This is a news report from an Arizona TV station with actual footage of Village Voice media CEO and asshole-in-charge Mike Lacey at an awards dinner last week, where he called a white journalist friend "my nigger" during an acceptance speech (the word is bleeped, but YOU know what he says). This report nicely juxtaposes Lacey's comment with the other item of business at the awards dinner: the 82-year-old mother of recently deceased black journalist Bob Moran accepting an award on his behalf. Classy. At least Lacey prefaces his comment with "if you don't mind the expression...," which is always a bad sign. Click to watch the clip.

Mike Lacey, the pugnacious chief of Village Voice Media and overlord of alt-weeklies across America, is known to be a man not afraid to speak his mind. In fact, he's the self-proclaimed "asshole in charge." So attendees at a Phoenix Society of Professional Journalists awards dinner last Friday might have expected Lacey to say something interesting when he accepted an award on behalf of one of his papers [East Valley Tribune]. But they were less than amused when (the white man) Lacey referred to his deceased friend, Pulitzer Prize-winning [UPDATE: also white] journalist Tom Fitzpatrick, as "my nigger."

All charges against Village Voice Media executives Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin were dropped over the weekend, and the special prosecutor running the case against their paper, the Phoenix New Times, has been fired. (The paper was exploring misconduct by a local law official.) The Arizona State Bar is now investigating the prosecutor's conduct in the case, in which there were "serious missteps," according to the county D.A., who... is now also being investigated by the bar!

The co-founders of New Times, now known as Village Voice Media*, were arrested last night ("led away in handcuffs," according to their press release), at their homes in Phoenix, AZ, on misdemeanor charges related to revealing details of a grand jury investigation. Mike Lacey, the company's executive editor, and Jim Larkin, VVM's CEO, revealed in a story published yesterday in the Phoenix New-Times, that the paper is the target of a grand jury investigation stemming from a long-running feud with mercenary county sheriff Joe Arpaio. A few hours later, they were in the pokey themselves.