Village Voice has new owner with longstanding newspaper ties

NEW YORK (AP) - The Village Voice, an alternative weekly founded six decades ago, has been bought by the owner of a Pennsylvania newspaper whose family has been involved in the industry for generations.

Peter Barbey told The New York Times (http://nyti.ms/1MxrdDA) that the Voice has "a unique journalistic role in New York and the country as a whole."

Barbey's family has been the longtime owner of The Reading Eagle. He bought the Voice for an undisclosed sum from the Voice Media Group, which owns a number of weekly newspapers.

Barbey bought the Voice through his investment company Black Walnut Holdings LLC, which is separate from the company that runs the Reading newspaper.

The Village Voice was the country's first alternative newsweekly. It has won three Pulitzer Prizes and has been lauded for its arts and culture coverage and its investigations.

Barbey said he first became a fan of the Voice as a student in high school and has high hopes for what it can be moving forward.

"I am flat-out serious about getting the Voice to be a major Manhattan publication," he said.

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Information from: The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com