The Forum

The Riverfront Times died on the morning of May 22, 2024. It was sold by its owner to an unnamed buyer, and the entirety of its six-person staff was fired without notice or severance pay. None of the staffers met the new owner. Since then, the content of the alt-weekly newspaper has changed: Marijuana advertorials, OnlyFans advertorials, cryptocurrency and online gambling advertorials, and generic listicles. There is no more high-quality, defiant reporting, which the RFT had provided to its readers for decades.

Sarah Fenske was the executive editor of the RFT. She was summoned to a meeting with the then-owner of her beloved publication early in the morning of May 22. This, as she told St. Louis Public Radio, was “not good news,” in her experience as a journalist. When she attended the meeting, she was given the news that she and her entire staff was laid off because the newspaper had been sold. She then had to tell the rest of the RFT’s employees that they no longer had jobs at the publication. Photos and reporting from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that day would show an emotionally-raw and self-admittedly “heartbroken” Fenske handling her final tasks at the Riverfront Times–including packing up her office.

She, a prolific journalist, even outside the Riverfront Times, landed a job as the executive editor of St. Louis Magazine after the layoff and continues to host a monthly show called “the Legal Roundtable” at STLPR, which she has done since 2022. At the time of the buyout, she spoke about the tragedy of the Riverfront Times extensively online and continues to cover and criticize her former newspaper’s new direction.

Chris Keating, the man who sold the Riverfront Times, still owns a number of other publications through his company Big Lou Holdings. Keating had only bought the RFT a year prior in October 2023; at the time, he said, “Whether it’s great restaurant criticism or a deeply reported story that explains the most important issues facing our communities, people rely on these publications. I intend to make sure they not only survive but thrive in this new era.” Less than a year later, the Riverfront Times was sold.

JD Davis (Jonathan Davis) is the Riverfront Times’ new executive editor and is most likely the man who bought the alt-weekly publication. He’s a self-described entrepreneur with roots in both St. Louis and Austin, Texas, who, based on his LinkedIn profile, has bought numerous businesses throughout the years. The Riverfront Times’ new leader was first introduced to the public on August 1, when the RFT’s Twitter account posted a thread introducing and explaining the future of the alt-weekly under his executive editorship. In addition to badmouthing the former staff that had been fired only a couple of months earlier, Davis’ thread spent much of its length defending and praising the content that the RFT had been publishing since its purchase.

He has connections to an OnlyFans promotional company called FanFox; he, at one point, shared a phone number with both FanFox and the Riverfront Times. Two days before the sale of the RFT Davis had registered a new company–RSC Ventures–in Texas. RSC Ventures is managed by a company that Davis registered months later, on August 9: Ready Set Cam.

Jessica Rogen is the former managing editor at the Riverfront Times. She posted on the day the staff was fired: “Being at the RFT was the most fun I’ve ever had, and Sarah and the rest of this incredibly talented crew were the heart of it all.” She subsequently got a job as a digital editor at STLPR in August 2024, and has been diligently judging the details of the new Riverfront Times and JD Davis while there.

Rogen wrote the article initially reporting Davis’ connection to FanFox, published on August 5; JD Davis’ LinkedIn account still displays FanFox publicly. She also wrote the article detailing Davis’ two new companies: RSC Ventures and Ready Set Cam; This information was uncovered when STLPR “dug into incorporation documents, lawsuit filings and information from people close to the matter,” as Rogan wrote. She argued that Davis’ business is “an operation that is leveraging the RFT’s online reputation to fund a link-farming business run by out-of-state owners.”

Kallie Cox, another former employee, took to social media when they were fired to announce the turn of events, writing on Twitter (now X): “I was laid off today along with the entirety of the Riverfront Times staff. @rft is officially dead. It was an honor to work with my colleagues and I can say this is the best paper I’ve ever had the pleasure of working at.” They’re now a reporter at Missouri Lawyers Media and reflected on their time at the RFT in an article they wrote for the Gateway Journalism Review.

Former RFT reporter Ryan Krull was hired at St. Louis Magazine alongside Sarah Fenske after the Riverfront Times’ collapse. He works alongside Fenske to publish “St. Louis Daily”, a newsletter at the magazine. He continues to support and engage with his former colleagues on social media, occasionally sharing their posts and articles, particularly those related to the RFT itself.

Zachary Linhares, a visual journalist and former RFT staffer, said on the day of the sale: “St. Louis lost something special today.” He now works as a photographer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Linhares still talks about the Riverfront Times online, writing on August 1 “Folks. I really miss the RFT,” in a quote tweet of a portion of JD Davis’ infamous introduction thread.

Daniel Hill, RFT’s former editor-at-large, also posted about the mass firing on May 22. He has spent the last few months ruthlessly criticizing the new Riverfront Times on his Twitter account. While I wasn’t able to find what he currently does for work, his Twitter bio describes him as a “master of disguise,” and he seems to enjoy wearing a hotdog costume.

Former editorial intern Lauren Harpold retains an associate editor job she has had at December Magazine, an independent literary publication, since before she was fired from the Riverfront Times.

Across the country, local newspapers are fighting for their survival in a war of attrition. The River- front Times is not alone in its zombification; it’s an epidemic of the information era. Despite this, journalists will find a way to survive and even thrive, just as journalists have whenever there’s been turmoil. We have to.

Background

The Riverfront Times (RFT) began publishing in 1977 by Ray Hartmann and Mark Vittert, who in turn sold the newspaper in 1998 to New Times Media. Described as an alternative press, the RFT covered issues and concerns in the St. Louis and the surrounding region that were not always covered in traditional newspapers. The RFT also provided an extensive culture and arts section with reviews and events calendars. When the RFT began, St. Louisans were offered two daily newspapers, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1878-present), and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat (1852-1986).

The online version of the RFT today (Sept. 27, 2024) provides front-page articles about police cars, rappers reading program, and a regional story about the Cape Girardeau Public Library named Library of the Year in the state of Missouri. They still offer a “Culture” section, and a section titled “Trending,” which includes coverage of Hurricane Helene. However, when clicking on these articles, they take readers to websites from other news organizations.

At the bottom of the front page are also links to sections titled “After Dark,” which features numerous articles regarding OnlyFans, including one featuring Brianna Coppage, the Missouri teacher fired last year when school administrators found her on OnlyFans. The articles contain bylines, but there is no biographical information or photos about the journalists whose names include Monty Rushmore and Bryce Canyon. Under the section titled “Reeferfront Times,” there are five articles with bylines from Cathy Rozy, who is pictured and identified as the lead writer for Reeferfront Times. No other biographical information is provided.

“Editor’s Notes” at the end of each article stated RFT writers review each profile independently. “The editorial team does not handle advertising or affiliate revenue. Our writers neither know how stories are monetized, nor do they receive any commission. Instead, we pay them for their work. We do not engage in pay-for-play and accounts we review do not have input into our final story.”