New Publisher Is Owner of Pet Food Firm : Village Voice Sold for $55 Million

Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch on Thursday sold the Village Voice, New York’s combative counterculture weekly, to the owner of pet food maker Hartz Mountain Industries for more than $55 million.

Leonard N. Stern, reputedly one of America’s richest men, immediately promised that, like Murdoch, he would not try to change the leftist editorial policies of the 30-year-old newspaper.

“Because my goal is to nurture and strengthen that journalistic drive and energy, I plan to operate the Village Voice as it has been run in the past,” Stern, 47, said in a statement.

The new owner, also one of the New York area’s largest real estate developers, said he planned no changes in Voice management.

Founded with a $30,000 stake by a group that included novelist Norman Mailer, the 150,000-circulation Voice bulges with advertising and has long been profitable. The tabloid last year turned a profit of more than $3 million, sources said.

Murdoch, who bought the Voice in 1977, was not available for comment. He has sought a buyer for more than two months, and industry analysts have speculated that he wished to raise cash to help pay off other recent purchases.

Murdoch paid oilman Marvin Davis $162 million for a 50% stake in 20th Century Fox, and, last month, he and Davis agreed to pay $2 billion for seven Metromedia television stations.

The Australian publisher, who paid $16 million for a package that included the Voice and New York and New West magazines, also has said that the Voice did not fit well with his other holdings.

The sale was not, however, required by Federal Communications Commission regulations.

Several Voice writers and editors said there was apprehension among some on the editorial staff because of the controversial reputation of Stern, who has been repeatedly sued by competitors for alleged anti-competitive practices.

In 1979, privately held Hartz Mountain paid $42.5 million to a competitor in an out-of-court settlement aimed at settling one such suit.

But several staff members said they expect that Stern will maintain a hands-off policy simply to avoid alienating the newspaper’s loyal following.

“It’s a certain mix of culture and politics that’s attracted readers and advertisers, and to change that is to risk a great deal,” said the paper’s managing editor, Kit Rachlis.

Jack Newfield, a senior editor and 21-year veteran, said: “Anyone who’s smart enough to make a billion dollars is smart enough to treat the Voice like a utility stock.”

Following the announcement, staff members congregated in groups around the newsroom to discuss the purchase, the fourth in the Voice’s history. Newfield said some of the younger staff members were “agitated” but “for the older guys like me, the Averell Harrimans of the staff, it was no big deal.”

He recalled that Murdoch had fired former Voice Editor Mary Anne Partridge when he purchased the paper but immediately thought better and rehired her.

Several other parties were reportedly interested in the paper, including Arthur Levitt Jr., chairman of the American Stock Exchange; J. Peter Strauss, owner of New York’s WMCA radio station, and David Schneiderman, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Voice.

Strauss and Schneiderman could not be reached for comment; Levitt confirmed his interest but said he never bid because the minimum offer of $55 million was “non-economic as far as I was concerned.”