''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first

alternative Alternative or alternate may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Alternative (''Kamen Rider''), a character in the Japanese TV series ''Kamen Rider Ryuki'' * ''The Alternative'' (film), a 1978 Australian television film * ''The Alternative ...

newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by

Dan Wolf Daniel A. Wolf (born August 11, 1957) is an American entrepreneur, aircraft pilot, and politician. In 1989, he founded the Cape Cod-based airline Cape Air, which originally flew between Provincetown, Massachusetts, Provincetown and Boston in Ma ...

, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the creative community of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It ceased publication in 2017, although its online archives remained accessible. After an ownership change, the ''Voice'' reappeared in print as a quarterly in April 2021. Over its 63 years of publication, ''The Village Voice'' received three

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...

s, the

National Press Foundation The National Press Foundation is a nonprofit journalism training organization. It educates journalists on complex issues and trains them in reporting tools and techniques. It recognizes and encourages excellence in journalism through its awards. ...

Award, and the

George Polk Award The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awar ...

. ''The Village Voice'' hosted a variety of writers and artists, including writer

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

, cartoonist

Lynda Barry Linda Jean Barry (born January 2, 1956) is an American cartoonist. Barry is best known for her weekly comic strip '' Ernie Pook's Comeek''. She garnered attention with her 1988 illustrated novel ''The Good Times are Killing Me'', about an inter ...

, artist

Greg Tate Gregory Stephen Tate (October 14, 1957December 7, 2021) was an American writer, musician, and producer. A long-time critic for '' The Village Voice'', Tate focused particularly on African-American music and culture, helping to establish hip ...

, and film critics Andrew Sarris, Jonas Mekas and

J. Hoberman James Lewis Hoberman (born March 14, 1949) is an American film critic, journalist, author and academic. He began working at '' The Village Voice'' in the 1970s, became a full-time staff writer in 1983, and was the newspaper's senior film critic ...

. In October 2015, ''The Village Voice'' changed ownership and severed all ties with former parent company Voice Media Group (VMG). The ''Voice'' announced on August 22, 2017, that it would cease publication of its print edition and convert to a fully digital venture, on a date to be announced. Leland, John, and Sarah Maslin Nir (August 22, 2017)
"After 62 Years and Many Battles, Village Voice Will End Print Publication"
''The New York Times''. . The final printed edition, featuring a 1965 photo of

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

on the cover, was distributed on September 21, 2017. After halting print publication in 2017, the ''Voice'' provided daily coverage through its website until August 31, 2018, when it announced it was ceasing production of new editorial content. On December 23, 2020, editor R.C. Baker announced that the paper would resume publishing new articles both online and in a quarterly print edition. In January 2021, new original stories began being published again on the website. A spring print edition was released in April 2021. The ''Voice'' website continues to feature archival material related to current events.

History

Early history

The ''Village Voice'' was launched by Ed Fancher, Dan Wolf, and Norman MailerLawrence van Gelder
Dan Wolf, 80, a Village Voice Founder, Dies
, ''The New York Times'', April 12, 1996. Accessed online June 2, 2008. on October 26, 1955, from a two-bedroom apartment in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

; that was its initial coverage area, which expanded to other parts of the city by the 1960s. In 1960, it moved from 22 Greenwich Avenue to 61

Christopher Street Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th Street west of Sixth Avenue. It is most notable for the Stonewall Inn, which is located on Christopher St ...

in a landmark triangular corner building adjoining Sheridan Square, and a few feet west of the Stonewall Inn; then, from the 1970s through 1980, at 11th Street and University Place; and then Broadway and 13th Street. It moved to Cooper Square in the East Village in 1991, and in 2013, to the Financial District. Early columnists of the 1950s and 1960s included Jonas Mekas, who explored the underground film movement in his "Film Journal" column;

Linda Solomon Linda Solomon (born May 10, 1937, Boston, Massachusetts) is an American music critic and editor. Although she has written about various aspects of popular culture, her main focus has been on folk music, blues, R&B, jazz and country music. Li ...

, who reviewed the Village club scene in the "Riffs" column; and Sam Julty, who wrote a popular column on car ownership and maintenance. John Wilcock wrote a column every week for the paper's first ten years. Another regular from that period was the cartoonist Kin Platt, who did weekly theatrical caricatures. Other prominent regulars have included Peter Schjeldahl, Ellen Willis,

Jill Johnston Jill Johnston (May 17, 1929 – September 18, 2010) was a British-born American feminist author and cultural critic who wrote '' Lesbian Nation'' in 1973 and was a longtime writer for ''The Village Voice''. She was also a leader of the lesbian ...

, Tom Carson, and Richard Goldstein. Staff of the ''Voice'' joined a union, the Distributive Workers of America, in 1977. For more than 40 years, Wayne Barrett was the newspaper's

muckraker The muckrakers were reform-minded journalists, writers, and photographers in the Progressive Era in the United States (1890s–1920s) who claimed to expose corruption and wrongdoing in established institutions, often through sensationalist pub ...

, covering New York real estate developers and politicians, including

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

. The material continued to be a valuable resource for reporters covering the Trump presidency. The ''Voice'' has published investigations of New York City politics, as well as reporting on national politics, with arts, culture, music, dance, film, and theater reviews. Writers and cartoonists for the ''Voice'' have received three

s: in 1981 ( Teresa Carpenter, for feature writing), 1986 ( Jules Feiffer, for editorial cartooning) and 2000 (

Mark Schoofs Mark Schoofs is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and was the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News. He is also a visiting professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Biography After graduating magna cum laude f ...

, for international reporting). The paper has, almost since its inception, recognized alternative theater in New York through its Obie Awards. The paper's " Pazz & Jop" music poll, started by

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...

in the early 1970s, is released annually and remains an influential survey of the nation's music critics. In 1999, film critic

and film section editor Dennis Lim began a similar

Village Voice Film Poll The Village Voice Film Poll was an annual polling by '' The Village Voice'' film section of more than 100 major film critics for alternative media sources. Although the majority of the critics work for the alt-weeklies, a number are former ''Voic ...

for the year in film. In 2001, the ''Voice'' sponsored its first music festival, Siren Festival, a free annual event every summer held at Coney Island. The event moved to the lower tip of Manhattan in 2011, and was re-christened the " 4knots Music Festival", a reference to the speed of the East River's current. During the 1980s and onward, the ''Voice'' was known for its staunch support for

gay rights Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Notably, , ...

, and it published an annual Gay Pride issue every June. However, early in its history, the newspaper had a reputation as having a homophobic slant. While reporting on the

Stonewall riots The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of ...

of 1969, the newspaper referred to the riots as "The Great Faggot Rebellion". Two reporters, Howard Smith and Lucian Truscott IV, both used the words "

faggot Faggot, faggots, or faggoting may refer to: Arts and crafts * Faggoting (metalworking), forge welding a bundle of bars of iron and steel * Faggoting (knitting), variation of lace knitting in which every stitch is a yarn over or a decrease * ...

" and " dyke" in their articles about the riots. (These words were not commonly used by homosexuals to refer to each other at this time.) Smith and Truscott retrieved their press cards from the ''Voice'' offices, which were very close to the bar, as the trouble began; they were among the first journalists to record the event, Smith being trapped inside the bar with the police, and Truscott reporting from the street. After the riot, the

Gay Liberation Front Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was the name of several gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots. Similar organizations also formed in the UK and Canada. The GLF provided a ...

(GLF) attempted to promote dances for gays and lesbians in the ''Voice'', but were not allowed to use the words "gay" or "homosexual", which the newspaper considered derogatory. The newspaper changed its policy after the GLF petitioned it to do so. Over time, the ''Voice'' changed its stance, and, in 1982, became the second organization in the US known to have extended domestic partner benefits. Jeff Weinstein, an employee of the paper and shop steward for the publishing local of District 65 UAW, negotiated and won agreement in the union contract to extend health, life insurance, and disability benefits to the "spouse equivalents" of its union members. The ''Voice''s competitors in New York City include ''

New York Observer New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...

'' and '' Time Out New York''. Seventeen alternative weeklies around the United States are owned by the ''Voice's'' former parent company Village Voice Media. The film section writers and editors also produced a weekly Voice Film Club podcast. In 1996, after decades of carrying a cover price, the ''Voice'' switched from a paid weekly to a free,

weekly. The ''Voice'' website was a recipient of the

’s Online Journalism Award in 2001 and the '' Editor & Publisher'' EPpy Award for Best Overall U.S. Newspaper Online Service – Weekly, Community, Alternative & Free in 2003. In 2005, the Phoenix alternative weekly chain

New Times Media Village Voice Media or VVM is a newspaper company. It began in 1970 as a weekly alternative newspaper in Phoenix. The company, founded by Michael Lacey (editor) and Jim Larkin (publisher), was then known as New Times Inc. (NTI) and the publicat ...

purchased the company and took the Village Voice Media name. Previous owners of ''The Village Voice'' or of Village Voice Media have included co-founders Fancher and Wolf, New York City Councilman Carter Burden, ''New York Magazine'' founder Clay Felker,

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...

, and Leonard Stern of the Hartz Mountain empire.

Acquisition by New Times Media

After ''The Village Voice'' was acquired by

in 2005, the publication's key personnel changed. The ''Voice'' was then managed by two journalists from

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...

. In April 2006, the ''Voice'' dismissed music editor Chuck Eddy. Four months later, the newspaper sacked longtime music critic

. In January 2007, the newspaper fired sex columnist and erotica author

Rachel Kramer Bussel Rachel Kramer Bussel (born 1975) is an author, columnist, and editor, specializing in erotica. She previously studied at the New York University School of Law and earned her bachelor's degree in political science and women's studies from the U ...

; long-term creative director Ted Keller, art director Minh Oung, fashion columnist

Lynn Yaeger Lynn Yaeger is a contributing fashion editor to Vogue.com and a contributing writer to ''Vogue (magazine), Vogue''. She is a former fashion reporter for ''The Village Voice'', having worked for the paper for 30 years. Her column, "Elements of Sty ...

and Deputy Art Director LD Beghtol were laid off or fired soon afterward.

Editor in chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

Donald Forst resigned in December 2005. Doug Simmons, his replacement, was sacked in March 2006 after it was discovered that a reporter had fabricated portions of an article. Simmons' successor, Erik Wemple, resigned after two weeks. His replacement,

David Blum David Blum is an American writer and editor. Blum was born in Queens, New York, and graduated with a degree in English literature from the University of Chicago in 1977. He began his career as a reporter in 1979 for ''The Wall Street Journal''. ...

, was fired in March 2007.

Tony Ortega Anthony "Tony" Ortega is an American journalist and editor who is best known for his daily blog about the Church of Scientology called ''The Underground Bunker''. He was executive editor of ''The Raw Story'' from 2013 until 2015. Previously, ...

then held the position of editor in chief from 2007 to 2012. The sacking of Nat Hentoff, who worked for the paper from 1958 to 2008, led to further criticism of the management by some of its current writers, Hentoff himself, and by the ''Voice''s ideological rival paper '' National Review'', which referred to Hentoff as a "treasure".Village Voice Lays Off Nat Hentoff and 2 Others
". ''The New York Times'', December 30, 2008. At the end of 2011, Wayne Barrett, who had written for the paper since 1973, was laid off. Fellow muckraking investigative reporter Tom Robbins then resigned in solidarity.

Voice Media Group

Village Voice Media executives Scott Tobias, Christine Brennan and Jeff Mars bought Village Voice Media's papers and associated web properties from its founders in September 2012, and formed the Denver-based Voice Media Group. In May 2013, ''The Village Voice'' editor Will Bourne and deputy editor Jessica Lustig told ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' that they were quitting the paper rather than executing further staff layoffs. Both had been recent appointments. By then, the ''Voice'' had employed five editors since 2005. Following Bourne's and Lustig's departure, Village Media Group management fired three of the ''Voice''s longest-serving contributors: gossip and nightlife columnist Michael Musto, restaurant critic Robert Sietsema, and theater critic Michael Feingold, all of whom had been writing for the paper for decades. Feingold was rehired as a writer for ''The Village Voice'' in January 2016. Michael Musto was also rehired in 2016 and wrote cover stories regarding subjects like Oscar scandals and Madonna's body of work. Musto returned again to write features in 2021 under new publisher Brian Calle. In July 2013, Voice Media Group executives named Tom Finkel as editor.

Peter Barbey ownership and construction

Peter Barbey, through the privately owned investment company Black Walnut Holdings LLC, purchased ''The Village Voice'' from Voice Media Group in October 2015. Barbey is a member of one of America's wealthiest families. The family has had ownership interest in the ''

Reading Eagle The ''Reading Eagle'' is the major daily newspaper in Reading, Pennsylvania. A family-owned newspaper until the spring of 2019, its reported circulation is 37,000 (daily) and 50,000 (Sundays). It serves the Reading and Berks County region of ...

'', a daily newspaper serving the city of Reading, Pennsylvania and the surrounding region, for many years. Barbey serves as president and CEO of the Reading Eagle Company, and holds the same roles at ''The Village Voice''. After taking over ownership of the ''Voice'', Barbey named Joe Levy, formerly of ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'', as interim editor in chief, and Suzan Gursoy, formerly of '' Ad Week'', as publisher. In December 2016, Barbey named Stephen Mooallem, formerly of ''

Harper's Bazaar ''Harper's Bazaar'' is an American monthly women's fashion magazine. It was first published in New York City on November 2, 1867, as the weekly ''Harper's Bazar''. ''Harper's Bazaar'' is published by Hearst and considers itself to be the ...

'', as editor in chief. Mooallem resigned in May 2018, and was not replaced before the publication's shutdown. Under the Barbey ownership, advertisements for

escort agencies An escort agency is a company that provides escorts for clients, usually for sexual services. The agency typically arranges a meeting between one of its escorts and the client at the customer's house or hotel room (outcall), or at the escort's ...

and

phone sex Phone sex is a conversation between two or more people by means of the telephone which is sexually explicit and is intended to provoke sexual arousal in one or more participants. All parties participate voluntarily; it is typically accompanied ...

services came to an end. On August 31, 2018, it was announced that the ''Village Voice'' would cease production and lay off half of its staff. The remaining staff would be kept on for a limited period for archival projects. An August 31 piece by freelancer Steven Wishnia was hailed as the last article to be published on the website. Two weeks after the ''Village Voice'' ceased operations on September 13, co-founder John Wilcock died in California at the age of 91.

Return to print

In January 2021, a new original story was published on the website of ''The Village Voice''. On April 17, 2021, the Spring 2021 issue of the Village Voice appeared in news boxes and on newsstands for the first time since 2018. At the time, ''The Village Voice'' was a quarterly publication.

Contributors

The ''Voice'' has published columns and works by writers such as

Henry Miller Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi- autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical re ...

Barbara Garson Barbara Garson (born July 7, 1941, Brooklyn) is an American playwright, author and social activist, perhaps best known for the play ''MacBird!'' Education and personal life Garson attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she e ...

Katherine Anne Porter Katherine Anne Porter (May 15, 1890 – September 18, 1980) was an American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist. Her 1962 novel ''Ship of Fools'' was the best-selling novel in America that year, but her sh ...

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; ...

E.E. Cummings Edward Estlin Cummings, who was also known as E. E. Cummings, e. e. cummings and e e cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobi ...

, staff writer and author Ted Hoagland,

Colson Whitehead Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead (born November 6, 1969) is an American novelist. He is the author of eight novels, including his 1999 debut work '' The Intuitionist''; '' The Underground Railroad'' (2016), for which he won the 2016 National Book Awar ...

Tom Stoppard Sir Tom Stoppard (born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and polit ...

, Paul Lukas, Lorraine Hansberry, Lester Bangs,

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

and Joshua Clover. Former editors have included Clay Felker. The newspaper has also been a host to underground cartoonists. In addition to mainstay Jules Feiffer, whose cartoon ran for decades in the paper until its cancellation in 1996, well-known cartoonists featured in the paper have included R. Crumb, Matt Groening,

, Stan Mack, Mark Alan Stamaty, Ted Rall,

Tom Tomorrow Tom Tomorrow is the pen name of editorial cartoonist Dan Perkins (born April 5, 1961, in Wichita, Kansas). His weekly comic strip, '' This Modern World'', which comments on current events, appears regularly in more than 80 newspapers across th ...

Ward Sutton Ward Sutton is an American illustrator, cartoonist and writer born in Minneapolis and based in Fort Collins, Colorado. His comic strip, "Sutton Impact" (formerly "Schlock 'n' Roll"), was published in '' The Village Voice'' from 1995 to 2007. ...

Ruben Bolling Ruben Bolling (born c. 1963 in New Jersey) is a pseudonym for Ken Fisher, an American cartoonist, the author of '' Tom the Dancing Bug'' and ''Super-Fun-Pak Comix''. His work started out apolitical, instead featuring absurdist humor, parodying co ...

and

M. Wartella Michael M. Wartella (born August 19, 1976) is an American underground cartoonist, animator, writer and director based in New York City, generally publishing under the name M. Wartella or just Wartella. He is best known for his work in ''The Vill ...

Backpage sex trafficking

Backpage was a classified advertisement website owned by the same parent company as ''The Village Voice.'' In 2012, Nicholas Kristof wrote an article in ''The New York Times'' detailing a young woman's account of being sold on Backpage. ''The Village Voice'' released an article entitled "What Nick Kristof Got Wrong" accusing Kristof of fabricating the story and ignoring journalistic standards. Kristof responded, noting that the ''Voice'' did not dispute the column, but rather tried to show how the timeline in Kristof's original piece was inaccurate. In this rebuttal, he not only justified his original timeline, but expressed sadness "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", noting another instance of ''The Village Voice'' attacking journalists reporting on Backpage's role in sex trafficking. After repeated calls for a boycott of ''The Village Voice'', the company was sold to Voice Media Group.

References

External links

''The Village Voice''
Official site.
''The Village Voice'' (digital archive)
at

Google News Google News is a news aggregator service developed by Google. It presents a continuous flow of links to articles organized from thousands of publishers and magazines. Google News is available as an app on Android, iOS, and the Web. Google re ...

''Who Speaks for the Negro'' Vanderbilt University documentary website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Village Voice Alternative weekly newspapers published in the United States Publications established in 1955 Greenwich Village 1955 establishments in New York City 2018 disestablishments in New York (state) Publications disestablished in 2018 Defunct newspapers published in New York City Online newspapers with defunct print editions