Don’t Mourn the Death of Alt-Weeklies. They’re Alive and Well.
The Village Voice, the first and most famous alternative weekly newspaper, met its demise in September 2017. Founded in 1955, it had a legendary and boisterous record of publishing the sorts of things mainstream media refused to touch: explorations of subcultures beneath the notice of the average New Yorker, profiles of up-and-coming artists and neighborhood characters, as well as history-making investigations. It was the only paper to publish on-the-ground coverage of the 1969 Stonewall riots. It ran arts criticism, underground comics, plus classified ads for people seeking cheap apartments, new bandmates, and missed connections
Related Knowledge Center: Local media
The hollowing out of the local news ecosystem has been well documented; in some communities, efforts are underway to reverse the growing news desert.
Related Knowledge Center: State of the business model
The traditional journalism business model has long since collapsed, and news organizations have shrunk or disappeared entirely. While a number of promising experiments are under way, the public has not shown a willingness to buy what news organizations are selling.