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The short history of alternative newspapers began fifty years ago today, when Norman Mailer, Dan Wolf and Ed Fancher published the first issue of the Village Voice. To celebrate its golden anniversary, the world's best-known alt-weekly published a special issue that provides a taste of "the notorious fractiousness, the intensely personal journalism, and all the other quirks that make the Voice the Voice." Among other things, the issue includes a mix of original essays, including Nat Hentoff on the history and spirit of the Voice, Jarrett Murphy on the history of Voice ownership, and Robert Christgau on how the Voice invented rock criticism.