Since their renaissance in the s counterculture, alternative papers have thrived on free-spirited journalism and a libertarian advertising philosophy. Strip clubs, escorts and, lately, medical marijuana emporiums, filled countless pages with their ads. Village Voice, the Phoenix-based publisher of the L. Weekly and a dozen other publications, has launched an exuberant counterattack.
The owners β who say they assiduously monitor online ads to prevent abuses that go unchecked on other sites β have hired a lawyer and a public relations firm. The controversy pits legal rights against moral suasion. But religious leaders and other activists say they have an obligation, beyond the law, to fight against any forum that potentially exposes children to danger.
Katharine R. Henderson, the president of Auburn Theological Seminary. A similar furor enveloped Craigslist last year. The leading online classified outlet took steps to limit the chance underage prostitution would be offered on its site. But it eventually succumbed to activists. Carl Ferrer, the executive who oversees backpage. The vast majority of the posts are killed because they are spam or inappropriate, not because they are selling sex, Ferrer said.
Groundswell, the interfaith group protesting the backpage. The group sent reporters across the country an article from a Tennessee newspaper that described how two adults were arrested for prostituting two girls, ages 15 and 16, for customers found on backpage. Last week, the district attorney in Brooklyn, N. Craigslist declined to comment. A Village Voice executive, who asked not to be named for revealing confidential information, said that backpage. It has spared little editorial muscle in trying to debunk the suggestion of a crisis in child sex trafficking.
It has run two lengthy stories, publishing them in all 13 of its publications, which most often choose to cover topics locally. The stories suggested that nonprofit operators gain financial support by inflating the magnitude of the child sex trade. The second cover story cited social science researchers to debunk the idea that the principal threat comes from predators, who force teens into the sex trade. One of those quoted was Ric Curtis, chair of the Anthropology Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, who found after hundreds of interviews that the majority of youths selling sex made the transactions themselves, without a pimp or other intermediary.
