The Riverfront Times’ new editor-in-chief is a familiar face.
Four years after leaving the Riverfront Times to lead the alt-weekly’s former sister paper, LA Weekly, Sarah Fenske is returning to replace Chad Garrison, who left journalism in February, as editor-in-chief. She’ll be the first RFT chief to work under the Ohio-based Euclid Media Group, which announced buying the RFT Wednesday from the Voice Media Group.
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“It’s kind of a crazy decision to be doing this, but it just goes to show, once you get alt-weeklies in your blood, it’s very hard to get them out,” Fenske tells SLM.
Fenske’s return is a familiar story for St. Louis expatriates: Los Angeles is as expensive as it is intoxicating, Fenske says, and she and her husband, a St. Louis native, were priced out of their life in California.
“We knew that wasn’t the only way of life because we had both lived in St. Louis and loved St. Louis,” Fenske says.
St. Louis’ affordable cost of living is particularly attractive to Fenske now that she’s almost six months pregnant.
“St. Louis was the only city we really considered,” she says. “We both love St. Louis. It was where we wanted to build the rest of our lives.”
Fenske had already moved to St. Louis, joining Feast Magazine in November, when the Riverfront Times’ former owners announced the possibility of selling the paper.
“I feel bad I don’t get to stay longer [at Feast Magazine] and finish what I started,” Fenske says. “But at heart, I’m a hard news girl.”
Fenske isn’t the only one coming back to the Riverfront Times. Euclid’s chief operating officer Michael Wagner is a Missouri native and former publisher of St. Louis’ alt-weekly.
“We share a passion for the St. Louis area and are beyond excited for the opportunity to do our thing here,” Wagner said in a statement. “I’ve always had enormous respect for the RFT and have been a reader since I was a teenager. I worked there under some great mentors, so this is a bit of a homecoming.”
Euclid Media Group also owns outlets in Cleveland, Detroit, Orlando and San Antonio.
SLM has reached out to Wagner for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
(Note: SLM staff writer Lindsay Toler previously worked for Riverfront Times, after Fenske’s 2011 departure.)
