Michael Lacey (editor)

Michael Lacey is the former editor of the Phoenix New Times and The Village Voice, a First Amendment proponent, and is currently under federal indictment for facilitating prostitution.

Early life

Michael Lacey was born in Binghamton, New York; he went to Catholic schools in Newark, New Jersey, before moving to Arizona at attend Arizona State University. In response to the 1970 Kent State massacre, Lacey wanted flags at the University to be flown at halt-mast. Angered by being told that would not be done, Lacey and several friends started an alternative newspaper "to get the nuances of that point across. And to have a little fun."[1] "Mike Lacey was a Vietnam protester, an Irish kid from Jersey who’d dropped out of Arizona State." As an alternative to the ultra-conservative Arizona Republic, he started a paper that "would cover politics, culture and music for the sex-drugs-rock’n’roll generation."[2]

Newspaper career

Further information: Village Voice Media

The first weekly alternative newspaper was called the Arizona Times. Two years after the founding Jim Larkin joined as business manager. They were called Lacey’n’Larkin, the editor-publisher duo who, over the decades, bought and started alternative weeklies across the country. In the 1970s the newspaper went public, and Larkin and Lacey drifted away; they regained control and took it private in 1977, and renamed it the Phoenix New Times, with Lacey as editor and Larkin as publisher. From a circulation low of 16,000 in 1977, it grew to 140,000 by the 1990s, with annual revenue of $8.6 million[3] Beginning in 1983 he and Larkin bought and started multiple other alternative newspapers, and by 2000 they owned eleven. In 2005 they bought the Village Voice and five others. The company had a market value of $400 million and a combined circulation of 1.8 million. A self-described "prick" who comes complete with "spiky gray hair, watery pale-blue eyes,"[1] he was known for his bombastic style; he described his editorial philosophy as: “Our papers have butt-violated every goddamn politician who ever came down the pike! The ones who deserved it. As a journalist, if you don’t get up in the morning and say ‘fuck you’ to someone, why even do it?”[4] There was a sense among his competitors that his papers were vicious corporate sharks, out to annihilate, not compete.[1][5] To his employees-he was demanding with a volatile temper, he made enemies, but, was fiercely loyal to the people he liked, and, he drank. His papers were often known for unforgettable stories "with characters that burst off the page and plot twists no one could have predicted. These stories changed lives, cities, and occasionally landed the people at the center of them in front of a judge."[6]

The good times did not last for print journalism, with the Internet devouring advertising profits.[7] Lacey reacted to increased Internet advertising with Backpage.com, beginning in 2004, trying to maintain the company's hold on ads that traditional newspapers had largely shunned, adult services. It evolved out of the literal back page of the Phoenix New Times newspaper and morphed into a behemoth Internet marketplace. By 2010, after Craigslist shuttered its adult content section, Backpage.com had become the main financial driver of the company, then called Village Voice Media.[4] In 2012 Lacey left journalism, selling his interests in 13 newspapers, but keeping ownership of Backpage.[8]

Lacey had a longstanding feud with Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, leading to a 2007 subpoena requesting the I.P. addresses of all who had visited the Phoenix New Times website over the past three years.[9] When, as an act of civil disobedience,[10] the Phoenix New Times published the subpoena, Lacey and Larkin were arrested for this act. Freed the next day, charges were dropped.[11] Maricopa County settled with them for 3.75 million.[12] The showdown with Arpaio added to Lacey's "already swashbuckling Media Bad Boy mythology."[13] $2 million of the settlement was used to help create an endowed chair of borderlands Professorship for the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University .[14] Some of the funds were used to start a human rights and immigration initiative, the Lacey and Larkin Frontera Fund,[15] largely to benefit the Hispanic community that "has borne the brunt of racial animus and civil rights abuses in Arizona."[16]

Backpage

Further information: Backpage

The business was lucrative. The adult ads were among the few Backpage charged users to post. Backpage earned $135 million in 2014, according to a U.S. Senate report. A February 2015 appraisal said the company was worth more than $600 million[17] At the time, Backpage was the largest online publisher of sex ads in the world with city-specific sites spanning 97 countries. In the 11 years since it had been launched, it had earned some $500 million for its owners. They were largely impervious to legal challenges because of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protected online publishers from civil or criminal penalties for hosting content posted by third parties. Legal momentum started to change in 2015 after a senate investigation. They were forced to hand over millions of pages of incriminating material. The Justice Dept. used this information to come up with a massive 93 count indictment in March 2018, that centered on Lacey and Larkin, and accused them, and other company officers, with money laundering, participating in a criminal conspiracy and facilitating prostitution.[4] In April it was announced that Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer had pleaded guilty and will testify against other Backpage officials.[18] Lacey spent a week in federal custody, released on April 13, 2018, with a $1 million bond. Lacey's attorneys claim he is protected by the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment.[19] Company officials insists they hosted trafficking sites unwittingly.[20] Backpage was shut down by federal authorities in April 2018.[21][22] With the closure of Backpage, "devastated" sex workers turned to social media. To them, Backpage's demise meant the end of safeguards and a reliable revenue stream in a profession that's not going anywhere.[23]

Awards
  • Arizona Civil Libertarian of the Year, ("ACLU's highest honor bestowed annually to individuals who make outstanding contributions to the advancement of civil liberties") 2008[24]
  • Arizona Music Hall of Fame[25]
  • Distinguished Service Award, Arizona Press Club, 2007 (lifetime accolade was given for Lacey's 38 years as a writer, editor and newspaper owner in Arizona)[26]
  • New America Award, ("Placed the local sheriff under the microscope and reported on his bias against Maricopa County (Ariz.) residents of color.) 2010[27]
  • Golden Quill Award, 1998[28]
  • John Kolbe Politics and Government Reporting Award, 2007[26]
  • Clarion Award, for newspaper feature writing, 2011, ("Lacey's What's My Mom Worth[29] ...was a departure from ordinary newspaper storytelling.")[30]
  • James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, 2011 ("For deploying reporters...to tell vivid tales of the travails and contributions of Latinos Amongst U.S. Their work counters nativist fear-mongering and opens space for a coherent immigration policy.")[31]
  • Phoenix Business Journal, "Professional Recognition," (for standing up for migrants' rights) 2017[16]

References
  1. "The Voice from Beyond the Grave". New York. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  2. "An editor on the lam. And a $5K check out of the blue". Houston Chronicle. October 8, 2016. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  3. "New Times, Inc. – Company History". company-histories.com. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  4. "The Sex-Trafficking Case Testing the Limits of the First Amendment". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  5. S, Eli; ers. "The Great West Coast Newspaper War". The Stranger. Retrieved August 3, 2018.
  6. Mullen, Mike. "Mike Lacey, Backpage.com, and the mystery of the $5,000 checks | City Pages". City Pages. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
  7. "Print Is Dying, Digital Is No Savior: The Long, Ugly Decline Of The Newspaper Business Continues Apace". News. January 26, 2016. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  8. "Phoenix New Times founders selling company". The Arizona Republic. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  9. "Subpoena request" (PDF). media.phoenixnewtimes.com.
  10. "Village Voice executives jailed in Phoenix". CNET. October 19, 2007. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
  11. Shafer, Jack (October 19, 2007). "The Subpoena Weenie". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  12. Hendley, Matthew (December 20, 2013). "Joe Arpaio Loses: New Times Co-Founders Win $3.75 Million Settlement for 2007 False Arrests". Phoenix New Times. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  13. "Digital Pimps or Fearless Publishers?". The Ringer. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
  14. "ASU Borderlands Professorship | Arizona PBS". Arizona PBS. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  15. "Joe Arpaio Basics: All You Need to Know | Lacey and Larkin Frontera Fund". Lacey and Larkin Frontera Fund. August 16, 2017. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
  16. Phoenix Business Journal recognizes Lacey
  17. "Backpage founder charged by feds after human-trafficking investigation". The Arizona Republic. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  18. "Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer pleads guilty to conspiracy, money laundering". ABC News. April 13, 2018. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  19. "Michael Lacey Free on Bond in Backpage First Amendment Case". Front Page Confidential. April 14, 2018. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  20. Board, The Times Editorial. "Congress' pursuit of Backpage.com is risky". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
  21. Backpage shut
  22. Magid, Larry. "DOJ Seizes Backpage.com Weeks After Congress Passes Sex Trafficking Law". Forbes. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  23. "It's not just the Florida spa investigation allegedly tied to Robert Kraft. Sex trafficking is rampant across US". USA Today. Retrieved March 8, 2019.
  24. "ACLU Foundation of Arizona to Honor New Times Executives at Annual Bill of Rights Dinner on March 29". American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  25. "Michael Lacey". Arizona Music & Entertainment Hall Of Fame. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  26. Dickerson, John (May 12, 2008). "New Times Earns 17 Arizona Press Club awards". Phoenix New Times. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
  27. "SPJ announces New America Award winners". spj.org. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
  28. "Golden Quill Award". International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  29. Lacey, Michael (December 9, 2010). "What's Mom Worth?: When a Woman Became Deathly Ill in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Jail, Guards and Nurses Ignored Her Agony". Phoenix New Times. Retrieved August 4, 2018.
  30. "VVM's Michael Lacey Wins Clarion Award – Association of Alternative Newsmedia". Association of Alternative Newsmedia. August 25, 2011. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
  31. "New Times Writers Win Aronson Award". Phoenix New Times. March 24, 2011. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
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