The Village Voice the independent/alternative weekly newspaper that was founded in 1955 and for more than a half-century provided both editorial coverage and advertising that highlighted the unique advantages and characteristics of Manhattan, has announced that it will end print publication sometime in the near future. Ownership said that in the future, the focus will be on other methods of disseminating information, as well as greater frequency.
The Voice has been the model for a vast number of other urban weeklies around the country, many of which also have gone under. It may have survived them, but the digital revolution probably made its print demise inevitable.
The Voice has been the model for a vast number of other urban weeklies around the country, many of which also have gone under. It may have survived them, but the digital revolution probably made its print demise inevitable.
- KC's View:
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If you’re not from the New York metropolitan area, or are not familiar with the Voice, then it may be difficult to understand the role that the paper played in the New York cultural and political scene.
For me, I would read it for the film criticism of Andrew Sarris - I used to love his long and sometimes digressive pieces about the movies, about his passion for the great auteurs, and even his disagreements with The New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael. He helped me think differently about the movies.
The New York Times lede captures the Voice influence perfectly:
Without it, if you are a New Yorker of a certain age, chances are you would have never found your first apartment. Never discovered your favorite punk band, spouted your first post-Structuralist literary jargon, bought that unfortunate futon sofa, discovered Sam Shepard or charted the perfidies of New York’s elected officials. Never made your own hummus or known exactly what the performance artist Karen Finley did with yams that caused such an uproar over at the National Endowment for the Arts … The print pages of The Village Voice were a place to discover Jacques Derrida or phone sex services, to hone one’s antipathy to authority or gentrification, to score authoritative judgments about what was in the city’s jazz clubs or off off Broadway theaters on a Wednesday night. In the latter part of the last century, before “Sex and the City,” it was where many New Yorkers learned to be New Yorkers.
I suspect it is over now, even if ownership claims to be looking for new ways to made the Voice relevant.
