Since its founding in 1955, Village Voice Media has grown to become the largest group of metropolitan newsweeklies in the U.S. Our papers routinely best America's major dailies in national and regional writing competitions. And we make a difference in our communities, by breaking news, by taking the time to interpret it, and by offering readers a weekly respite from the hurried fact-finding of daily journalism. A growth-oriented company with an interest in major American markets, VVM publishes papers in fourteen of the country's most vibrant cities.

Today's VVM was created in 2006 when the original Village Voice chain was purchased by New Times Media. The company's namesake Village Voice in New York City was founded in 1955, and introduced the notion of free-form, high-spirited and passionate journalism into the public discourse. As the nation's first and largest alternative newsweekly, the Voice is the winner of three Pulitzer Prizes, and today maintains the same tradition of no-holds-barred reporting and cultural coverage that it first embraced more than fifty years ago. Beginning in the 1990s, the Voice extended its influence by acquiring five like-minded publications across the country: LA Weekly, OC Weekly in Orange County, Seattle Weekly, Minneapolis City Pages and the Nashville Scene. (The company sold the Nashville paper to a group of local investors in August 2009.)

New Times was founded in 1970, and grew to become the largest alternative chain in the country prior to acquiring the Voice. The company started with Phoenix New Times, whose writers have won the Arizona Press Club's Journalist of the Year award eight out of the past eleven years. In 1983, the company began expanding, first acquiring Westword in Denver and ultimately growing to include Miami New Times, the Dallas Observer, the Houston Press, SF Weekly in San Francisco, the Riverfront Times in St. Louis, The Pitch in Kansas City, and New Times Broward-Palm Beach in Ft. Lauderdale.

Village Voice Media also includes the Ruxton Group, which sells advertising for 35 newsweeklies in major metropolitan markets and additionally represents more than 1,500 college newspapers. Ruxton offers further access to young, urban readers via a range of integrated communications strategies including event marketing and creative promotions.

Though many of the country's alternative weeklies continue to be known for their agenda-driven approach to news, VVM remains true to a different vision. Although New Times was founded by students at Arizona State University irate over the Vietnam-era shootings at Kent State University, and the Village Voice has long been considered a bastion of progressive thought, VVM papers emphasize strong writing and solid reporting and are averse to protecting sacred cows. That commitment to journalistic fundamentals has only deepened over the years. As a result, while an increasing number of daily papers shorten stories and hire consultants to tell them what to print, VVM papers thrive by cultivating source networks, generating truly original story ideas, and digging into stories rather than skating across their surface.