Here’s the problem I am
having cutting down the huge file recounting my seven years as copy chief at
the Village Voice. There are many stories like the one below, which feel very
characteristic of the Voice. But does anyone who wasn’t there at the time care?
If it is interesting, how many of these stories can I leave in, how few are
enough, and how do I decide which ones to keep and which to let go? If you read this, please let me know in in the comments what you think.
Early in 1985, Jack Newfield and Wayne Barrett try an end run around David Schneiderman, now acting publisher, by claiming to me late on Monday night, as we’re closing the issue, that they have an emergency item for the NYC column on local politics, implying to me that David has okayed it. Then Wayne offhandedly says that Nat Hentoff and Newfield are signing this item, but Geoffrey Stokes isn’t going along. Why? They asked him to write about it in Press Clips, but he said he wouldn’t. This rings alarm bells.
I call Stokes to ask what’s going on, and he says David begged them not to write this; it’s speculation about who might be the next Voice editor-in-chief. Stokes reports to me that David told Kit Rachlis, the managing editor, about this “item,” that it needs more verification and it can’t run in this issue. I’m now furious. Newfield and Wayne could certainly have been fired if they’d succeeded, and would have gotten me fired, too. “What assholes they are! And what a fool they must think me,” I write in my journal.
The next day, Wayne calls to yell at me at the plant because I “didn’t have the courtesy” to let him know his item was killed. Kit calls to have the item read to him and maybe it will run. But it mentions Murdoch, and Susie, production manager, asks if David has read it. Does the publisher get to read anything that mentions Murdoch? Susie says yes, Kit says no, I’m not sure. Kit now says there was a misunderstanding; he thought David said no to the item, but Newfield and Wayne say he said yes, and the story will come out in a few days anyway. I tell Kit I think he’s being used, as they tried to use me.
That evening, Stokes explains the backstory. Newfield had started a rumor that he knew who the new Voice editor-in-chief would be and it wasn’t good. He called Stokes and asked him to do an item in Press Clips. Stokes knew a Voice editor-in-chief was about to be named, it wasn’t who Newfield thought it was, but it wasn’t confirmed yet, so he couldn’t tell Newfield. Stokes called Kit about Newfield’s theory, Kit called David, and David also didn’t tell Kit that another editor is about to be named, so too many people don’t know what other people do. And I think no one cares about this story except Voice people anyway.
