New Times, the parent company of Denver's Westword, is reported to be in talks to merge [2] with Village Voice Media. New Times owns 11 largely cookie-cutter newspapers; Village Voice owns six. Neither is performing up to expectations. (Westword columnist Michael Roberts recently admitted that times are tough [3] at the not-so-alternative-anymore weekly.) My pal Wick Allison, the publisher of Dallas' D Magazine, points out that the math here doesn't quite add up [4].