![]() "It's also the place I learned the craft altogether, and that just comes from watching. Related: "Village Voice" staffers walk out for better pay and better coffee That's really what it means to be a journalist. It was kind of the childish artifact, but it picked at one of the kernel truths about the Voice: If you didn't know how to speak up or fight for things, you would never have gotten anywhere, so the main thing I learned was how to push, how to stand up for yourself, how to just be relentless. We had a file in the shared computer system called 'Tantrums' that documented every major fight in the newsroom-the bigger fit you threw, the more points you got, and you lost points if you apologized. "The Voice was a newsroom full of strong personalities, really smart men and women with deep opinions on everything-that's what made it so great. I hope that the curiosity and the intrepid spirit that the Voice and papers like it fostered finds a place to flourish online, although it'll take a lot of bucking against traffic pressures and cultural myopia."Įdmund Lee, contributing editor (on staff: 1994 to 1999) "I loved the Voice growing up, and am proud of the work I did there and happy that I published so many amazing writers. Maura Johnston, music editor (on staff: 2011 to 2012) I could not have become myself without it." I cannot overstate the degree of freedom I enjoyed there or praise too highly the brilliant minds I encountered. "The Village Voice was my education-as a kid growing up in Queens in the 1960s (appreciating New York City), as a future film critic (reading Jonas Mekas and Andrew Sarris) and, starting in the 1970s, as a writer. ![]() Hoberman, staff writer, then senior film critic (on staff: 1983 to 2012) (We also asked a few present Newsweek staffers who had brief but formative experiences writing for the paper.)Īll of these comments and reminiscences were provided to Newsweek via email, except for the one by novelist Colson Whitehead, which is just a tweet. We reached out to some Voice alumni and asked them what they learned during their tenures-and what the paper meant to them. You could write a history of the Voice just from the names associated with it and the careers it helped launch, from music critics like Robert Christgau and Jessica Hopper to the investigative reporter Wayne Barrett and the legendary nightlife chronicler Michael Musto. As longtime Voice staff writer Greg Tate says, writing for the alt-weekly made music writers feel like they were rock stars too. For the brilliant writers and editors who worked there, though, it's something more personal: The Village Voice has been a home for writerly eccentrics and misfits, a boot camp, a cultural epicenter, an institution. The publication will carry on in digital form, but the recognizable alt-weekly paper format-distributed free since 1996 from those immediately identifiable red-and-blue distribution boxes-will soon be history.įor New Yorkers with even the slightest inclination toward the counterculture, it is the end of an era. Then the Village Voice announced that it's shuttering its beloved print publication after 62 years. It was already a dark, disheartening year to work in journalism-industry-wide layoffs, "pivots to video," near-daily attacks from President Trump.
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