For those of us non-NewYorkers in those pre-Web days, who largely knew of the subaltern NYC from it, this is truly the end of an era, and typical of the corporate catch and kill of press entities, especially when their staffs unionize.
The history of the Voice is one that marks much of an interesting history of NYC that still unfolds as the nation is suffering from Lord Dampnut.
Entire components of post-war culture, mainly music and cinema were guided by the Voice, and major authors got their start and their demise from it.
The Voice was a paradigm for alternative tabloids that generally maintained journalistic standards, even as it had its own editorial trollery familiar to those in DK. Even as corporate ownership eventually gained control of it, its insurgency continued, and was imitated elsewhere.
For some of us who preferred not to indulge the low-brow Post, a useful media snapshot of NYC news and more importantly its culture was always the Times and the Voice, often as the latter revealed the seamy underbelly of the MSM.
THE VILLAGE VOICE IS SUSPENDING ALL EDITORIAL CONTENT and will lay off half its staff effective immediately, according to a member of the staff.
Peter Barbey, who bought the famed alt-weekly from Voice Media Group in 2015, announced the decision today in a conference call. CJR acquired audio of the call from a Voice staff member.
It’s unclear how many employees will lose their jobs today, or for how long those who remain will keep theirs. Barbey refers to a digital archiving project on the conference call and says that work will continue. Barbey also refers to meetings with “other entities” and suggests that suspending editorial content was a condition of the continuation of those meetings. It’s unclear if he is planning to sell the company.
“I’ve been having conversations with other entities for months now and it all depends, but [ending editorial content] is something we have to do before they could talk to us any further,” said Barbey. “I bought the Village Voice to save it. This isn’t exactly how I thought it was going to end up, and I’m still trying to save the Village Voice.”
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