the Henry Fonda Theatre on Thursday--all this in wild contrast to last year's smooth proceedings. Underscoring the different expectations local artists have for their audiences, the nearly three-hour show even briefly erupted in a dramatic convergence of cross-purposes during the Streetwalkin' Cheetahs' incendiary performance.

After feasting on the Big Apple for the last 1 1/2 years, former Times Food section editor Laurie Ochoa is returning to her hometown at the top of the alternative media food chain. Ochoa, 39, who began her career as a writer and editor at the LA Weekly and currently is executive editor of Gourmet magazine in New York, has been named the Weekly's new editor.

The owner of OC Weekly, Orange County's prickly alternative paper, said Wednesday that the 4-year-old publication is for sale. New York-based Stern Publishing, which also owns LA Weekly, the Village Voice and four other alternative publications in major U.S. cities, is putting all of its weekly newspapers on the block because none of the owner's children wants to go into the media business.

The owner of Stern Publishing, which includes L.A. Weekly, O.C. Weekly and other alternative publications, announced Wednesday that his empire of weekly newspapers is for sale. The chain, begun with the purchase of the Village Voice in New York City from Rupert Murdoch 14 years ago, now has more than 500 employees and annual revenues of more than $80 million. "I am extremely proud of this company, and confident of its future potential," owner Leonard Stern said.