The Village View — A Journalistic Gem
By David Pinto
Listen up fellow readers. Newspapers, it turns out, are no longer the primary purveyors of news, information and entertainment for people like us. Many factors have combined to account for this lamentable but not surprising turn of events.
Among them, fewer general-interest newspapers are publishing today than have been available in a very long time. This turn of events is especially prevalent among local and urban publications, where a variety of cost-related factors have combined to curtail their publishing ventures.
More alternate sources of information are widely available than has ever been the case in the annals of the dissemination of information. Generally, these sources can be appropriately grouped under the heading “Social Media.” In the main, they turn on the widespread availability of electronic media, most notably the wide use of the cellular telephones.
The quest for immediate use has outstripped the once-common practice of perusing the morning paper over coffee and a breakfast pastry. That’s one reason The New York Times, generally the newspaper against which all others are measured, recently stopped publishing a legitimate sports section. Readers like us are no longer forced to uselessly peruse the morning paper searching for the final score of the Yankees-Mariners game in Seattle completed only hours earlier. Go online and get it instantaneously.
Other factors have contributed to this conundrum, but those are the essential ones.
How fortunate we are then, amid that set of developments, to have at our disposal the Village View. Since you’re reading this story, I’ll assume you already know the Village View. But you might not know enough about this monthly newspaper to fully appreciate its impact and importance.
In the relatively short time that the Village View has been publishing, it has become the unofficial bible of Greenwich Village, or at least the West Village. If you want to know what’s happening in the West Village, who’s doing what to whom, where to dine, shop or go for entertainment or education, your first stop is, or should be, the Village View.
Do you care about local politics? If you don’t, you should. And if you do, your first stop to discover what the issues are, which candidates’ views most reflect your own, and who will lose in the upcoming election should be, the Village View.
Finally, if you care about our community, and you must, the Village View is the logical place to begin, supplement or finalize your position. To cite one recent example, the neighborhood’s hospital situation, or lack thereof, is a key news story these days. For all that, The New York Times hasn’t yet reported on it. But the Village View has — and continues to do so in every issue.
The bottom line in all this rhetoric is a simple one. We West Villagers are incredibly fortunate to have at our disposal a monthly newspaper as timely and important as the Village View. Indeed, many of you have already discovered this journalistic gem. As a testament to that fact, the paper’s circulation, impact and advertising support continues to grow with each issue. Our circulation is already in the thousands — and rare is the community store or restaurant that doesn’t offer the Village View to its customers.
Still, that’s not good enough. Few Manhattan neighborhoods are as healthy, vibrant and important as Greenwich Village. Conversely, few cry out for news and information as desperately as Greenwich Village. And few are as fortunate as we are to be offered an unparalleled opportunity to gain that information as easily and accurately as we are.
And so, I sincerely say: Thank you Village View. Keep on keeping me informed.
