An alternative newspaper is a type of newspaper that eschews comprehensive coverage of general news in favor of stylized reporting, opinionated reviews and columns, investigations into edgy topics and magazine-style feature stories highlighting local people and culture. Its news coverage is more locally focused, and their target audiences are younger than those of daily newspapers. Typically, alternative newspapers are published in tabloid format and printed on newsprint. Other names for such publications include alternative weekly, alternative newsweekly, and alt weekly, as the majority circulate on a weekly schedule.
Most metropolitan areas of the United States and Canada are home to at least one alternative paper. These papers are generally found in such urban areas, although a few publish in smaller cities, in rural areas or exurban areas where they may be referred to as an alt monthly due to the less frequent publication schedule.
Many alternative papers feature an annual "best of" issue, profiling businesses that readers voted the best of their type in the area. Often these papers send out certificates that the businesses hang on their wall or window. This further cements the paper's ties to local businesses.
Alternative newspapers represent the more commercialized and mainstream evolution of the underground press associated with the 1960s counterculture. Their focus remains on arts and entertainment and social and political reportage. Editorial positions at alternative weeklies are predominantly left-leaning, though there is a contingent of conservative and libertarian alt-weeklies. Styles vary sharply among alternative newspapers; some affect a satirical, ironic tone, while others embrace a more straightforward approach to reporting.
The Village Voice, based in New York City, was one of the first and best-known examples of the form. Since the Voice's demise in 2018, Marin County's Pacific Sun, founded in 1963, is now the longest-running alternative weekly.
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The Association of Alternative Newsmedia is the alternative weeklies' trade association. The Ruxton Media Group (formerly known as Voice Media Group Advertising) is the only national advertising sales representative for more than 100 alternative weeklies after the Alternative Weekly Network passed the torch in early March 2025.
In 2003, the two companies entered into a non-competition agreement which stated that the two would not publish in the same market. Because of this, New Times Media eliminated New Times LA, a competitor to Village Voice Media's LA Weekly, and Village Voice Media ceased publishing Cleveland Free Times, a competitor to New Times Media's Cleveland Scene. The US Justice Department launched an antitrust investigation into the agreement.[4] The case was settled out of court with the two companies agreeing to make available the publishing assets and titles of their defunct papers to potential competitors. The Cleveland Free Times recommenced publication in 2003 under the publication group Kildysart LLC, while the assets of New Times LA were sold to Southland Publishing and relaunched as LA CityBeat.
On October 24, 2005, New Times Media announced a deal to acquire Village Voice Media, creating a chain of 17 free weekly newspapers around the country with a combined circulation of 1.8 million and controlling a quarter of the weekly circulation of alternative weekly newspapers in North America.[5] The deal was approved by the Justice Department and, on January 31, 2006, the companies merged into one, taking the name Village Voice Media.[6]
In 2026, a group of employees at Creative Loafing Tampa Bay and two local partners purchased the newspaper, making the paper locally-owned for the first time since 2009.[7]
Canadian examples of owner-operated, non-chain owned alternative papers include Vancouver's The Georgia Straight, Toronto's NOW Magazine, Edmonton's Vue Weekly and Halifax's The Coast. Examples outside the United States and Canada include Barcelona's BCN Mes.
