Phoenix New Times
Encyclopedia
The Phoenix New Times is a free, weekly Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...

 newspaper, put out every Thursday. It is the founding publication of the New Times Media
New Times Media
Village Voice Media is a privately held corporation headquartered in Phoenix.The company owns the Village Voice, America's oldest and largest alternative weekly newspaper, as well as LA Weekly, OC Weekly in Orange County, California, Seattle Weekly, City Pages in Minneapolis-St...

 (now Village Voice Media), but The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...

 is now the flagship publication of that company.

The paper was founded in 1970 by a group of students at Arizona State University
Arizona State University
Arizona State University is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona...

, led by Frank Fiore, Karen Lofgren, Michael Lacey, Bruce Stasium, Nick Stupey, Gayle Pyfrom, and later, Jim Larkin as a counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...

 response to the Kent State shootings
Kent State shootings
The Kent State shootings—also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre—occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970...

 in the spring of that year as an media arm of the SDS Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...

. Gary Brennan played a role in its creation. According to the 20th Anniversary issue of the New Times, published on May 2, 1990, Fiore suggested that the anti-war crowd put out its own paper. The first summer issues were called the Arizona Times and assembled in the staff's La Crescenta apartments across from ASU. The Arizona Times was renamed the New Times as the first college issue went to press in September 1970.

Not only does the paper cover Phoenix and Arizona news issues, it also provides reviews of local restaurants, theater, art exhibits and Hollywood motion picture releases, and provides a listing of various concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...

s for all genres of music. It also features nationally syndicated relationship advice columnist Dan Savage
Dan Savage
Daniel Keenan "Dan" Savage is an American author, media pundit, journalist and newspaper editor. Savage writes the internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column Savage Love. Its tone is frank in its discussion of sexuality, often humorous, and hostile to social conservatives, as in...

. Every year, the New Times puts out a "Best of" issue, highlighting the best in restaurants, Nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...

s, shops, and the like in Phoenix.

Arrest controversy

In October 2007, Maricopa County
Maricopa County, Arizona
-2010:Whereas according to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau:*73.0% White*5.0% Black*2.1% Native American*3.5% Asian*0.2% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander*3.5% Two or more races*12.7% Other races*29.6% Hispanic or Latino -2000:...

 sheriff's deputies arrested Lacey and Larkin on charges of revealing secret grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...

 information concerning the investigations of the New Timess long-running feud with Maricopa County sheriff
Sheriff
A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

 Joe Arpaio
Joe Arpaio
Joseph M. "Joe" Arpaio is the elected Sheriff of Maricopa County in the U.S. state of Arizona. First voted into office in 1992, Arpaio is responsible for law enforcement in Maricopa County. This includes management of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, county jail, courtroom security,...

. In July 2004, the New Times had published Arpaio's home address in the context of a story about his real estate dealings, which the County Attorney's office is investigating as a possible crime under Arizona state law. A special prosecutor served Village Voice Media with a subpoena ordering it to produce "all documents" related to the original real estate article, as well as "all Internet web site traffic information" to a number of articles that mentioned Arpaio. The prosecutor further ordered Village Voice Media to produce the IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...

es of all visitors to the Phoenix New Times website since January 1, 2004, as well as which websites those readers had been to prior to visiting. As an act of "civil disobedience
Civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...

," Lacey and Larkin published the contents of the subpoena on or around October 18, which resulted in their arrests the same day. On the following day, the county attorney dropped the case after declining to pursue charges against the two.

Prosecutors charge that the New Times had published Arpaio's personal home address, a crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

 in Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

. The special prosecutor's subpoena
Subpoena
A subpoena is a writ by a government agency, most often a court, that has authority to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoena:...

 included a demand for the names of all people who had read the Arpaio story on the newspaper's website. It was the revealing of the subpoena information by the New Times which led to the arrests. Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas
Andrew Thomas (prosecutor)
Andrew Peyton Thomas is an American politician and author. He served as the county attorney for Maricopa County in Arizona until April 1, 2010, when he announced his resignation, as required by Arizona law, in order to run for the office of Arizona Attorney General...

 has dropped the charges less than 24 hours after the two were arrested.

In the weeks following the arrest, members of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies
Association of Alternative Newsweeklies
The Association of Alternative Newsmedia is a diverse group of covering every major metropolitan area and other less-populated regions of North America. AAN members have a combined weekly circulation of over 6.5 million as well as a print readership of nearly 17 million active, educated and...

, which the Phoenix New Times are a part of, provided links on their websites to places where Arpaio's address could be found. This was done to show solidarity with the Phoenix New Times.

In February 2008 the paper filed a formal notice of claim, which is required by Arizona law in order to sue government officials.

External links

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