Big Head DC has learned that some staffers at the Washington City Paper, unhappy with recent decisions to lay off employees, have taken to digging for dirt on Ben Eason, the new president of the paper. Eason, who took charge last summer, is rumored to be unpopular with many staffers, especially the editor-in-chief of the paper, Erik Wemple. It is believed that staffers want to tarnish Eason’s image in an attempt to get revenge on his recent decisions to streamline the publication. 

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Jessica Gould, a reporter with the Washington City Paper who gained infamy by stealing food from Whole Foods grocery store sample sections, has been let go from the publication, Big Head DC has learned. Several others were also let go in an effort to reduce costs. Ben Eason, the new president of the paper, talked to us in August about his vision for the paper. Editor Erik Wemple is said to be devastated by the forced cuts.

Earlier: Cab Driver Thought City Paper Staffer Was Offering $5 For a BJ?

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Washington City Paper editor Erik Wemple is just now breathlessly covering the plans for a new Apple store in Georgetown. Several outlets, including Big Head DC, covered this story two months ago. We normally wouldn’t make a fuss (or maybe we would), but Wemple is well-known for picking on other publications for much lesser mistakes. He deserves the scrutiny.

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Erik Wemple, editor of the City Paper, where some of the reporters are paid so little that they are literally forced to steal food, calls plans for a new convention center name ”bullshit.” Really? Is that an acceptable journalistic term for an “esteemed” publication to be using? After all, we’ve heard that Wemple ofteb criticizes his staff for employing such dirty language. Why don’t the same standards apply to the big guy?

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UPDATE: Says Ben Eason: “We’re actually going to host our big Web operations for the company in DC. The production work is what will be done in Atlanta.”

Original post, August 9: When it was announced in late-July that the Washington City Paper had been bought by Creative Loafing, an alternative media publisher, many inside the paper’s newsroom realized that big changes would be afoot.

“We were all worried about our jobs at first,” a staffer there who asked not to be identified told Big Head DC. “I think even Wemple.”

But we now know that Erik Wemple, the longtime City Paper editor who passed up an opportunity to become editor in chief at the Village Voice just last summer, is safe — for the moment at least. However, many members of the newspaper’s advertising and online team will be let go as a result of the sale.

“There will be a slight format change to accommodate our production systems but otherwise, you’ll see not too much on the product side,” Ben Eason, president of Creative Loafing, explained to Big Head DC. “We’re looking to add to our circulation and make the City Paper more available and we’re working on a bunch of new Web initiatives that will be launched over the next 6-12 months.”

Those new operations will largely not be located in Washington — much to the chagrin of staffers who now have to find new jobs. But the change is apparently a necessity in today’s publishing climate.

“I think the biggest challenge facing publishing today is building bridges between the traditional publishing business and the digital information business,” Eason said. “The City Paper has a very smart, active and interested audience that is constantly switching back and forth between the weekly newspaper and the Web site. This audience is incredibly viral and is an early adopter of all kinds of new cool offerings on the web. Our challenge is to maintain the great standards we have for content and journalism and to make sure we’re delivering this content ways that our audience is demanding.”

All of which means the reader shouldn’t see too many visible changes to the newspaper itself. But the inner turmoil, you can bet, is alive and well.

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City Paper’s Erik Wemple is being nice to the Washington Post… Someone’s having a good August!

Related: “Shit Slinging” Journo Joins Mother Jones’ New Washington Bureau

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Stephanie Mencimer, wife of Washington City Paper editor Erik Wemple, is one of the fresh faces joining Mother Jones’ new DC outlet. She’s written for a variety of DC publications over the years, but perhaps became most famous when a local blogger detailed her alleged slinging of doggy doo during a dispute with owners of a pet spa near her Logan Circle home (which resulted in her arrest). Go ahead, make your jokes now: She’s going to fit right in at MJ, right?

Interestingly, the anonymous blogger, “Circumlocutor,” who originally shed light on the poopy incident has since removed all of his original posts about the situation. The City Paper for some odd reason had investigated the blogger after the incident, and it’s believed by many media insiders that someone associated with the paper threatened to out him if he continued with his reporting. Scary! Lesson here: Don’t cross Wemple or Mencimer, if you know what’s good for you, kids.

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Jason Cherkis is almost Darth Vader! His mentor Darth Sidius, aka the Washington City Paper’s editor-in-chief Erik Wemple, has taught him well. Taught him well to hate on The Washington Post, he has.

“OK, I know I’m a bit late on getting to this. But after reading Howard Kurtz’s profile of Campbell Brown last night, I couldn’t help but be a little miffed,” writes Cherkis today. ”With its headline, ‘At CNN, Taking On the Cable Guys,’ the piece had the potential to explore how Brown was going to succeed in a world dominated by ranting men. Instead, we get Kurtz serving up way too many details that have nothing to do with Brown’s journalism.”

Hmm. Kind of like how when the City Paper did a story about investigative reporter Murray Waas and wrote extensively about his problems with landlords, his battles with cancer, and his personal relationships? A story that Cherkis played a key role in reporting?

As Anne Schroeder might say: “Not sayin’, just sayin’.

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We just received this leaked Erik Wemple e-mail from the City Paper’s newsroom:

Hey fellows: Could you forward this to your freelancers?

Dear City Paper freelancers: As you may have heard by now, Washington City Paper has been acquired by the company that runs the Creative Loafing papers of Atlanta, Charlotte, Sarasota, and Tampa. We are pleased with this development and have had great discussions with our new owner, Ben Eason. The obvious question that people have been asking is, how does this affect the paper and what we’ve been doing for so long? There will no doubt be changes in how our product is generated, distributed, marketed, and so on. And our new owner will keep us on the path of editorial budget cuts that we embarked upon earlier this year. That is a simple fact of life in this industry. As to the impact on freelancers, I cannot say at this point precisely what it’ll be. Given how the Creative chain deals with production, we may see a rejiggering of editorial deadlines, but I can’t say for sure right now. And we have no plans to change pay for freelancers at this point, either. Also unchanged is our appreciation for all that you do for this paper, week in and week out. I will send out more information as it becomes available.

More to come on the why.

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Who was it who said no publicity is bad publicity?

Thanks to the recent City Paper article saying the Late Night Shots folks aren’t as hip as they think, Late Night Shots is now becoming the hip place to be. Want proof? A friend of Big Head DC recently found this ad on Craig’s List:

Looking for an in to the Late Night Shots club…. - 23

Hi boys,

I’ll keep this simple. I am an attractive 23 year old female. Height, and weight proportional (5′3, 122lbs - you do the math).

I recently moved to the area and I heard about the club through the grapevine. I read the city paper article - and now I am even more interested.

I will buy a drink for the first boy who hooks me up with an invite. Simple as that - and we can let things go from there.

In other words, the City Paper has now made actual celebrities out of a bunch of people it claimed did not deserve their self-appointed celebrity status. And Erik Wemple loses again.

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