Tony Orte­ga, for­mer­ly of our own Pitch Week­ly, will be the edi­tor in chief of the Vil­lage Voice:

Orte­ga, 43, who start­ed his career with New Times (now Vil­lage Voice) Media in 1995 at the Phoenix New Times, will take the reins on Coop­er Square lat­er this week, accord­ing to Vil­lage Voice Media exec­u­tive edi­tor Michael Lacey.

“It’s an incred­i­ble news­pa­per, an incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty, and some­thing that I’ve dreamed about for a long time,” Orte­ga said of the Voice edi­tor­ship. “If you are in the alter­na­tive press, and you’re ambi­tious, that’s always the Mount Ever­est of the alter­na­tive world. I didn’t real­ly think it was attain­able, but Mike [Lacey, exec­u­tive edi­tor] sur­prised me and said yes.”

Tony was a great guy for the blog­gers when he was at the Pitch, pub­lish­ing short snip­pets from the local blogs and help­ing ele­vate sto­ries from blogs into the print media. The Voice is an insti­tu­tion, and I think Tony is a great pick – some­one who will keep it edgy and smart with­out get­ting bogged down in the insti­tu­tion. Tony appre­ci­ates that the alter­na­tive media are not just on paper any more, and bring new voic­es and angles to the flag­ship of the alter­na­tive press.

Con­grats, Tony, you deserve it!