New York Press Weekly To Refashion Its Image, New Editor Says

The New York Press, a troubled alternative weekly with a bare-bones staff and budget and a streak of nasty humor, will soon be refashioning itself as a more sober-minded newspaper with longer essays, fiction, travelogues, and a centrist political voice, according to its new editor.

The owner of the Press, Avalon Equity Partners in New York City, is putting the city's second-largest free weekly into the hands of 27-year-old Harry Siegel, son of an urban historian, Fred Siegel. Harry Siegel is founder of the cultural and political blog New Partisan, which models itself after the defunct neoconservative journal Partisan Review.

He replaces as editor Alexander Zaitchik, whose tenure at the top of the masthead lasted less than six months. Mr. Zaitchik succeeded Jeff Koyen, who resigned after infuriating owners by running a widely condemned cover story, "The 52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope," by a contributing editor, Matt Taibbi. The article, which crudely mocked the dying Pope John Paul II with jokes about bodily functions, generated fury from city politicians.

Mr. Siegel said yesterday in a telephone interview that he wants to create a newspaper "for people who aren't ideologues and are interested in argument and reason." At the moment, he said, "There's no game in this town." He's a fierce critic of Mayor Bloomberg, an admirer of Mayor Giuliani, and a registered Democrat who says it's a scandal that a family in New York City with a six-figure income "is barely making it."

The first issue under Mr. Siegel's editorship hits plastic boxes August 24.

With the hiring of Mr. Siegel and the departure of Mr. Zaitchik, the owners of the Press are essentially starting over again. Shortly after buying the Press from Russ Smith, who founded the paper in 1988, Avalon Equity, led by David Unger, brought in Mr. Koyen and Mr. Zaitchik, former expatriates in the Czech Republic who edited the English-language Prague Pill. The Press sought to win over readers with a proudly displayed disgust for the city's cultural and political elite.

Responding last night to a request for comment, Mr. Zaitchik said: "I don't really want to talk about the last two years."

The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies lists the Press's circulation at 116,000 as of June 2003, a little less than half that of the Village Voice.

Mr. Siegel said that to a degree he is taking the paper back in time. "Under Russ Smith, the paper represented a more credible, serious, and ideologically open alternative to the Voice, and I'd like to see it again that way," he said, with a thick Brooklyn accent.

This spring, Mr. Siegel wrote a long essay that ridiculed the second novel by a best-selling author, Jonathan Safran Foer of Park Slope, Brooklyn. The book was called "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," and Mr. Siegel's piece was titled "Extremely Cloying & Incredibly False."

Mr. Smith, who still writes a weekly column for the Press, called Mr. Siegel "a terrific writer" with an editorial vision "that is very diverse and concentrates on the quality of writing."

Readers can expect many of the New Partisan contributors to show up in the Press. Mr. Siegel said he's hired playwright Jonathan Leaf, a frequent contributor to the Web journal, as a senior editor. For his debut issue, he's planning a cover piece about a murder in Washington Heights this year that he says was ignored by the press.

Before starting New Partisan, Mr. Siegel, a 2000 graduate of Brandeis University, worked as an editor and editorial writer for The New York Sun, as one of the three-year-old newspaper's original staff members. He assisted his father in researching "Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life," published this summer.