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The Village Voice has a very timely retrospective of its first fifty years-- including a great gallery of front page images. When we were growing up in the city, the Voice was the end-all-and-be-all of alternative news weeklies-- it had far left politics, alterno-culture, racy features, salacious ads at the back-- the whole deal. Over the last few years the Voice has been trending downhill-- sort of becoming a slightly classier New York Press-- and this week it was announced that the New Times conglomerate purchased the paper. It seems unlikely the Voice will ever return to its own glory-- which is too bad-- they've done some amazing stuff in the past.
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At least since 1995, people have only "read" the Village Voice for the concert listings.
Whenever they started their bullshit column "Letters from Palestine" whose creative author claimed to have no idea why Palestinians were stopped at checkpoints... well, that was the last time I did anything but flip right to the back and then toss it in the trash.
What a rag... but I do agree with "irony" that Gothamist at least appears to be written by and for 20-somethings with trust funds.
When I was in college back in the early 90s, the Voice was my primary window into the city. I was always excited to get it in the mail, and pretty much read it cover to cover. It had a stable roster of columnists who seemed like giants to me - Nat Hentoff (still there), Gary Giddins, Kyle Gann - and always had some splashy culture-wars feature on the cover.
For me, the magic was over when it went free and they started firing everybody. For one thing, it make it clear that VV was a very shitty place to work.
I gave up on the Voice after reading these immortal words by Nat Hentoff:
"If a loudspeaker goes off and a voice
says, ‘All Jews gather in Times Square,’ it could never surprise me."
Sometimes, Gothamist reminds me of that dreadful 'In the Papers' segment on NY1. Rather than do any reporting, they hold up newspapers and read headlines to the viewer.
Gothamist has learned the fine art of copy and paste, choosing the stories from better written, better managed and better detailed publications (print, internet and otherwise).
Ah, the MTV Generation. Needs their information chopped up into easily digestable bits. Yum, yum.
'In The Papers' on NY1 is the best! No irony or snideness; I'm 100% honest.
It gives you a good rundown of what papers are carrying what so when you take off on your morning commute you know which one to buy or read. That's the whole purpose of it.
Comparing Gothamist to 'In The Papers' is a bit harsh. Especially since Pat Kiernan on NY1 at least picks stories that appeal to all New Yorkers of all races/incomes.
Maybe it had some relevence in the '60s or '70s, but as long as I can remember the Voice has always sucked except for looking up movie & show listings. The editors and writers always seemed to treat each other like dirt too, despite their illusions of moral superiority.
i used to read the voice in college in teh mid 90's. but when they started not reseaching their stories and making shit up, i stopped reading. i'm not saying all the stories are make-believe, but rag-tag (above) has the right idea. it's good for show listings etc.
My favorite recent run of Voice articles was the series of stories that Tom Robbins wrote about Russell Harding (corrupt official from the Giuliani administration). It was great--there was some new Harding-related exposé every week.
wow, shades of the french revolution. what's wrong with being middle class? should i hate my parents for working hard and giving my sister and and i a stable, financially secure upbringing. how dare they!!!! your pseudo superior faux urban "i'm so cool" attitude is annoying.
I like how B-Dog takes comments from other posters, complete with their words, and changes the words for no other reason but to be read by people who come to Gothamist to read headlines from other papers. Also, I want one of these trust-funds you speak of. Who's ready to hook a brother up?
Bitch, bitch, bitch. I love New York.
Middle class people don't have trust funds, beeyatch.