The Voice's firing procedures: Corina Zappia

Corina Zappia is out at The Village Voice - see this Eat the Press post. The last part about her not having a negative performance review nor being given any warning seems to be the standard m.o. there from several people I've talked to who no longer work at The Village Voice. I was just a freelancer but that's how it went down with me and that single phone call from Blum, my only contact with him.

Zappia worked for the internet division and reported directly to Bill Jensen. Reached this morning by phone, Zappia confirmed the news and said that Jensen sent her an email Wednesday night asking her to meet with him the following afternoon. Prior to that email, said Zappia, she had not had any contact with Jensen, nor did they have an email relationship (according to Zappia, he misspelled her name in the email). "It was the first time I'd ever heard of anything," Zappia said. Zappia brought the paper's diversity representative Keisha Franklin and other union representatives Tom Robbins and Lynn Yaeger to the meeting with Jensen the next afternoon where he laid her off. According to Zappia, who wrote the Voice's "Eye of the Potato" television blog as well as contributing pieces on fashion, nightlife and pop culture to the website, she had not had a negative performance review nor been given any sort of warning.