[dropcap size=big]T[/dropcap]o hear Brian Calle describe it, he is saving the LA Weekly, not killing it.
A self-described 'right-leaning' former opinion editor for L.A.’s suburban newspaper network (including flagship paper Orange County Register), Calle is now the 37-year-old publisher of the Weekly, and in the middle of an unusual media storm.
After his group of investors went in and bought the Weekly late last year, immediately gutting the staff, something at the core of the city’s ever-fervent radical bent was ignited. People were incensed that what seemed like a shadowy cabal of coastal Republicans-slash-technocratic Democrats was snatching away the LA Weekly brand.
There was a “funeral” protest on the sidewalk outside its offices a week after the sale, and that was only the beginning.