15 Aug 10th–Aug 16th, 2023 phoenixnewtimes.com phoenix new Times | cONTeNTs | feeDBacK | OPiNiON | NeWs | feaTuRe | NighT+Day | culTuRe | film | cafe | music | to the Kent State Massacre that May and the anti-war movement sweeping across college campuses. Larkin, who grew up in Phoenix, introduced himself to Lacey with a handwritten note outlining the history of the local power structure in 1972. That’s when Lacey invited Larkin, a waiter at the time, to join the paper. “I remember going over to Michael’s house . . . and he had just come back from giving blood (to raise money for the paper),” Larkin told journalist and former New Times staff writer and columnist Stephen Lemons in a May 2020 story exploring the early days of the paper. “And this is the guy that hired me? I thought to myself, ‘I better keep my night job at the restaurant.’” Larkin was named publisher and president of the paper in 1974. The pair exited the company within a few years, but launched a stockholder revolt in 1977 that reinstated them as executives. By the late 1980s, Lacey and Larkin had built the small paper into a major force and had begun to acquire alt- weeklies around the country, begin- ning with Denver Westword and Miami New Times. They were, as Phoenix Magazine put it back in 1990, the pioneering “new presslords” of alternative journalism. It was just the beginning of their business ventures that eventually grew to include 17 papers and garnered hundreds of jour- nalism awards. “Jim Larkin’s passing has torn at my heart,” Lacey wrote of Larkin’s death in an Aug. 2 statement to Front Page Confidential, a site focusing on free speech issues operated by Larkin and Lacey and edited by Lemons. “I knew him for over 40 years as we pursued stories across America, literally from sea to shining sea.” “Jim was a businessman, and he recognized and created a market for alternative newsweeklies. He cut trail where most perceived only risk,” Lacey wrote. “Above all of his works, however, he was a family man. A loyal husband, he reveled in his six children.” Larkin was resolutely unafraid to take on the powerful. “He relished the fight. And I think that sustained him,” remembered Tom Finkel, editor-in- chief of Miami New Times, and a long- time colleague of Larkin’s. Over the years, the publisher and his papers feuded with prominent figures, including former U.S. Sen. John McCain, embattled former Phoenix police Chief Ruben Ortega and Vice President Kamala Harris, who pursued Larkin and Lacey as California attorney general. Larkin’s family pointed to that legacy of challenging public officials in their statement last week. “Jim Larkin’s publications and unwillingness to compromise on the value of free speech drew the attention and ire of powerful interests throughout his career. Jim shouldered the burdens forced upon him head-on with the full support of his family and friends,” the family said. “Above all else, Jim’s proudest achievement is his family, his six adult children, four grandchildren and his marriage to his wife. He was brilliant, kind, humble and compassionate. Our world will not be the same without this uniquely caring, strong and noble man, but we will continue to honor Lacey (left) and Larkin sometime in the 1980s. Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin ‘He Relished the Fight’ from p 13 >> p 17
