Village Voice fires eight in renewed turmoil

The owners of New York's Village Voice have fired five of the paper's senior editors and three members of its design staff. Among them was the reputed rock music critic Robert Christgau, who had been with the paper since 1969, the theatre editor, dance editor, a senior editor of the books section and its art director. The company that acquired the Voice last October said the "painful" layoffs were intended to "reconfigure the editorial department to place an emphasis on writers as opposed to editors." The weekly paper has been in turmoil for months with editors and writers arriving and leaving in quick succession. David Blum, a journalist who has written for New York magazine, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times magazine, is due to start as editor-in-chief this month. (Via Topix.net)