BRAIN DRAIN AT THE VOICE. Before becoming almost entirely obsessed by the Payola Six scandal, Gawker noted that respected Village Voice reporter Jennifer Gonnerman (who had signed that petition protesting James Ridgeway's dismissal) is gone from the paper, too. So besides Doug Simmons and Nick Sylvester, the Voice is now devoid of Gonnerman, Ridgeway, and Sydney Schanberg. Word continues to spread that the fact checkers are gone, too.

This brain drain at the Voice was the subject of an episode of Amy Goodman's Democracy Now that aired overnight. Goodman spoke with Schanberg and Ridgeway as well as Nat Hentoff, Tom Robbins, Mark Jacobson, and Tim Redmond.

Some highlights:

Hentoff on Ridgeway: "I don't know another reporter we've had at the Voice who is so widely knowledgeable about so many areas of government and all kinds of important areas and who does such consistent, comprehensive research. And for him to get fired is inexplicable. It makes no sense at all." Also: "I do believe that whatever the future holds, to lose Jim Ridgeway is an enormous loss for the paper."

Ridgeway on his current situation: "If I didn't have union protection, I would be nowhere."

Ridgeway on Mike Lacey: "He killed my column..."

Schanberg on a Voice staff meeting with Lacey in February:

"What happened was very sad. Mr. Lacey came in and very quickly told the staff that he was disappointed and appalled by the fact that the front of the book was all commentary and that he wanted hard news. He said if he wanted to read a daily or regular critiques of the Bush administration, he would read the New York Times, and that's not what he wanted in the Village Voice. He was insulting to the staff. He figuratively or in effect called them stenographers. He said they had to stop being stenographers. When I objected to that, because that was so insulting, and I said that you can criticize any news staff in some ways, but the one thing that you couldn't call the Village Voice staff was a staff of stenographers, taking notes from public figures and just passing them on.

"And I said it was unfair, and he said, 'So, I’m unfair.' And then he added, he said, 'Look, I don't care what rouses you, even if it's getting pissed off at me.' And I said, 'I’m not pissed off at you. I don't even know you.' And he really had this huge one-ton or two-ton chip on his shoulder. And I think he walked into the room thinking that the people in the room didn't welcome him and didn't like him and, you know, and hated him. And he was totally insecure. And he gave the impression that he didn't understand the Voice and he didn't understand New York, and he didn't want to. He didn't like it, even though he was born here, I understand. I mean, he was born in Brooklyn.

"And he said a lot of other things. He told the staff that they better prepare themselves to say goodbye to some of their friends. He picked a fight with Nat Hentoff, which was disgusting."

"Oh, he said, when he picked that fight with Nat, he was referring specifically to a story in which Nat had led off one of his pieces praising an ABC television investigative report. And Lacey said that was unforgivable and that wasn't good journalism, and that he in the future never wanted to see ever again a story in the Voice that referred to work done by another publication or media organization, which is kind of astounding."

Jacobson on Ridgeway and the Voice: "Ridgeway is not the kind of guy you would want to fire. The Village Voice doesn't need deletion. It needs addition, because there's nothing in there really. You need more stuff, not less stuff."

Schanberg on the fact checkers: "As I understand it, Lacey has dismissed all of the fact checkers."

Schanberg on Lacey and Ridgeway and journalistic sin: "I just think it's a sin to do certain things in journalism. I think, for example, that firing Jim Ridgeway is a journalistic sin, just as when the New York Times let Russell Baker go. You don't do things like that, just because somebody is older or whatever, you personally don't like their stuff, because the idea of a newspaper is to let all voices ring, let them all be heard. And that's not what he's saying. So I don't have any -- you know, I don't have any -- I don't know this man, Mike Lacey. But I don't have any respect for how he's behaved or how he's conducted himself at the Voice."

Ridgeway on things to come: "I think the web is the future of the alternative press, to tell you the truth."

There's certainly an increase in journalists available to make that future a reality, thanks in part to Lacey.

Amy Goodman is scheduled to speak after David Hare's Stuff Happens at the Public Theater on Tuesday, April 18, 2006.

Photo: David Marc Fischer