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An Anonymous Coward writes:

America Magazine reports: [americamagazine.org]

“LA Weekly is being sold to Semanal Media, a mysterious new company,” reported the L.A. Times; [latimes.com] other [ktla.com] news outlets [laist.com] offered much the same, noting that none of the newly created Semanal’s investment partners would make their names known.

As LA Weekly’s more than three million online readers—the largest of any alternative weekly in the country—read about renters being summarily evicted simply for asking about increased rents, Semanal’s new operations manager, Brian Calle, fired nine of the magazine’s 13 staff, including all of its editors and its publisher.

“We were expecting there to be some pain with the sale of @LAWeekly,” wrote [twitter.com] editor-in-chief Mara Shalhoup online. “But we weren’t expecting the Red Wedding.”

[...]

Two days later, in his first official message to readers, Mr. Calle spun [laweekly.com] the move as indicative of the news media’s broader struggles in the digital age. LA Weekly, he said, had been on a “declining trajectory” and the new owners wanted to help make the publication “relevant” again.

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