End of an era | Photo: Wikimedia/Alex Lozupone
The iconic New York City paper The Village Voice is officially shutting its doors.
The paper’s owner, Peter Barbey, announced the news on Friday (31 August). This move follows last year’s decision to cease its print publication, not unlike other outlets focusing on their online output in a digital world.
Barbey puchased the paper from Voice Media Group in 2015.
In the Big Apple, The Village Voice was one of the choice papers in news boxes with free issues.
Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, and Norman Mailer founded the paper in 1955. It was the first alternative publication in the United States, known for its focus on culture and creative communities.
Over the course of its run, it won three Pulitzer Prizes, the National Press Foundation Award, and the George Polk Award.
The history of its relationship with LGBTI rights
Now, The Village Voice is known for its more liberal leanings and support of LGBTI rights. They also published a Gay Pride issue every June in recent years.
That wasn’t always the case, however.
When the Stonewall Riots in 1969 happened, Walter Troy Spencer called it ‘The Great Faggot Rebellion’ for the paper. Other writers also used terms like ‘faggot’ and ‘dyke’ in articles around the time.
It took Gay Liberation Front petitioning the paper to get them to allow the words ‘gay’ and ‘homosexual’ and not view them as derogatory.
As attitudes changed, the Village Voice evolved and become a pro-LGBTI publication.
In 1982, they become the second-known organization in the US to offer extended domestic partner benefits.
Plus, it also gets a shout-out in the song La Vie Boheme in Rent.
‘A place for dreamers’
People on Twitter are bemoaning the loss of the paper.
A free and fair press is essential to our democracy.
The @VillageVoice is an icon. This paper has told important stories and launched countless careers.
Today’s a sad day for New Yorkers — and anyone who cares about good shoe leather journalism. https://t.co/C0W5eHJt9n
— Tish James (@TishJames) August 31, 2018
I was 17 and had just arrived in New York to start my adult life. The world felt wide open and exciting, and sitting in a cafe on Bleecker reading the @villagevoice made me feel like I had found a way into the life of the city. Its closure is very sad news.https://t.co/9zle5lmLj4
— Audrey Ewell (@AudreyEwell) August 31, 2018
People are wondering about what its loss will mean on local news.
In the last few years, New York City—a city of 12 million people—has seen the Times and the WSJ more or less give up on local coverage, the wholesale gutting of the Daily News, and now the death of the Village Voice. Who’s left to cover what’s happening in this city?
— Jon Tayler, Smiling Politely (@JATayler) August 31, 2018
Others remembered their own dreams of writing for them.
I remember walking past the Village Voice offices shortly after I moved to NYC, thinking, “I will work there.” Two years later, I started as an editorial assistant on the arts desk. A year after that, I published my first cover story.
The Village Voice was a place for dreamers.
— Eric Sundermann (@ericsundy) August 31, 2018
I read the Village Voice religiously as a kid growing up in NYC. It showed me the kind stories I wanted to tell — stories with grit and heart and humor and balls.
What a loss. https://t.co/aYE2CWMsv5
— Marissa J. Lang (@Marissa_Jae) August 31, 2018
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