Village Voice Editor and Publisher David Schneiderman Dies at 77

David Schneiderman, editor-turned-publisher-turned-chief executive of The Village Voice, the grandfather of other newspapers, whose 28-year career began in an era of middle-class indifference city ​​until its long, slow demise in the Internet age, died on Friday. Edmonds, Wash., near Seattle. He is 77 years old.

His daughter, Kate Schneiderman, said the cause of death, at the hospital, was pneumonia caused by chronic lymphocytic leukemia, which he was diagnosed with two years ago. He lived in Woodway, Wash.

After being appointed editor-in-chief in 1978, Mr. Schneiderman raised The Voice’s journalism game, transformed a newsroom that was almost all white and all male, and reckoned with the increasingly competitive environment in which traditional newspapers and magazines emulating the cutting-edge culture of The Voice. and the media coverage, as well as his tone of voice.

Rupert Murdoch’s own involvement, who bought The Voice in 1977, added another chapter to the popular culture of anti-establishment journalism.

The workers vowed in a statement that they would refuse to work “for any new editor who was put on us secretly and without warning from management.” Mr. Schneiderman was unable to take up his duties for several months until his previous contract expired. The workers backed down on their threats.

As an editor, he walked into a partisan newsroom at 11th Street and University Place, where reporters defended their right to add comments to their copy and refuse to edit. -former editor of The New York Times in a jacket and tie, favorite voice. foil.

He carried an easy-going, slightly nervous demeanor that eased the tension; most importantly, he had a strong journalistic commitment.

“People soon found out that he wasn’t what we thought he was, from The Times, and that he had a lot of good ideas and was a very serious person and a very good reporter,” Joe Conason, Voice investigative reporter, told The Times. the 1980s, said in an interview.

mr. Schneiderman improved The Voice’s commitment to reporting. He hired Wayne Barrett, who was investigating a real estate developer who was considered by minorities, Donald J. Trump, and Teresa Carpenter, a crime reporter whose The Voice won its first Pulitzer Prize in 1981. He also defended Mr. Murdoch, who wanted Mr. Conason’s wings removed because of his frequent and critical writings about him.

“There was a layer of professionalism added to The Voice that some people in the ’60s and ’70s didn’t like,” Tricia Romano, a former Voice writer whose paper published an oral history last year, “comes out to write the Freaks,” said the interviewer.

“He was just really good at connecting with people and cutting through all the craziness,” she added.

Part of Mr. Schneiderman’s agenda is to grow The Voice. He appointed women as senior editors and made the magazine a launching pad for young black writers: He sponsored music and culture critic Stanley Crouch’s column and hired Thulani Davis (opera later librettist). Under him, the magazine published its first gay pride issue in 1979.

Mr. Schneiderman also fired Alexander Cockburn, a vocal critic of Israel, for accepting $10,000 from the Institute of Arab Studies, a think tank, for a book on Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. . Mr Cockburn, he said, had “damaged the credibility” of The Voice.

Under a new owner, Leonard N. Stern, a feed and livestock dealer who bought The Voice in 1985, Mr. Schneiderman. He appointed former arts editor Karen Durbin as the paper’s second female editor in 1994, a decision that deepened the divide between journalists and writers. – culture. Mr. Barrett, according to oral history, wore a suit to the office the week Ms. Durbin took over.

Mr. Schneiderman pushed the paper to grow beyond its legacy of counterculture and left-wing politics as its core readership aged and prospered. Many of the staff — influential critics and journalists, who embraced the idea that the inmates should run the asylum — pulled in the opposite direction, fearing that The Voice would be lost.

In 1988, Mr. Schneiderman and Mr. Stern launched a weekly tabloid, 7 Days, the city’s alter ego for The Voice, with an entertaining and well-written list of New York trends and shows. It was a huge success, but two years later it ended due to lack of publicity.

Competition from New York weekly newspapers with entertainment listings, including Time Out New York, has spread to The Voice even from traditional publications, including ‘that’s the arts and culture section of The Times, has revealed a part of the DNA of the city centre.

The Voice’s circulation and revenue led to an unexpected move: the $1.25 magazine price was dropped, and the magazine became free in 1996.

“One of the negative aspects of The Voice in recent years is that it has ghettoized itself and lost a generation of readers,” Jules Feiffer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist who contributed to the newspaper’s beginnings in the 1950s. , said The Times in 1996.

The transition to a donation model has been a boon for circulation, which has doubled to 250,000 in 1999, and the newspaper says that advertising has more than made up for lost money.

Mr. Stern – with input from Mr. Schneiderman, who was appointed president of Mr. VV Publishing Corporation. Stern in 1988 – received other papers, first LA Weekly in 1994 and later papers in Seattle, Nashville and the Twin Cities.

But with the advent of Craigslist, a free online classifieds portal — the source of half of The Voice’s revenue — Mr. Stern saw the writing on the wall and decided suddenly to sell.

“The minute Craigslist came to town, literally within a few weeks, our ad — it was slow. Then she stopped growing and stopped growing,” Mr. Schneiderman told Ms. Romano of her oral history.

In 2000, seven paper chains, including the Voice, were bought by a group of investors. They put Mr. Schneiderman as chief executive, with a small stake, in the new company, Village Voice Media.

The company merged in 2005 with the New Times Group, a weekly column that Mr. Schneiderman once disparaged for cutting staff from his paper. Mr. Schneiderman was placed in charge of researching Internet opportunities for New Times. But he resigned a year later.

“I remember sitting in a meeting in my conference room, and I suddenly had no meaning,” he said in an oral history. “I’m like a potted plant.”

David Abbot Schneiderman was born on April 14, 1947 in Manhattan, the youngest son of Robert D. Schneiderman and Mary (Torres) Schneiderman. His father was a children’s clothing salesman who later retired from the Izod company. His mother was an executive assistant at JC Penney. David grew up in the Long Island area of ​​Hewlett and Roslyn.

He received his bachelor’s degree in 1969 and his master’s degree in international studies in 1970 from Johns Hopkins University.

The Times hired him that year as an assistant editor on the newly created Op-Ed page, a collection of opinion columns that clashed with the editors.

His marriage to Peggy Rosenthal ended in divorce. In 2006 he married Dana Faust, an advertising director for The Times in the Seattle sales office.

He and Mrs. Schneiderman, a daughter from his first marriage, survive him, as do a son, Benjamin Drachler; one stepdaughter, Madeline Drachler; four grandchildren; and his brother, Stuart Schneiderman.

After leaving The Voice, Mr. Schneiderman moved from his home near Seattle to San Francisco, where he ran the communications firm, Abernathy MacGregor Group (now H/Advisors Abernathy). He retired in 2016.

Two years later, The Voice, which ceased publication and appeared only online, retired at the age of 63. At that time, the number of full-time employees was reduced to just 18.

“Newmark ruined newspapers,” Mr. Schneiderman said of Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, in an oral history. “There’s no two ways about it.”