Village Idiots

Back in the fall of 2002, when Village Voice Media and New Times Media faced federal antitrust lawsuits for fixing markets in Cleveland and L.A., a few pathetic voices in the alt-weekly wilderness called the Dept. of Justice's attack politically motivated. Because much of the alternative weekly establishment was then challenging the Iraq war with a hailstorm of Tom Tomorrow cartoons, surely John Ashcroft had decided to sic the dogs of justice on that dangerous last bastion of independent media, the Cleveland Free Times.

The trade went like this: Village Voice Media got control of the Los Angeles market; New Times got Cleveland and a cool $9 million. It was probably a good trade for both parties, except for the fact that it violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. Almost two years later, it's clear the DOJ wasn't going after the parent company of the Village Voice because they wanted to muzzle Ted Rall. It was because monopolies are bad for consumers, and media monopolies bad for citizens. For liberals, this usually comes during the first hour of the first class meeting of Basic Worldview 101.

At Village Voice University, that class must have been canceled. Or taught by the business faculty. Los Angeles lawyer Scott Myer last week filed a suit charging that VVM's LA Weekly has raised its advertising rates by 100 percent since paying off NTM to close shop and establishing itself as the only game in town. As reported in the Post, Myer is moving forward with a class action suit against the alternative media giant that may involve more than a hundred pissed-off advertisers. Just don't expect to read about it in LA Weekly.