Michael Lacey--co-owner of Village Voice Media, the nation's largest alternative newspaper company--upset dozens of Arizona journalists last Friday after using the racial slur during a speech at the Society of Professional Journalists Awards gala. According to the East Valley Tribune, while peaking to the audience, Lacey jokingly referred to his buddy, the late Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Tom Fitzpatrick, as "my (n-word)."...

After a local jury found SF Weekly guilty of illegal predatory pricing and awarded the local alt weekly a cool $6.39 million (the verdict subject to "treble damages," which bring the total award to $15.6 million), SFBG Executive Editor Tim Redmond tells the harrowing tale of the five-week trial in his own words: But the verdict sends a clear signal to small businesses, independent newspapers and the alternative press that a locally owned publication......

With regard to the SFBG vs. SF Weekly (VVM) lawsuit -- you know, the one where the Guardian sued the Weekly and its parent company for predatory pricing practices? where the Guardian's Publisher, Bruce Brugmann, claimed that the competition was so unreasonable that it could force the Guardian out of business? -- our sources confirm that: Word just came that Guardian won the lawsuit and were awarded 6.3 million [the Gate is claiming $15M]......

Oh my. According to the Snitch: Two executives of Village Voice Media, the parent company of the SF Weekly, were arrested in Arizona last night in connection with a story they wrote for Phoenix New Times this week. According to the Arizona Republic, Jim Larkin and Mike Lacey were charged with revealing secret grand jury information, a misdemeanor. Larkin (VVM CEO) and Lacey (VVM executive editor) got nabbed due to an article that they......

This week's Big Movie: Ocean's Thirteen! It’s a real surprise how divided the critics are about this one! Sure it’s franchising, sure it’s full of top shelf men in designer clothes and high-end accoutrement, but we thought it was all kicks and giggles. Groucho Reviews's Peter Cavanese however, says, “the plot of Thirteen is old, old news.” Many, like Roger Ebert, expressed their exhaustion with this trope -- Scott Floundas of the Village Voice......

--Ha! The guy to your right ran for mayor of Barcelona, and doesn't he look like Matt Gonzalez? By copatbark from the SFist Flickr stream. --John Edwards was in town at Google. So was Hillary Clinton. --Yau-Man's back at work and gives the lowdown on the Survivor season to the UC Berkeley web newsletter. --Oh no, Ed Jew! Bevan Dufty's not living in his district right now either! (it's all okay, though, at least for......

A local alt-weekly is reembracing the "alt" part of the genre, as a group of writers and editors at the East Bay Express buy the paper out from the Village Voice Weekly conglomerate. The team of purchasers includes the current editor, Stephen Buel; co-founder and calendar editor Kelly Vance (the EBX really does have a kick-ass calendar section); and Hal Brody, another person active in the alt-weekly scene. It all seems very amicable, and no......

Last Week's Winner: SF Weekly Nothing's good enough for the SF Weekly this week: Cutting Ball Theatre's Woyzeck doesn't cut it for Chloe Veltman; Frances Reade compares Kemble Scott's hot-selling novel SoMa to Showgirls (not meant as a compliment); in an article compelling for its title, alone, Flaccid Nostalgia, Music Editor, Jennifer Maerz lays into the Mother Hips with the "you asked for it" gambit, "They want me to write about this band - I......

SFist Rita is on vacation, so we're guest-reading the weeklies for her this week. Plus, it's the last weekly week of 2006, so we will be tallying up this year's picks to anoint a Weekly of the Year at the end of this post. Last week's winner and in at 4th place for 2006 with 6.5 WotW points, the Metro: Gary Singh on Rudy Rucker's new book Mathematicians in Love. Cover: Year in Review for......

Local bookstore chain, Cody's Books has just announced that it is selling itself to a Japanese chain. Current owner, Andy Ross, will stay on as President of Cody's. Meanwhile, the former flagship Cody's store on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley that closed recently, prompting much hand-wringing, 60s nostalgia, and debate amongst armchair urban planners is now one of those temporary Halloween superstores. We are holding our breath for the ironic next phase of vacant large storefronts......