We've pontificated a bit about the bland amateurishness of the New York Press and the unreadable knee-jerk-agitprop of the Village Voice, but we're also a bit bummed that there's something vital getting lost in the NYC alt-weekly world's current upheaval: first-person essays and opinion.

At the Voice, this is clearly by design. The paper's publisher, Mike Lacey, has made it clear that he's not interested in having the Voice's old-school lefties write columns off the top of their head anymore, preferring hyper-local reported pieces. At the Press, there seems to be less and less content in general, and thus the lack of columns seems to just be a function of the the fact that the thinning paper may soon just be a pamphlet — with one page of local news reruns and three pages of stripper ads.

Both are taking cues from the uninspired formula that's likely a result of the New Times dominance of the country's alt-weeklies, but here in NYC there's already a glut of these slice-of-life local stories. The four major dailies (including the Sun, marginally, though not the irrelevant Newsday) and even the two freebie dailies have features not unlike the ones that Lacey is hoping will make the Voice important again.

So if you've got some cash to spare, an opportunity has emerged for you to fill a void in the media landscape. Sure, we know newsprint is dead and it's all about online now, but we still want a little grist when we get on the subway for a long ride to Park Slope; a few opinion articles written by marginal characters to piss us off, remind us why rehab was a good idea, and excite our inner punk. Any takers?