Posted by Community on November 21, 2010 at 10:16:37:
Posted by Michael Miner on Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 6:54 PM
Kiki Yablon announced to her staff Thursday that she has resigned as editor of the Reader and will be leaving the paper in mid-December.
Yablon, who joined the Reader as music editor in July of 1996, rose to managing editor in 2002, and succeeded Alison True as editor after True was fired in June. At that time, this paper's shocked editorial staff was consoled by the knowledge that the new editor had the same stubborn regard for accuracy and clarity as the old and would continue to drive writers nuts with her meticulous line editing.
Yablon's departure is not the other shoe falling. "Do an editor and publisher ever see eye to eye on everything?" she asked rhetorically, but she wants it understood her resignation has nothing to do with her relationship with publisher Alison Draper and assistant publisher Geoff Dougherty. She's simply decided to take a job outside journalism. "I'm interested in thinking about a completely different set of problems. I'm interested in doing something else," she told me. The staff's dismay on getting this news was compounded by the lack of any obvious successor.
To add a personal note, Yablon's rock 'n' rolling alter ego — guitarist for the Dishes and then the Red Eyed Legends — had me off-balance for years and astonished when I eventually realized that sheer proximity had turned us into good friends. I still can't quite fathom her blend of syllogistic obsessiveness and tattooed cool, but I can't picture the Reader without it.