17 Aug 10th–Aug 16th, 2023 phoenixnewtimes.com phoenix new Times | cONTeNTs | feeDBacK | OPiNiON | NeWs | feaTuRe | NighT+Day | culTuRe | film | cafe | music | his legacy every day. We love and miss him dearly,” the statement continued. Taking on Sheriff Joe Arpaio But nothing cemented Larkin’s legacy of supporting fearless reporting as did the New Times’ coverage of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who helmed the office for more than two decades. Under Larkin and Lacey, New Times uncovered countless misdeeds at the sheriff’s office — and in 2007, the sheriff arrested the two executives for exposing a grand jury probe into the paper for its reporting. The charges against them were eventually dropped, and they won a $3.75 million settlement in 2013 after suing the sheriff. They donated the money to their nonprofit, the Lacey and Larkin Frontera Fund, to distribute to local Hispanic groups. Arpaio offered this comment on Larkin’s passing when reached by phone two days after his death: “He had a job to do. And he did what he felt was right.” It was the reporting of John Dougherty, a writer at the New Times from 1993 to 2006, that focused on Arpaio’s shady real estate dealings that kicked off the grand jury saga. “I was very proud to be part of the team,” Dougherty recalled in a phone inter- view on Aug. 2. He remembered Larkin as a “class act,” and a publisher who was willing to invest in the writers working at his papers. “If Lacey bought off on a story, Larkin was going to make sure the money came,” Dougherty said. With Larkin as publisher, he said, reporters chased stories that other media outlets shied away from. “It was because we had the freedom to follow the stories, and we had the support of the publisher. And the publisher was Jim Larkin.” Finkel shared similar sentiments, remembering Larkin as “a man of extreme integrity.” “He never stopped being a journalist at heart. In the fiber of his being, he had the DNA of doing what these papers did,” he said. Larkin and Lacey sold their company — since renamed Voice Media Group — in 2012 to a group of longtime company executives. After the sale, the pair continued to run Backpage, which they launched along with Carl Ferrer in 2004 to compete with Craigslist. Scott Tobias, Voice Media Group’s CEO, said Larkin’s work still impacts the company today. “Jim was a visionary, a serial entre- preneur, and a mentor,” Tobias said. “For those of us who worked close to him, we will remember him as incred- ibly smart, tenacious and aggressive in all things that he did. The journalistic and media enterprise that Jim and Mike Lacey founded is part of the fabric that Voice Media Group is today. There is no denying their impact. Our thoughts are with Jim’s family.” Larkin and Lacey sold Backpage in 2015 and the site closed its adult ad section in 2017. Federal officials seized the site and shut it down in 2018. Federal trial delayed until late August Larkin’s death came just days before a new trial was set to begin in the U.S. Department of Justice’s long-running case against Backpage and its executives. The first trial, which began in Lacey (left) and Larkin hold up a California judge’s order in August 2017 tossing out criminal charges against them. Below, they appeared at a U.S. Senate hearing in 2017. Stephen Lemons Permanent Sub-Committee on Investigations ‘He Relished the Fight’ from p 15 >> p 19
