A Dark Day for Arizona Journalism: Jim Larkin, co-founder of Phoenix New Times, dead at 74
Phoenix New Times co-founder Jim Larkin died Monday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Larkin and Phoenix New Times co-founder Michael Lacey were set to stand re-trial this coming week in federal court on charges relating to their former ownership of classified website, Backpage.
Lacey and Larkin established Phoenix New Times in the early 1970s, in response to the Kent State Massacre. Through the years, Phoenix New Times earned a reputation for taking on stories that the Arizona press establishment was unwilling, or too timid, to tell. This included rattling the cages of powerful lawmakers, law enforcement, the influential and wealthy, the corrupt.
New Times, and other award-winning alternative weekly papers founded around the nation by Larkin and Lacey, truly afflicted the comfortable while proving comfort to the afflicted.
New Times’ reporting did not dwell exclusively on Phoenix, but also provided coverage to other parts of the state where investigative reporting was needed. This included Cochise County. In 2019, New Times published investigative reporting detailing influence exerted by Howard Buffett (son of Warren Buffett) over the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office and his private border enforcement efforts. In the same year, New Times broke reporting detailing “We Build the Wall’s” fraudulent activities in the county, and throughout southern Arizona.
As the author of those reports, I can definitely say that— without a doubt— none of that reporting would have ever come to light if it were not for New Times’ willingness to take on tough, and potentially risky, subject matter.
In 2012, Larkin and Lacey sold New Times and their other weekly publications to a group of longtime employees. The pair continued to operate Backpage, an online classifieds publication they had founded in 2004. In 2015, Larkin and Lacey sold Backpage.
Though the Backpage adult classifieds section was discontinued in 2017, and had contained the same types of classified ads regularly found in many alternative weekly adult classified sections, the federal government seized and closed the site in 2018. Federal prosecutors then charged Larkin and Lacey with facilitation of prostitution and related charges stemming from their previous ownership of Backpage. In response, Larkin and Lacey argued that their publication of classified ads was protected under the First Amendment and that they had no role in whatever business activities their advertisers engaged in.
In 2021, the first federal prosecution of Larkin and Lacey on these charges ended in a mistrial. Federal prosecutors were set to commence a second attempt at trial on these charges this coming week. Currently, the trial of Michael Lacey is set to begin on August 8.
Former New Times writer Stephen Lemons has been editor and writer at Front Page Confidential for the past several years. The site, published by Larkin and Lacey, has covered their case, as well as related First Amendment issues, exhaustively.
To learn more about how the federal government has sought to prosecute, seize the assets of, and imprison Lacey and Larkin, please visit the site and read Lemon’s reporting.
An especially worthwhile read is Michael Lacey’s account of his home being raided by federal agents in 2018.
Of Larkin’s passing, Lemons told Cochise Regional News:
“I lost one of my heroes. I’m greatly saddened. He was a great man, and I loved him for what he stood for. I’m sorry it ended this way.”
To read more about Larkin and Lacey’s legacy in the Arizona, and national, news media, as well as Larkin’s passing, please read:
— Phoenix New Times: “Jim Larkin, pioneering co-founder for Phoenix New Times, dead at 74.”
— Phoenix New Times: “Once Upon a Time in Tempe… the early days of Phoenix New Times.”
— Reason Magazine: “Backpage Founder, Alt-Weekly Entrepreneur, and Free Speech Warrior James Larkin Has Died.”