'Village Voice,' Iconic Alt Weekly, to End Its Print Edition

[DonViejo]

Source: The Daily Beast


By Jeremy Kohler St. Louis Post-Dispatch 28 min ago

New York City’s iconic magazine The Village Voice will end production of its print edition, The Hollywood Reporter reported Tuesday. Peter Barbey, who purchased the alt-weekly magazine in 2015, cited declining ad revenues in its free print edition as one of the primary reasons for the production halt. “The most powerful thing about the Voice wasn’t that it was printed on newsprint or that it came out every week,” Barbey said. “It was that The Village Voice was alive, and that it changed in step with and reflected the times and the ever-evolving world around it. I want The Village Voice brand to represent that for a new generation of people—and for generations to come.”

READ IT AT THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

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Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/village-voice-iconic-alt-weekly-to-end-its-print-edition

[SCantiGOP]

1. I used to love to read it when I was in NYC on business in the 90s

I still remember a "Personals" listing that was looking for a woman under 5 feet tall, amputees especially desirable, who was willing to dress in Nazi regalia. The last sentence was: No weirdos please.

[sandensea]

2. *snort*

Who wrote it? Trump?

[sandensea]

3. It's the end of an era.

They've been keeping New Yawk politicos and grand poobahs honest since 1955 - as Cheeto knows so well.

[Achilleaze]

4. KKK Daddy looks like a conniver who's been goosed

Who knew his spawn would one day become the ignoble & treasonous republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief?

[chelsea0011]

5. That photo of daddy looks like something out of a Hammer horror movie still

[sandensea]

6. Or a drug prevention poster.

[zentrum]

7. Oh no!

What a grand history it has.

[Mosby]

8. They sold out in 2005.

To the phx new times people, larkin and lacey.

[melman]

9. That makes me sad

I grew up on the Voice. First place I saw Matt Groening and Lynda Barry. The best concert listings. Michael Musto. Sylvia Plachy's Unguided Tour. Christgau Consumer Guide. Pazz & Jop etc. And so much more. I'll miss it.

[melman]

10. I just noticed they called the Village Voice a 'magazine'

lol wtf. etc

[SeattleVet]

11. I started reading The Voice in 1967 or so.

It had its ups and downs. Some stellar writing by some fantastic writers. Had the best music coverage in the area. I used to wait at the newsstand every week for it to hit the stands, and pretty much every day in high school I carried that week's issue and read it until it was pretty well tattered - and then it was time for the next issue. Had some of the best coverage of the anti war movement that could be found at the time. I sought it out, and even when I was in the Air Force and stationed a long way from Greenwich Village I'd sometimes get my hands on a copy. It was a pleasure to read, sometimes from cover to cover.

I patronized a LOT of businesses in the area because of ads they had placed in VV. Attended a lot of concerts, found out about a lot of free events, places to eat, etc. In later years I used it for the music, arts, and theater listings and reviews.

The Feiffer cartoon was a weekly favorite for a long time.

At their peak they were a large paper - sometimes 80 pages or more.

I watched as Nat Hentoff begin his decline from a staunch advocate of rights to ... well, whatever it was that he became later in life. His early writing was amazing, but once he started his trip to the Dark Side it became very repetitive and rated usually just a cursory skim to see what he was ranting about this week. He became very predictable, and, at some point I just stopped reading his columns.

After they were taken over and made into a free weekly I could see that it was in a steep decline. Instead of seeking it out, I'd pick up an issue from time to time, but the old spark was definitely gone. A lot of their better writers got fired in one of the takeover/mergers, and I don't think it ever recovered the standing it had in the community as a go-to source of news and entertainment.

I'm sort of sorry to see it go (as a NY institution), but I'm also a little surprised that they were able to hold on for so long.

R.I.P. Village Voice - you will be fondly remembered for what you, at one time, represented in the world of journalism.

[stuffmatters]

12. Yes, such affection for VV in the 60's/ 70"s. Politics, art and esp Andrew Sarris on film.

[melman]

13. I just remembered how int the pre-internet days

you'd see people lined up around the block at the Astor Place newsstand on Tuesday night.

Because they were apartment hunting, and I guess the idea was that that was the first place to get the new issue since it was so close to VV headquarters.

[winstars]

14. OH, get out of my head, was just about to post about the Tuesday night "first read" on apts...

In the late 70's and 80's, everyone did that because if you did not the "good apartments" might be already gone by Wednesday morning.

Like the $500 studio or the $750 one bedroom apartments!!!

That one bedroom is probably $2500 now or more.