The Villager Newspaper Sold to Technology Executive Jennifer Goodstein
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Some big news in the local, err, news scene. Lincoln Anderson reports in this week’s issue that The Villager has just been sold for an undisclosed sum. Terms of the deal were not immediately available.
Effective July 31, Community Media, LLC is now the property of one Jennifer Goodstein, onetime e-business executive at MetLife. The sale ends the twelve-year run of John W. Sutter at the helm. He was responsible for expanding the paper into new territory, including the introduction of Gay City News (2002), Chelsea Now (2006), and the East Villager (2010). Apparently Sutter is staying aboard as “Publisher Emeritus.”
Commenting that New York City is “anything but vanilla,” Goodstein said that “the diversity” of the neighborhoods and the issues the group’s newspapers cover is a compelling factor in her interest in assuming control of the properties.
Asked what he was most proud of during his tenure, Sutter, who is 62, said, “Working with a group of committed professionals who believe in community journalism. Covering the best neighborhoods in the entire world. Trying to write fairly, forcefully, and independently about events that have meaning in the lives of our readers, week in and week out.”
Goodstein, 47, is married to Les Goodstein, who is a senior vice president at News America Inc. They live in Manhattan and have a college-age son, Steven.
The Villager began its life in 1933, founded by newspaperman Walter Gregory Bryan and his sister. Both moved from the midwest to start the publication.
[Photo credit: Phillip Kalantzis-Cope]