The two companies came under DOJ sights last October after both chains agreed to forgo competition by concurrently closing VVM's Cleveland paper and NTM's L.A. paper--whereby NTM could dominate the Cleveland market and VVM could dominate the L.A. market.
The investigation has been an ongoing bummer for Seattle Weekly's leadership, and they weren't pleased about the final analysis in the January 27 New York Times story about the VVM settlement: "The company has experienced significant financial difficulties, especially with its Seattle Weekly newspaper, according to a former publishing executive there."
In a staff memo, VVM CEO David Schneiderman, who was in Seattle when the news hit, denied the New York Times report about financial troubles at the Weekly. "There is no 'former publishing executive' of Village Voice Media who would have any reliable information regarding the financial performance of the company or any of the individual newspapers," wrote Schneiderman--whose financial backers at Goldman Sachs and at Weiss, Peck & Greer surely weren't happy about a slam in the New York Times' lead business story. New York Times reporter David Carr, who penned the story, wouldn't comment on Schneiderman's statement. Carr confidently referred me back to the Monday morning, January 27 New York Times edition that ran his article.
In a staff meeting at the Seattle Weekly the day the New York Times story ran, Schneiderman expressed confidence in the Weekly's current performance under "Knute II"--his reference to last summer's return of former editor Knute Berger.
This, however, was cold comfort to Weekly staffers, who have been under a wage-freeze policy since December 2001, according to current staff there. Weekly publisher Terry Coe would not comment on the wage freeze, but repeated Schneiderman's statement that the New York Times did not have accurate information. "We're doing fine," he says. VVM would not comment on the record beyond Schneiderman's memo.
