The Village Voice

Cover of the October 1955 issue

The Village Voice was launched by Ed Fancher, Dan Wolf, and Norman Mailer[7] on October 26, 1955, from a two-bedroom apartment in 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 in a landmark triangular corner building adjoining Sheridan Square, and a few feet west of the Stonewall Inn;[8] 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.[9]

Early columnists of the 1950s and 1960s included Jonas Mekas, who explored the underground film movement in his "Film Journal" column; Linda Solomon, 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, Tom Carson, and Richard Goldstein.

For more than 40 years, Wayne Barrett was the newspaper's muckraker, covering New York real estate developers and politicians, including Donald Trump. The material continued to be a valuable resource for reporters covering the Trump presidency.[5]

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 Pulitzer Prizes: in 1981 (Teresa Carpenter, for feature writing),[10] 1986 (Jules Feiffer, for editorial cartooning)[11] and 2000 (Mark Schoofs, for international reporting).[12] The paper has, almost since its inception, recognized alternative theater in New York through its Obie Awards.[13] The paper's "Pazz & Jop" music poll, started by Robert Christgau in the early 1970s, is released annually and remains an influential survey of the nation's music critics. In 1999, film critic J. Hoberman and film section editor Dennis Lim began a similar Village Voice Film Poll 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.[14]

During the 1980s and onward, the Voice was known for its staunch support for gay rights, 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 of 1969, the newspaper referred to the riots as "The Great Faggot Rebellion".[15] Two reporters, Howard Smith and Lucian Truscott IV, both used the words "faggot" 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.[16] After the riot, the Gay Liberation Front (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.[17] 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.[18]

The Voice's competitors in New York City include New York Observer 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.[19]

In 1996, after decades of carrying a cover price, the Voice switched from a paid weekly to a free, alternative weekly. The Voice website was a recipient of the National Press Foundation’s Online Journalism Award in 2001[20] and the Editor & Publisher EPpy Award for Best Overall U.S. Newspaper Online Service – Weekly, Community, Alternative & Free in 2003.[21]

In 2005, the Phoenix alternative weekly chain New Times Media 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[22] and Wolf,[7] New York City Councilman Carter Burden,[7] New York Magazine founder Clay Felker, Rupert Murdoch, and Leonard Stern of the Hartz Mountain empire.

After The Village Voice was acquired by New Times Media in 2005, the publication's key personnel changed. The Voice was then managed by two journalists from Phoenix, Arizona.

In April 2006, the Voice dismissed music editor Chuck Eddy.[23] Four months later, the newspaper sacked longtime music critic Robert Christgau. In January 2007, the newspaper fired sex columnist and erotica author Rachel Kramer Bussel; long-term creative director Ted Keller, art director Minh Oung, fashion columnist Lynn Yaeger and Deputy Art Director LD Beghtol were laid off or fired soon afterward. Editor in chief 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, was fired in March 2007. Tony Ortega 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".[24][25] 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.[26]

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.[27]

In May 2013, The Village Voice editor Will Bourne and deputy editor Jessica Lustig told The New York Times that they were quitting the paper rather than executing further staff layoffs.[28] 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.[29][30][31] Feingold was rehired as a writer for The Village Voice in January 2016.[32]

In July 2013, Voice Media Group executives named Tom Finkel as editor.[33]

Peter Barbey, through the privately owned investment company Black Walnut Holdings LLC, purchased The Village Voice from Voice Media Group in October 2015.[34] Barbey is a member of one of America's wealthiest families.[35] The family has had ownership interest in the Reading Eagle, 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, as interim editor in chief,[36] and Suzan Gursoy, formerly of Ad Week, as publisher.[37] In December 2016, Barbey named Stephen Mooallem, formerly of Harper's Bazaar, as editor in chief.[38] Mooallem resigned in May 2018, and was not replaced before the publication's shutdown.[5]

Under the Barbey ownership, advertisements for escort agencies and phone sex services came to an end.[5]

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.[39][40][41] While an August 31 piece by freelancer Steven Wishnia was hailed as the last article to be published on the website,[5] in January 2021, a new original story was published, the first in over two years.[42] Two weeks after the Village Voice ceased operations on September 13, co-founder John Wilcock died in California at the age of 91.

Although The Village Voice announced in August 2018 that it would cease publication, its website, along with its Twitter and Facebook accounts, is still active and running in 2021.[43]