The Village Voice Playfully Responds to Criticism on Adult Ads
By AAN Staff
september 4, 2007 10:01 am
When the
New York Press was sold to Manhattan Media in early August,
the new CEO announced the paper would stop running "explicit" ads. The National Organization for Women and some op-ed writers took that opportunity to put more pressure on the
Voice and
New York magazine to also stop running the ads. The
Voice "fired back by defiantly running eight naked ladies on the cover" a few weeks ago, the
New York Observer reports. Editor Tony Ortega tells the
Observer that the cheeky cover was his idea. "The subject of our adult ads has been brought up lately in the local press," Ortega says. "I thought the best response from the newsroom was to poke some fun at ourselves." Manhattan Media CEO Tom Allon tells the
Observer that, while he thinks "the punchline was only clear to a small sliver of their readership," he's glad to have stirred up the attention. "Clearly it was a nod to us and to our decision," he says. "I was flattered that they thought that a decision we made warranted a
Voice cover."