Tricia Romano on the Village Voice, Alt Journalism, and the Rise of New York City’s Countercultures

Blue City Blues · Jan 16, 2026 · 1h

In 1955, three men in the bohemian enclave of Greenwich Village got together to form what they thought would be a local community newspaper. But the Village Voice would soon morph into the voice of New York City’s political outsiders and cultural dissidents, as it became the progenitor of a new kind of journalistic outlet – the alternative newsweekly – and a new genre of engaged, inside out journalism that rejected the antiseptic detachment of traditional post-war newspapers. The model pioneered by the Voice spread rapidly across the country, and alt weeklies became a ubiquitous fixture in…