Hello! The Village Sun is a daily online and monthly print 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. I launched The Village Sun in October 2019.
We set the bar high at The Villager when I was there, 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.
We’ve gone on to win some good NYPA awards with The Village Sun, including first place for Best News Story in 2022, as well as awards for Investigative/In-Depth Reporting, Best News or Feature Series, Coverage of Elections and Politics, Editorial Page, Coverage of Religion, Best Obituaries and Headlines.
More than winning awards, though, the idea of The Village Sun is to create a newspaper that really reflects 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 report 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.
We strive to feature both good writing and unique stories in The Village Sun. Also, in-depth coverage, as in, reporting and fleshing out the story behind the story, telling readers what they want — and need — to know.
At The Village Sun, we strive to feature stories that you’ll find nowhere else. In other words, we don’t try to just “following the news,” as in, do the same exact same stories everyone else is. If we do, though, we always try to have our own angle or take the story further.
We don’t simply fill 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 is a good thing — and readers want fresh news content — 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 won’t read 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 cover what we want, and where we want, but the Village and Downtown Manhattan community remains the base.
Basically, the goal of The Village Sun is to provide quality local coverage. We report on the issues, events and people of importance in the community. We cover things that interest us and make for a lively read.
We welcome advertisers — but are never be beholden to them. To help keep this start-up newspaper publishing, we also accept “sustaining donations.” (See the “Donate to The Village Sun” black button or the GoFundMe on thevillagesun.com.) But, to be clear, this is a completely independent paper.
As always with the news, a great part of our success hinges 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 working for us in ad sales, let us know, as well.
Three years after launching The Village Sun as an online-only newspaper, in September 2022 we started a monthly print issue.
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, yellow-and-red The Village Sun logo.
You can also follow us on Facebook at The Village Sun, on Twitter at @TheVillageSun and on Instagram at thevillagesun.
In an era of rampant media consolidation and homogenization, The Village Sun strives to be an independent voice, focused on authentic, relevant and interesting local coverage. We aim 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