Howard Smith, a journalist whose long-running Scenes column in The Village Voice was the message board of the hippie counterculture in the 1960s, and who later produced and directed “Marjoe,” an Oscar-winning 1972 documentary about another subculture, Christian evangelism, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 77. The cause was cancer, his son Cass said.

Mr. Smith’s column, which he wrote from 1966 to 1980, was equal parts tipsheet, on-the-scene reportage and democracy wall for The Voice’s anti-establishment readership. His relentless energy and disarming curiosity attracted a wide readership, giving many their first inkling of phenomena that became synonymous with the era.

“Be-in,” “love-in,” “Woodstock,” “head shop,” “Yippies” and “Stonewall” were words and phrases that many Voice readers saw for the first time, or nearly so, in Scenes.

His knack for trend-spotting made Mr. Smith a magnet for political organizers, celebrities and aspiring celebrities. Reader interest in the doings of Abbie Hoffman, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Lou Reed, Frank Zappa, Wavy Gravy and others was frequently rewarded. His interviews and encounters with them, many of whom he considered friends, became a mainstay of the column. For promoters, a mention of a client in Scenes was the rough equivalent of a viral video in today’s currency of publicity.