• There's a lot of backbiting and infighting at the Los Angeles Times, which is completely unusual behavior at a major newspaper. [NYT]
  

At last, two gigantic David Blum post-mortems. Huffington Post's Rachel Sklar—who needs to learn that it's not all hugs and kisses in this business—seems to think Blum has been tarred as a racist, when he should really have been tarred as an incompetent. (Actually, she doesn't say that. Apparently, he sure was nice when he edited her "SNL" piece. He was pretty helpful while she was writing this essay, too.) The Observer's Michael Calderone, leaning more heavily on reporting than analysis, supports the hell out of the "couldn't edit a bus ticket" theory.

Editor David Blum has left the Village Voice, the staff has just been informed. A meeting took place at 5:15 p.m. today at which staff were told that Blum was "no longer the editor of the paper" because he'd "made comments that were unacceptable," presumably, staff assumed, at the story meeting on Wednesday when the subject of race came up. According to one staffer present at that story meeting, nothing "outrageous" was said. According to another staffer, Blum was called on his heavily white hiring; Blum said he made no apology about being a "white male Jew from the Upper West Side," and was sorry he couldn't reach "Joe Jones from Flatbush."

"I'm sorry, David, I can't. I just can't."

• Yes, Eat the Press just compared Nick Denton-Nick Douglas to Sumner Redstone-Tom Freston. Not the analogy we would make, but what do we know. [Eat the Press]
  

Add to the list of recently canned Voice employees film critic Michael Atkinson. We're hearing that his replacement is current NYT screener Nathan Lee, a friend of Voice EIC David Blum from their days at the Sun. As it turns out, being a friend of Blum's is a great way to get work at the Voice, but not as great a way as having learned at the feet of the master.