The “alternative weekly” finally had no alternative to shutting down:
Three years after buying The Village Voice, and a year after the paper shut down its print edition, owner Peter Barbey told the remaining staff today that the publication will no longer be posting any new stories.
“Today is kind of a sucky day,” Barbey told the staff, according to audio obtained by Gothamist. “Due to, basically, business realities, we’re going to stop publishing Village Voice new material [sic].”
Barbey said that half of the staff, which is around 15 to 20 people, will remain on to “wind things down,” and work on a project to archive the Voice’s material online.
The rest of the staff will be let go today.
Since they announced they were ending print publication a year ago, this is no surprise.
It’s like when some musician who was briefly important in the sixties dies, and you go “Oh, wait, he was still alive?”
Alternative weeklies were useful for carrying club, event and restaurant listings, all things the Internet does better now. As far as I can tell, their “carrier medium for liberal opinion” business model is only viable two ways: Carry tons of sex ads (something else the Internet does better now), or have the tabloid as an adjunct to a large, profitable music festival (the Austin Chronicle model). Since the most recent super-geniuses running the Village Voice eliminated sex ads, plus the tremendous BS involved in running any business in New York City, the graffiti was on the brownstone wall.
Plus it’s not like readers have a crying lack of far left-wing voices in the media today…
Tags: Democrats, Media Watch, New York City, Social Justice Warriors
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