That wasn't the biggest news I had in Miami. But it left its mark. In the fall of 1998, I was the first reporter to write about the federal investigation into Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Tony Martin. The DEA was investigating him for allegedly laundering money for a convicted Miami drug trafficker and his neighborhood friend.It has been several months since I started a new job at the company. miami new times, Magic City's alternative weekly magazine, wrote this article with input from sources. I confirmed the investigation with federal authorities, attorneys, and people on the street months before Mr. Martin was formally charged and ultimately acquitted.
About a week after this article was published, a sports writer said, atlanta journal constitution called me. congratulations. It was good. I would love to follow up. Is there a possibility that we can share our procurement sources? I've shared as much as I can and I'm looking forward to it new era It will be recognized little by little. Except we didn't. A few days later, he called back and said the editor didn't want to quote us, we weren't a sufficiently reputable publication. That was shocking honesty. I think I'm grateful.time journalThe story came out and The Wire picked it up. So who gets the credit?
I was reminded of this mild insult recently. hold fast, a nine-episode podcast from Audible exquisitely told about the founders of the New Times media chain of alternative weekly magazines and the federal lawsuit against them for aiding and abetting prostitution through the Backpage advertising website.Podcast produced by three former members miami new times The Journalist by Trevor Aaronson, Sam Eifling, and Michael Mooney is a courtroom drama, an exploration of free speech, and a history of the world of alternative weekly magazines. (Aaronson and Eifring are friends, but I'm still writing this. How alt-weekly am I?) The podcast and its new oral history village voice, Freaks came to writeTricia Romano chronicles the rise and fall of alternative weekly magazines, paying homage to the genre-busting journalism that transformed criticism, writing, and reporting across the country, but without its due recognition in the mainstream narrative. Apparently not.
As if to prove my point, look at the lack of coverage surrounding the fate of New Times Media founders Mike Lacy and Jim Larkin. He is hard-pressed to think of two more important figures in the modern press. Lacey and Larkin reshaped American journalism at the local level. They bought up alternative weeklies, had the largest chain of such newspapers in the country's history, and then hired experts to produce great stories.
Major American cities, Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, Phoenix, and eventually New York, hosted New Times newspapers, all known for their vivid cultural criticism and aggressive investigative reporting. Their local reporting often made national news. The Fort Lauderdale newspaper revealed that airport officials detained 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta when he first entered the country, but released him citing a duty to be more customer-friendly. The Phoenix newspaper found evidence that employees at a Motel 6 in Washington state were harshly criticizing immigration officials. The Miami newspaper reported on Biogenesis, the anti-aging clinic accused of injecting steroids into Major League Baseball. New Times won every major award, including Pulitzer, George Polk, and Livingston.
We've been given the freedom and support to get the most powerful stories possible in our community. I visited an out-of-state prison to bust a group of drug-trafficking cops. I went to Haiti to cover the collapse of Aristide (well, I had to go penniless for that, but I was brought back). I once spent a night in a cocaine bootlegger in the inner city. Receiving a regular paycheck has never been so fun.as hold fast The podcaster officially points out that these are not family-friendly documents.
I'm not saying that the weekly magazine New Times was the only one that brought about the big news. Willamette Week In Oregon, he won a Pulitzer Prize for uncovering a cover-up between a former governor and an underage babysitter.of voiceHe is a leading authority on weekly magazines and has won three Pulitzer Prizes. One of which he did was international reporting on AIDS in Africa. The daily newspapers tried to ignore us until they could no longer ignore us.
It's not just our stories that have influenced us over the years, but our entire approach. We have abandoned the false objectivity with which daily newspapers have grappled since the 1950s. My editor, Jim Mullin, instructed me early on: It doesn't have to be objective. ” Alternative was the first media to acknowledge that not everyone was straight. Long before newspapers used the word “gay,” we were running articles about the LGBTQ community and running personal ads seeking connection. We didn't make our news writing too formal. We took a big risk stylistically and journalistically. As a result, we sometimes failed with good sense. There were a lot of boring, long-winded stories. But we had the freedom to fail. More recently, the frank tone that characterized alternative weeklies, such as when news outlets explain politicians' lies as lies, has become far more prevalent in mainstream American journalism, resulting in is becoming more fun.
Lacey and Larkin were instrumental in making all of this possible. The two have stood firm on many press freedom issues over the past 50 years.As pointed out in the podcast, their flagship paper phoenix new timesThe company, born out of the anti-war movement of the 1970s, later faced criminal charges in Arizona for advertising abortion clinics. At the time, advertising for abortion clinics was still illegal.Roe vs. Wade. In 2007, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio jailed both men for releasing the findings of a grand jury investigation. (The charges were quickly dismissed.) They were undaunted. Their newspapers repeatedly went after Arpaio, alleging unconstitutional treatment and mistreatment of prisoners of war and immigrants.
But despite all the good they did to shake up the media landscape, Lacey and Larkin had significant flaws. They were arrogant in their attitude towards the news and could become bullies. After years of competing; village voiceNew Times Media, a weekly magazine chain, finally took control of its rival in a 2005 “merger.” Lacey and Larkin were determined to remake the famous newspaper in their own image, alienating the staff in the process, shopping around for editors, and ultimately selling the magazine. Ta. voice. “I hate those bastards who ruined it.'' Veteran voice Writer James Ridgeway spoke succinctly to Romano.
This was already the end of an era. Small advertising, especially advertising, was the mainstay of the alternative weekly economy. When Craigslist's free ads rolled onto the scene in the late '90s and early '90s, it crushed newspapers like a rock rolling down a hill. To compete, Lacey and Larkin started their own Craigslist called Backpage. Soon I was flooded with advertisements for sex workers. Critics began accusing the newspaper of promoting prostitution, and it was even worse.
To protect the paper from criticism and boycotts, Lacey and Larkin spun off Backpage as an independent business. As an independent organization, it became an easy target in the eyes of the Arizona public and federal authorities. Listen to the podcast to learn about the intricacies of the case, what speech is and isn't protected, and how internet publishing laws have changed. But at the urging of politicians who have been skewered by New Times in the past (like John McCain), prosecutors accused Lacy and Larkin of running a business that aided in prostitution and laundered money. and other Backpage executives. After a miscarriage of justice in 2021, federal authorities struck again and won a conviction against Lacey on a money laundering count in 2023. Overwhelmed by prosecutors' zeal, federal authorities announced in January that they would retry him on several charges that had resulted in a deadlocked jury. Larkin took his own life just before his trial.There was no mention of his death in it. new york times or washington post.
Today, what was New Times Media is just five newspapers and a digital advertising agency, Voice Media Group, compared to more than three times that number back then. The staff is a vestige of its former self, but manages the occasional knockout story. I can only wonder. How long? Clearly the glory days are behind us. But like its founders, perhaps the newspaper itself was always destined for flames.
Appropriately, my own tenure was miami new times It ended in some kind of flare-up. I had a violent conflict with two editors after I discovered that they were running blogs that disrespected staff members. In the case of Miami, I “confronted editors about offensive online messages.” Daily work review When I reported it, they complained about me. Lacey suspended all three of us her without pay and I went to another publication. But just before walking out the door, I sent the belligerent Irishman a note that read: I didn't have any hard feelings and had a great time.. And I meant it.
Tristram Korten is an independent journalist and author of Into The Storm: Two Ships, a Deadly Hurricane, and an Epic Battle for Survival. His work has appeared in GQ, Outside, Smithsonian, Men's Health, The Washington Post, and more.
