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Assessment

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Even its sister publication OC Weekly's article is larger. This article needs more info on early history, the Village Voice purchase, the New Times Media agreement that led to the demise of New Times LA, etc. BlankVerse 08:59, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. For such an important independent paper it really needs a much more comprehensive entry.patrickw 16:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
i just happened to be talking about the "takeover" this morning with my boss (unfortunately, i work in an agency that the LA Weekly targets more frequently than we'd like), there isn't alot of information out there, but i did read that the New Times L.A. was around up until 2002 (i used to pick it up while in college). There is an LA Times article i just read today that talks a little about the merger, check it out here: [1] --HatchetFaceBuick 20:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some first steps taken to address the weak point in this article pointed out above. Updated the article to reflect staff turnover, some of the controversy of brining in Jill Stewart in to become news editor. At some point, I believe it'd be worthwhile to create a section within the article dedicated to the New Times acquisition and the fairly big changes to editorial policy and staff that have resulted since. Pisciotta11 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 01:51, 25 January 2009 (UTC).[reply]

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[2]

Fair use rationale for Image:Laweeklylogo.jpg

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Image:Laweeklylogo.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 22:45, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use rationale for Image:06cover.jpg

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Image:06cover.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 04:23, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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What happened to LA Weekly?

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Many of the claims made in this article seem to be entirely unsupported by the cited sources. I originally intended to go through and remove what I can, but...looking at the site itself, there's a lot that's odd. Seems pertinent to look into this given how often LA Weekly is cited. I was considering posting this on RSN, and might do so at some point, but it seems useful to start a thread here first. Here are my notes:

The site's 'news' section is currently full of stories from the '90s with the publish date changed to 2024, e.g., 1, 2, 3, and this piece on the gulf war supposedly published four days ago. Scrolling back further, there were actual news articles posted, though none since March 13...and all news articles since August 2023 (which is as far as I scrolled back to, probably goes on much longer) were from one author. The Entertainment section is similar; a bunch of articles with publish dates from July 29 are clearly from the '90s, though before July 29 there are many current articles by multiple authors with realistic publishing intervals.

And then there's this author who has 84 articles credited to them from July 30th. As far as I can tell, like with the stories from the '90s, they just moved forward the published date. This article, which is one of the 84 'published' 3 days ago, is on archive.org with an apparent publish date of May 11, 2021. Posts from this author before July 30 are at least current, though most seem paid, e.g. this ad for a few restaurants' promotions.

Is it possible that this is a technical problem? Yes, but...it could also be a symptom of not having (m)any writers. This LA Mag article from March 2024 notes that "the bulk of the publication's editorial team has exited" after staff buyouts, stemming from financial difficulties. The article notes by name that the buyouts included the News Reporter who stopped publishing on March 13, and notes they didn't have confirmation about the Food Editor (who has continued to publish content). This follows quite a bit of drama after a 2017 purchase by Semanal Media, since renamed to Street Media...which apparently is now a marketing company.

A Wired article from a few days ago about AI-generated content in alt-weeklies names LA Weekly and Village Voice (also owned by Street Media) as publishing "OnlyFans listicles" that the actual editorial team was uninvolved with. Though it's hard to scroll past the hundreds of reposted '90s content and the "Search" button doesn't seem to work, I did find the page for one of the authors of these listicles...and there are 39 pages of them. Also found this author who has published a ton of obviously paid content, also this one, this one, this one, this one, this one and this one, to name a few. This drama with LA Taco seems to indicate that they're doing active outreach to get paid content, in this case asking a food blogger for $500 to feature in "Top 10 Food Bloggers to Watch In 2023". I only started looking into this site after noticing the only 'secondary' source for an article (which I have since deleted) on simplewiki was from LA Weekly, about the "Hottest artists to watch in 2023".

Fortunately these authors' names are prefaced with "written in partnership with", except for the AI porn spam, but...there is no way to know whether this semi-disclaimer is a good distinguisher between paid and independent content given that there are few to no actual editorial staff anymore.

Street Media's actions with LA Weekly have all of the hallmarks of a newsanchored-type setup: get a bunch of news sites, have an AI or a handful of writers write just enough to make it look legitimate, and make money by selling promotional content.

As far as I can tell, the LA Weekly E-Editions include legitimate content by verifiable authors who are on the editorial staff. But...with the seemingly ever-decreasing amount of actual editorial staff, the publishing of OnlyFans spam and thousands of paid articles, recent content from LA Weekly is not a usable source for content on Wikipedia.

TL;DR:

  • the site is bugged and a lot of old content had its publishing dates changed to 2024
  • they were bought in 2017 by what became a marketing company that offers paid posting on the site
  • most paid posts authors' names seem to start with "written in collaboration with", except for likely-AI-written onlyfans spam
  • multiple series of layoffs and staff buyouts since the change in ownership mean that LA Weekly has been on the decline since 2017, and it's unclear how much of its editorial team is left and whether editorial standards still exist on the site

Given that anything from one of the "written in collaboration with" authors is likely to be UPE...at some point I hope to check for and clean up citations to those articles on Wikipedia. I've put wayyy too much time into writing this wall of text, and that will be for the Vermont of another day :) Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 04:21, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Welp, looks like they've updated the site since I looked into this. All of the "written in collaboration with" authors' posts now seem to be consolidated under John Stojan, who has over 2,000 posts credited to him, and the old author links (see the list of "this one"s above) no longer work. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 05:28, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Though most of the paid posts seem to now be under Stojan, the OnlyFans ones aren't, also found this one with promotional posts. Afaict there's no clear distinction between the output of the editorial team and paid content; fortunately it's very obvious, but...ugh. Sad to see local news fall like this. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 05:34, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
also for when this inevitably goes to RSN, this author has clearly paid posts going back to 2019, e.g., this, but all of its posts (august 2019 to april 2021) include a clear branded content disclaimer at the top of the article. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 05:36, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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