ST. LOUIS 鈥 The new face of what remains of the Riverfront Times has revealed himself, sort of.
In a social media thread from the RFT鈥檚 account Thursday morning, a man identifying himself as Jonathan 鈥淛D鈥 Davis claimed he was the new executive editor of the former alternative weekly newspaper that abruptly shut down in May.
Davis
He said he believed the RFT could 鈥渢hrive,鈥 and he defended the former news site鈥檚 recent slew of content promoting pornography on OnlyFans, arguing advertising dollars from such articles will keep other content on the RFT free.
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It鈥檚 unclear if Davis is the new owner of the publication and its website or just working to produce and aggregate content. His LinkedIn page says he spent 10 years working at Los Angeles-based engineering and manufacturing firm NEOTech, and it claims he founded executive search firm HireBetter and baseball scheduling service UmpHub in Austin, Texas.
Kimberly Davis, who is listed as founder and CEO of Austin-based , says on her company鈥檚 website that she married Davis in 2014 and describes him as a 鈥渟erial entrepreneur.鈥
For months, there was little hint about the new owner. A few articles on national topics, likely generated by artificial intelligence, popped up in the weeks following the sale but then disappeared. Then, in recent weeks, content promoting adult entertainment subscription service OnlyFans began appearing on RFT鈥檚 site. The posts promote women selling pornography on OnlyFans and lump them into 鈥渂est of鈥 categories based mostly on race or country of origin.
Davis addressed the use of OnlyFans content in his online post, saying that 500,000 people use Google to search for new OnlyFans 鈥渃ontent creators鈥 every day.
鈥淢y stance for RFT is that OnlyFans is a safe platform for self-expression,鈥 Davis wrote. 鈥淚t鈥檚 both wildly popular (200m users) and entirely legal. Building an editorial library that genuinely serves the people who are seeking out new Content Creators is an incredible business opportunity and we鈥檙e going to work hard to make ours the best. When my team writes helpful articles about topics like OnlyFans Creators and Weed, advertisers LOVE IT because it鈥檚 a great place for them to spend their budgets and get solid returns.鈥
Other former alt-weekly news sites such as the storied Village Voice and LA Weekly are
Davis claimed the RFT will still produce content about local venues and activities and that it does not use AI-generated content. He posted two articles on Wednesday. One was headlined 鈥5 things you must eat when in Chicago.鈥 The other, 鈥淔ive Fun Facts About Busch Stadium You Didn鈥檛 Know,鈥 incorrectly identifies Tony Faust as the founder of Anheuser-Busch and claims Busch Stadium is planning an expansion. (Faust, a renowned St. Louis restaurateur, was a close friend and later in-law of Adolphus Busch, who co-founded the brewery with Eberhard Anheuser.)
鈥淭he historical writing on the site was aggressively opinionated, fraught with author bias and overwhelmingly negative,鈥 Davis wrote in his online post. 鈥淎s a result, fewer people were reading it today than at any time in the last half century!... I get to ensure this is a publication that can be held up as a shining example for liberty. There will be sections on our site that you may want to visit to learn about a new band or find where the nearest Farmers鈥 Market is.鈥
Former RFT owner Chris Keating, who took sole ownership of the publication in August 2023 and sold it less than a year later, has said he is bound by a confidentiality agreement from revealing the publication鈥檚 buyer. Keating said declining revenue earlier this year prompted the sale, which resulted in the immediate layoff of the RFT鈥檚 11 employees and ended the publication鈥檚 nearly 50-year run of providing area readers a mix of food, bar and music coverage alongside longform journalism.
In an email Thursday, Keating said Davis鈥 posts were 鈥渘ews to him,鈥 and he insisted that the RFT web traffic was 鈥渧ery good鈥 at the time he sold it.
鈥淚 regret selling RFT and it makes my blood boil to see how this has transpired,鈥 Keating said.
Davis appears to have libertarian leanings. He reposted a video clip of Argentina鈥檚 eccentric libertarian president Javier Milei giving a speech and wrote: 鈥淚 wish we could vote for him.鈥 He also follows several accounts focused on online entrepreneurship and search engine optimization.
His says Davis is based in the St. Louis area. He could not be reached for comment.
Monica Obradovic of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
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