Hello! The Village Sun is a new online newspaper covering Greenwich Village, the East Village, the Lower East Side, Union Square, Soho, Hudson Square, Chelsea, Gramercy, Stuyvesant Town, Chinatown and beyond.
For 20 years, I was the editor of The Villager, an award-winning weekly print newspaper and online daily news site. Time flies when you’re having fun and doing what you love!
However, all good things do come to an end, or so they say. And for every door that closes, another one opens.
We set the bar high at The Villager, three times winning the coveted Stuart Dorman Award, given to the state’s best community weekly paper, in the New York Press Association’s annual Better Newspaper Contest.
More than that, I feel that, at The Villager, we created a paper that really reflected the people, the culture, the spirit, the history and the passion of some of the greatest neighborhoods, with the greatest communities, in the world.
And, of course, we reported on important issues week in and week out, always striving to stand with the community and defend it against those powerful forces that would seek to erode or destroy what makes this place so special.
Good writing and unique stories were always hallmarks of The Villager, and that will continue at The Village Sun. So will in-depth coverage, as in, reporting and fleshing out the story behind the story, telling readers what they want — and need — to know.
We will strive to feature stories in The Village Sun that you’ll find nowhere else. In other words, we won’t just be “following the news,” as in, doing the same exact same stories everyone else is. Though if we do, we’ll always try to have our own angle or take the story further.
We won’t simply be filling our site with regurgitated press releases or police crime items that come in over the e-mail to “feed the beast,” as the saying goes.
Yes, while having a constantly updating online news site can be a good thing, we won’t sacrifice quality for quantity just to achieve some sort of ad- and numbers-driven “content churn.” In other words, we won’t just be manically throwing content up online just to wrap ads around.
Quality editorial content matters.
And, no, you will not be reading here about the latest unaffordable Upper East Side real estate developments or absurdly far-flung Police Blotter items, like subway gropings in Inwood or bodega burglaries in Washington Heights. We’ll cover what we want, and where we want, but the Village and Downtown Manhattan community will remain the base.
Basically, my goal in starting The Village Sun is to continue to provide the kind of quality local coverage that we did at The Villager during my tenure as editor there. We’ll report on the issues, events and people of importance in the community. We’ll cover things that interest us and make for a lively read.
We will welcome advertisers — but will never be beholden to them. To help keep this new start-up newspaper publishing, we also will be accepting “sustaining donations.” But, to be clear, this will be a completely independent paper.
As always with the news, a great part of our success will hinge on the community’s support and engagement. Please, feel free to pitch your news tips and story ideas to us at news@thevillagesun.com. We want to hear from you!
And if you are interested in contributing — whether writing or photographing — or helping with ad sales or more, let us know, as well.
Again, this will be an online newspaper — at least, initially, since that is just the easiest way to start up nowadays. Although we hope eventually to move into print, as well. Please enjoy the Web site, which we will constantly seek to improve — and don’t forget to click on the photos, many of which (if not most) will expand to larger size for better viewing. The captions are also more readable in this mode. Also on the paper’s look, much thanks to Alexandra Leff for her bright and eye-catching logo for The Village Sun.
You can also follow us on Facebook at The Village Sun and on Twitter at @TheVillageSun.
In an era of rampant media consolidation and homogenization, The Village Sun will be an independent voice, focused on authentic, relevant and interesting local coverage. We will strive to be an important part of the community’s culture, and to report on issues that make a difference in our readers’ neighborhoods — and in their lives.
Thank you for your support!
Sincerely,
Lincoln Anderson
Publisher and Editor in Chief,
October 2019