Village Voice Media-McGinn Meeting: Stalemate
It looked like Mike McGinn's tough-talking crusade against Village Voice Media might end Friday with a meeting between City officials and representatives of the media conglomerate, but both sides seem as entrenched as ever. According to a statement released after the meeting, McGinn's position is that the City will continue its advertising boycott of VVM-owned outlets, including the Seattle Weekly unless VVM's Backpage advertising service implements age-verification standards for its escort ads. Village Voice Media representatives told the Mayor that they were unable to agree to such a position, but would respond comprehensively in a week or two. And so, Mayor McGinn's boycott continues.
City officials, spearheaded by Mayor McGinn, have called Backpage an "accelerant" of child prostitution. The only safeguard for advertisements in the escort section is that the advertiser must click a box affirming that they're over 18. Perhaps these lax standards are the reason that, according to the Seattle City Government, 18 cases of underage prostitution over the last three years have been tied to Backpage. Backpage is far from the only site on which escorts advertise (craigslist and The Stranger, for example), but it's the only one that doesn't require photo ID, and the only one to have been implicated in an investigation of child prostitution (do we detect a pattern?).
With any potential resolution at least a week away, Mayor McGinn may be opening another avenue of attack: McGinn says he is "considering" asking other mayors to join the boycott.
Mike McGinn doesn't appear to be backing down. Whether it's a personal mission or just meant to be tonic for his sagging poll numbers, the Mayor has consistently refused to soften his position, rather doubling down on his rhetoric and activism at every turn. Presented with a foe as dogged as McGinn, it's unclear why VVM are holding firm. Backpage's erotic services bring in around $2.1 million annually, the kind of money that a company the size of Village Voice Media spends on shrimp cocktails for the corporate retreat. It's unthinkable that the company is genuinely greedy enough to want the revenue from the prostitution of children (isn't it?). Maybe they just object to the principle of being pushed around by a bearded liberal from Seattle.
As long as Mayor McGinn keeps fighting, we'll be here for blow-by-blow commentary.
