Village Voice Media says Kristof’s facts were wrong

The Village Voice | The New York Times
An unbylined blog post on the Village Voice’s website rebuts Nicholas Kristof’s Sunday column about human trafficking and Backpage.com, the Village Voice Media-owned classifieds company.

A video that accompanied his online op-ed was headlined: “Age 16, She Was Sold on Backpage.com”

That is not true.

According to Alissa’s court testimony, she was 16 in 2003. Backpage.com did not exist anywhere in America in 2003.

According to Alissa’s court testimony, she left the streets, where she’d been viciously savaged, and came to the FBI’s attention in August, 2005. She was quickly relocated away from the corners and hotels she worked in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Atlantic City, streets where thugs had pimped out the underage victim.

In the summer of 2005 Backpage.com did not exist in Boston, New York, Philadelphia or Atlantic City.

“It’s interesting that Village Voice doesn’t dispute anything in my column or the accompanying video, but only the online blurb for the video,” Kristof writes in response to the response.

All during 2004, she was 16 years old, traveling up and down the east coast being pimped. Backpage operated in at least 11 cities during 2004, including Miami and Fort Lauderdale, both of them cities Alissa … says she was pimped on Backpage. Then at 17, as Backpage expanded to 30 cities including Boston, she was pimped even more broadly on Backpage — and also in Village Voice print ads, she says.

Kristof also says he’s “been an admirer of Village Voice over the years.” But, he writes, “it’s really sad to see Village Voice Media become a major player in sex trafficking, and to see it use its journalists as attack dogs for those who threaten its corporate interests.”