PERIODICAL RAMBLINGS (3)

The VILLAGE VOICE

    I am not sure if I would have included this publication among my ramblings, but I will take time on this fine late summer morning to let you know that the print version of The Village Voice will soon cease to exist. Those of you who lean to the right and those with relatively ‘normal’ sexual proclivities are likely not to care much. It did certainly tend to tilt left and the back pages were filled with advertisements for various sexual services and devices that most found to be rather mysterious.

    Still, it was a major publication that published established and well-known authors. One of the founders was Norman Mailer. It was hardly parochial and covered subjects of interest to those who lived outside of Greenwich. One of its owners was Rupert Murdoch. It received some Pulitzers. If you don’t believe me, consider this:

    “The Village Voice was founded in 1955. It is one of the most successful enterprises in the history of American journalism. It began as a neighborhood paper serving an area about a tenth the size of the Left Bank, in Paris, and it became, within ten years, a nationally known brand and the inspiration for a dozen other local papers across the country. By 1967, it was the best-selling weekly newspaper in the United States, with a single-day circulation higher than the circulations of ninety-five per cent of American big-city dailies. It survived the deaths of four other New York City newspapers and most of its imitators, and it has had a longer life than the weekly Life. But, in books about the modern press, it is given a smaller role than it deserves.”   “It Took a Village: How the Voice Changed Journalism,” Louis Menand, The New Yorker, Jan. 5, 2009.

     Although the website remains it is unfortunate that the print version will disappear. I think the passing of such publications deserves at least a passing mention.  I am heading to Vancouver soon and I will let you know if the Georgia Straight is still around. It was last year and, like The Village Voice, it still had ‘those’ ads.

Post Script

    The “death” of the print version of The Village Voice was announced in August 2017. See, for example:

“After 62 Years and Many Battles, Village Voice Will End Print Publication, John Leland and Sara Maslin Nir, The New York Times, Aug. 22, 2017

“GENERATIONS OF VILLAGE VOICE WRITERS REFLECT ON THE PAPER LEAVING THE HONOR BOXES:THE END OF AN ERA. Luke O’Neil, Esquire, Aug. 23, 2017.

“10 EX–VILLAGE VOICE STAFFERS SHARE WHAT THEY LEARNED—AND WHY THE PAPER MATTERED,” Zach Schonfeld, et al, Newsweek, Aug. 25, 2017.

    Here is the website for The Village Voice. I could not determine how far back the archive goes, but I did some searches and found articles from over a decade ago.

   The London Public Library did not get it, but Western University did, although the subscription was cancelled. It is available in the Weldon Library on microform for the years 1996-2015. Those associated with Western can access some years via various electronic vendors.

All is not lost. One can read a couple of compilations:

The Village Voice Anthology (1956-1980) : Twenty-five years of Writing From the Village Voice, edited by Geoffrey Stokes.

The Village Voice Reader : a Mixed Bag From the Greenwich Village Newspaper, Daniel Wolf.

Music Downtown : Writings From The Village Voice, Kyle Gann.

For two books about The Village Voice see:

The Great American Newspaper : The Rise And Fall Of The Village Voice,  Kevin Michael McAuliffe.

Writing The Record : The Village Voice And The Birth Of Rock Criticism, Devon Powers.

For over forty years The Village Voice was also the place one could find the cartoons of Jules Feiffer who won a Pulitzer in 1986.