Washington editor to head Village Voice

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NEW YORK, June 1 (UPI) -- The editor of the Washington City Paper has been hired to edit The Village Voice, the granddaddy of alternative weekly newspapers.

The Voice, founded in 1955 by Norman Mailer in New York's Greenwich Village, has been going through a period of turmoil since it was merged into New Times Media, a Phoenix company that owns a string of free weeklies. Erik Wemple becomes the Voice's fourth editor in seven months, the New York Times reported.

Wemple, a native of Schenectady, N.Y., has spent most of his career at the Washington City Paper as a writer and editor with short intervals at an on-line publication and at Cable World Magazine.

In a telephone interview with the Times, Wemple acknowledged that he is not familiar with Manhattan and has not even been a regular reader of the Voice. But Michael Lacey, the executive editor of Village Voice Media, called him "just a really smart guy" and said he has the breadth of experience the Voice editor needs.