Style Weekly resumed publication under new ownership a few months after this article was published.
The Sept. 4, 1984, cover of Style, its first issue as a weekly publication
Last week’s announcement, via a Facebook message from Style Weekly Editor-in-Chief Brent Baldwin, that the alternative weekly newspaper would cease to publish after its Sept. 8 issue came the day before the 12-ton, 61-foot-tall statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was removed from its marble pedestal on Monument Avenue.
The timing was poignant, given that Style’s first cover as a weekly (it was originally founded in 1982 as a monthly publication) featured a multicolored rendition of Lee’s visage and an essay written by Garrett Epps titled “Notes From a Native Son.” In it, Epps introduced Style Weekly to the city and posed a prescient question: “How does the character of a place survive in a time of almost total change?”
Style’s founder, Lorna Wyckoff, notes that the cover art was chosen to send a message. “We wanted people to know we weren’t interested in preserving the status quo,” she recalls. “We wanted to behold the future, to help the city grow and to show the world that Richmond was more than the former capital of the Confederacy and home of Massive Resistance."
Yet, even as plans for Style’s wake are being organized by former Style employees, rumors are circulating that numerous parties are seeking to save the publication. But nobody will talk on the record. The fact that its website is still online offers some hope, though civic leaders, business owners and historians worry about what will happen to the publication's archive and photography collection.
Its most recent staff members deflect questions, apologetically explaining that they can make no comment. Multiple emails and calls to Alden Global Capital, the New York-based hedge fund that in late May bought Style, along with several other newspapers from its previous owner, Tribune Publishing, have gone unanswered.
Alden has a reputation for cutting costs by reducing the number of journalists working on its newspapers. In a February column, Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan said, “Those who know anything about local journalism in America are in general agreement: Being bought by Alden is the worst possible fate for the newspapers and the communities involved.”
"I think it’s a shame that a company with so many resources, a hedge fund with billions of dollars, is going to crush a profitable and popular place where people got local journalism,” says Jason Roop, Style’s editor-in-chief from 2005 to 2017.
The news led many readers, reporters and editors (past and present) to take to social media, where they lamented Style’s loss. Many readers thanked the weekly paper for helping them find their first apartment, plan weekends and figure out the best venues for everything from picnics and prom dates to popping the question.
In an interview, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine says he was sad to hear about Style's demise. “I credit Style — and Anne — with helping me decide that Richmond would be my new hometown, the place where we wanted to raise a family,” says the former Richmond City Council member, mayor, Virginia lieutenant governor, governor and vice-presidential candidate. Style published its first weekly issue in 1984, when Kaine and his wife, Anne B. Holton, decided to make Richmond their home.
“Anne and I used it to plan our weekends, and I used it to learn about Richmond and to get a sense of all the people here, people from all walks of life,” he says. Kaine even wrote a cover story for Style chronicling a trip that he and other governors made to visit U.S. troops in Iraq in 2006.
He says he worries when he hears of newspapers dying, because whether they’re in print or online, newspapers “give people an understanding of their communities.”
Richard Foster, editor and chief content officer at Virginia Business Media and a former Style Weekly assistant editor (and former Richmond magazine executive editor), says he doesn’t understand the abrupt nature of the announcement and decries the lack of a farewell edition. “To say goodbye is simply a sign of good manners,” he says.
Janet Freisner, a former Style reporter (and former Richmond magazine columnist) says, "I can’t say I was surprised to see Style go in this current climate — it’s a very bleak landscape for local newspapers. Still, I’m in shock. And I’m trying to wrap my head around this city without Style.”
She notes that one of Style’s “superpowers” was that the paper "introduced Richmond to people in the community they otherwise might never have heard of. They told stories from the margins and elevated voices from all corners of Richmond. … Style’s stories provided context and perspective and tried to answer the question that Ed Slipek was always asking in the newsroom: ‘But what does it mean?’ ”
Scott Bass, a former Style Weekly editor who’s now the editor of the Chesterfield Observer, says, “To me, what makes Style unique is the community it created. There was this instant bond between current and former editors, reporters and photographers, a sense of journalistic mission that permeated everyone who worked there and everything we did. There was an unspoken standard, a bar that we were all expected to meet and advance forward. It was if we were always working to not disappoint those who came before us.
“And that’s such a powerful, beautiful thing. The staff that remained until the bitter end, refusing to go quietly, even covering the removal of the Lee statue this week a day after being informed of Style’s demise, is a testament to that spirit.”
Memories of Style
“It was birthed during my college years, so it has always been a part of my adult life. I have grown up with this paper, and each week eagerly looked for a copy on the neighborhood stands. Style always had the pulse of the city emanating from its pages. If I wanted to know what was going on for the week, I looked to Style's calendar, which listed all of the cultural and entertainment activities. In fact, I often planned my weekend by that calendar. I will miss it greatly. Thank you for the memories — I feel like I have lost a close friend.”
—Jonathan Davis, president, Richmond Crusade for Voters
“Working at Style is something I'm still recovering from financially, but that's the trick it pulled: Everything I wrote seemed to matter. I moved down here to work for Style, my first full-time job in journalism. I know dozens and dozens wrote for Style, but how many moved here for it? I was so proud to get that chance.”
—Tom Nash, former Style reporter (and former Richmond magazine contributor)
“From what I can see as an outside observer, it sure looks like Alden shut down Style not because it cost a lot but because it wasn’t generating enough income. It’s very possible that Style could have kept going for years the way it has been, with limited resources and low costs. But Alden apparently decided otherwise. Instead of nurturing Style, they just killed it.”
—Greg Weatherford, senior director of communications, VCU School of Pharmacy, former managing editor/executive editor of Style Weekly (and Richmond magazine contributor)
“When Lorna called me, she basically offered me the chance to write about the subjects that mattered to me, and doing that, even from a distance, was fun. I remember a piece about the end of Parker Field that was fun to write and was liked by a lot of people who were not inclined to welcome my byline. I also recall that the last piece I did for Style was a brief obituary for my dear friend and mentor Ray Boone, editor of The [Richmond Afro-American] and then of The Richmond Free Press.
—Garrett Epps, professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, former Style contributor
"What I liked about Style Weekly was its ability to capture the zeitgeist of the week and the energy of Richmond and Richmonders from every spectrum: political, educational, artistic and community. I will truly miss this weekly publication that sought to slice through all the layers that are Richmond."
—Viola Baskerville, former Richmond City Council member, vice-mayor, member of Virginia House of Delegates, and secretary of administration for Gov. Kaine and retired CEO of the Girls Scouts of Virginia
“I started with Style Weekly when they went from a monthly to a weekly. As the head photographer, I shot many covers in my nearly 10 years at Style, way too many to remember. But when I think back at my time at Style, one cover does stand out … the South Side Strangler. Many may not remember, but the strangler's first victim was a Style employee, Debbie [Davis], a really sweet woman. Early on, before the strangler struck again, the authorities wondered if the attack was Style-related. In fact, someone who I had recently photographed in the studio and took downstairs to meet Debbie was an early suspect.
“At the time I was also the creative director, so I was given much freedom and latitude for cover concepts. But this cover was a tough one, perhaps too close to home. As the crow flies, Debbie lived less than a mile from me. … Anyway, I was struggling with a cover shot or concept, so one night I just grabbed my gear and went over to Debbie’s street. It was like 3 a.m., and I was scared numb. I walked down the street until I found the right light and composition — I set my tripod up in the middle of the street, just shy of Debbie’s house. Looking back, many might have not understood the significance of the photo, but to me, it spoke volumes.”
—Kent Eanes, former Style photographer
“Style was a pretty special corner of Richmond journalism. It was probably the most frenetic newsroom I’ve ever worked in, and it pushed reporters to do better and more. It wasn’t the daily paper, but we frequently beat the Times-Dispatch to breaking news, and then beat them again with the in-depth follow-up. And I couldn’t have worked there at a more exciting time. Doug Wilder was mayor, running roughshod over City Council and the school board. And city schools were at it with their own antics — all of which made for a beautiful combustible mess when Wilder’s rumored plans to kick the RPS central office out of its prime real estate in City Hall came true. And in true Emperor Wilder fashion, he’d marshaled the police department and public works and the city’s department of emergency management to make it happen, locking down city hall, violating open government laws by preventing reporters from attending an emergency school board meeting, and violating about every student privacy law there is by having contracted moving crews to manhandle student records, scattering many files on the street outside as they went. That was the real power of the alt-weekly. Reporters had the freedom to be vigorous in their curiosity; to ask why and not accept a blanket ‘because’ as enough of an answer. Style held feet to the fire, and did it with, what else? Style.”
—Chris Dovi, co-founder and executive director of CodeVA, former reporter for Style Weekly and The Richmond Times-Dispatch, and former Richmond magazine contributor
Carol A.O. Wolf, Richmond magazine Editorial Director Jessica Ronky Haddad, photographer Jay Paul and Arts & Entertainment Editor Craig Belcher all previously worked at Style Weekly.
