Mediagazer: The Village Voice's synthetic solution to a synthetic sex ad scandal (Michael Wolff/Guardian)

4:55 PM ET, September 24, 2012

Top News:

Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke / The New York Observer:

Print Sex Ads Will Remain at Newly-Formed Voice Media Group — Backpage.com may be gone, but sex ads are here to stay at the alt weeklies formerly owned by Village Voice Media. Over the weekend, Village Voice Media announced it had reshuffled and separated its 13 newspapers from Backpage.com …

Discussion: New York Post

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Village Voice Media Execs Acquire The Company's Famed Alt Weeklies, Form New Holding Company — A group of long-running alternative weekly newspapers is changing hands. Village Voice Media Holdings — whose titles include the LA Weekly, Westword, and, yes, the Village Voice …

Discussion: Arizona Republic, The Latest Word, Wall Street Journal, The Wrap, Forbes, The Corsair, Street Fight, @tromano, AAN, Poynter, Navel Gazing, Village Voice and Guardian

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

Village Voice spins off Backpage.com — New York's iconic Village Voice and a dozen other weekly newspapers are parting ways with Backpage, a controversial classified site tied to alleged sex trafficking. The split will result in the creation of a new ownership group that is focused solely on news and events.

Discussion: New York Magazine, Deadline.com, Big News Network.com and NYConvergence.com

Michael Wolff / Guardian:
The Village Voice's synthetic solution to a synthetic sex ad scandal

Discussion: Gawker

Mallory Russell / AdAge:
Village Voice Management Buyout Leaves Backpage.com Behind

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, voicemediagroup.com, FishbowlNY and The Raw Story

BuzzFeed:

Hillary Clinton Aide Tells Reporter To “F**k Off” And “Have A Nice Life” — On Sunday morning, BuzzFeed correspondent Michael Hastings emailed Philippe Reines, Hillary Clinton's longtime aide and personal spokesman at the State Department, asking a series of pointed questions about State's handling …

Discussion: Daily Download, Poynter, New York Magazine, Mediaite, Election 2012, Guardian, The Huffington Post, The Daily Caller, The Daily Beast, @johnjcook, nation.foxnews.com and nation.foxnews.com

Media Decoder:
CNN Managing Editor Defends Reporting Based on Ambassador's Journal

Discussion: TVNewser and ABCNEWS

David Carr / New York Times:

Covering the World of Business, Digital Only — Business titans are generally not prone to self-appraisal, and when they do take stock, it usually begins and ends with a list of their conquests. — David G. Bradley, the owner of Atlantic Media, has never been like that.

Discussion: paidContent, danielbachhuber, LA Observed, Talking Biz News, WordPress.com VIP, PandoDaily, @blakehounshell, Mashable! and @zseward

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Quartz Shoots for Tablet and Mobile Readers, but Doesn't Arm Itself With an App — After a summer of buzz, Quartz, Atlantic Media's new business news site, lights up today. — Pro Tip 1: If you want to see what the fuss is about, head over to qz.com, not quartz.com.

Discussion: @jaredbkeller, @laureni and Talking Biz News

Craig Silverman / Poynter:

Exit interview: Brisbane says New York Times Public Editor job is ‘not a conversation’ — Arthur Brisbane's New York Times email address has been shut off, and he sounds pretty happy about it. — “I'm trying to decompress,” he told me two days after his stint as the fourth public editor of The New York Times came to an end.

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:

Homicide Watch DC wins Online Journalism Award for public service — Crime reporting site Homicide Watch DC, which recently crowdfunded more than $40,000 to secure its survival through the creation of a student reporting lab, was named as one of the winners of the Online Journalism Awards at the weekend.

Discussion: MediaShift and Big News Network.com

Sherrina V. Navani / The Trentonian:
The Trentonian unveils Homicide Watch

Discussion: Digital First Media

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

A broadband levy to fund journalism? Now that's a very clever idea — Has David Leigh cracked it? We have been puzzling for years about how to subsidise journalism once it makes the final transition from print to net (see here and here and here). One obvious model is the funding of the BBC through its licence fee.

Discussion: Techdirt, @digidickinson and AndyDickinson.net

Paul Carr / PandoDaily:
Taxing Broadband to Save Journalism is One Big, Stupid Idea. We Need a Thousand Small, Smart Ones

Discussion: Charlie Beckett and Forbes

Robert Andrews / paidContent:
Guardian's chief investigator wants ISP tax to fund journalism

Discussion: on, Telegraph, The Wall Blog, @jcstearns, Guardian, GigaOM, @brokenbottleboy, @benedictevans, @willardfoxton, @onthemedia, @brokenbottleboy, Media Week and NetNewsCheck Latest

Robert Feder / Time Out Chicago:

Konkol leaves Sun-Times to write for DNAInfo Chicago — Mark Konkol, the Chicago journalism superstar who won the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting last year, is leaving the Sun-Times to join the startup of a hyperlocal digital news service covering city neighborhoods.

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

‘Observer’ ropes old talent (Cynthia Cotts, George Gurley, Nina Burleigh) and new into its bullpen — Following a string of recent staff departures, recently-installed New York Observer editor Aaron Gell has announced some new talent grabs. — We'll start with Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke …

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Willie Geist to Co-Host Third Hour of ‘Today’ — Willie Geist, a co-host of the rollicking MSNBC morning show “Morning Joe,” is moving over to NBC's flagship “Today” show as a co-host of the franchise's 9 a.m. hour. — The promotion is expected to be announced by NBC this week …

Discussion: TVNewser, Deadline.com, Mediaite and The Huffington Post

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Yahoo's Top Lawyer Says Leaked Internal Memos Are “Uncool” (According to — Oops — A Cool Leaked Internal Memo) — At Yahoo's Friday regular weekly FYI meeting for employees, one of the topics for its Q&A moderation system that got read in front of the crowd was that there should be a …