Alternative news agency

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An alternative news agency (or alternative news service) operates similarly to a commercial news agency, but defines itself as an alternative to commercial or "mainstream" operations. They span the political spectrum, but most frequently are progressive or radical left. Sometimes they combine the services of a news agency and a news syndicate. Among the primary clients are alternative weekly newspapers.

Contents

Notable alternative news agencies from the past included the Associated Negro Press, the Collegiate Press Service, Liberation News Service, Pacific News Service, and the Mathaba News Agency. Active alternative news services include AlterNet, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, and Inter Press Service.

The raison d'etre of a 1970s-era service, Community Press Features, nicely summarizes the ethos of the alternative news agency:

The mass media — the metropolitan daily newspapers, television, and radio — are big businesses and are backed, through financing and advertising, by other big businesses. They naturally tend to reflect and report the concerns of large business interests over those of the rest of the population. And although there are at times significant exceptions (usually moments of crisis, when they can't afford not to) they just as naturally hesitate to report on activities and groups which seriously challenge the legitimacy of those same powerful interests. Rarely will they accurately or adequately present those groups' points of view." [1]

History

One of the first alternative news agencies was Associated Negro Press (ANP), founded in 1919 in Chicago by Claude Albert Barnett. Through its regular packets, the ANP supplied African American newspapers with news stories, opinions, columns, feature essays, book and movie reviews, critical and comprehensive coverage of events, personalities, and institutions relevant to black Americans.

The Collegiate Press Service (CPS) began in 1962 as the news agency of the United States Student Press Association (USSPA), [2] supplying material to college and university newspapers. (It was later revealed that CPS was at the time was receiving support and covert financing from the right-wing organizations Reader's Digest and the Central Intelligence Agency.) [3]

The formation of the international journalist cooperative Inter Press Service in 1964 was vital in filling the information gap between Europe and Latin America after the political turbulence following the Cuban Revolution of 1959. [4] [5]

The 1966 formation of the Underground Press Syndicate (UPS) was key to the co-development of the counterculture underground press and alternative news agencies. By June 1967, a UPS conference in Iowa City, Iowa drew 80 underground newspaper editors from the U.S. and Canada,[ citation needed ] including representatives of Liberation News Service. LNS, founded by Marshall Bloom and Ray Mungo that summer, would play an equally important and complementary role in the growth and evolution of the underground press in the United States. [6] [7] [8]

Two alternative news agencies formed in the late 1960s were notable for their coverage of the Vietnam War. The Dispatch News Service, formed in 1968, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1970 along with writer Seymour Hersh, for his coverage of the My Lai massacre. [9] Similarly, the mission of the Pacific News Service, formed in 1969, was to supply mainstream newspapers with independent expert sources and reporting on the United States' role in Indochina during the war. [10]

The explosive growth of the underground press began to subside by 1970, [8] yet a plethora of alternative news agencies were formed in the period 1971–1973. Only a few of those agencies lasted more than a couple of years, with only two — Earth News Service (ENS) and Zodiac News Service — lasting into the 1980s. Both agencies emerged from the defunct Earth magazine; [11] ENS was later renamed Newscript Dispatch Service. Meanwhile, Jonathan Newhall, [12] [13] another former Earth staffer, formed Zodiac News Service. [14]

The Capitol Hill News Service, established in 1973 as part of Ralph Nader's think tank Public Citizen, was later sold to the States News Service, run by Leland Schwartz. [15] [16]

The left-leaning news agency AlterNet was launched in 1987 [17] with a mission to serve as a clearinghouse for important local stories generated by the members of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (itself formed in 1978). At its start, AlterNet created print and electronic mechanisms to syndicate both the works of AAN papers and freelance contributors, among them Michael Moore and Abbie Hoffman.

Alternative news agencies of the 2000s have been mostly characterized as Internet-based news sites (and most have only lasted a couple of years).

Examples

Active

Defunct

Pre-1960s

1960s

1970s

  • Alternative Features Service (AFS) (June 1971–1973) — based in Berkeley; aspired to be the "King Features Syndicate of the Underground press." [11]
  • Appalachian News Service (January 1974–1976) [14] — founded by Curtis Seltzer; based in Charleston, West Virginia
  • Capitol Hill News Service (1973–1978)
  • Community Press Features (1971–mid-1970s) [14] — media group division of the UPA, an urban planning nonprofit established in Boston in 1968 [20]
  • Earth News Service/Newscript Dispatch Service (April 1972–1980s) — spun off from the defunct Earth magazine; other former Earth staffers started Zodiac News Service and Zoo World Newservice [14]
  • FPS (c. 1970–1979) — high school student news service with a sanitized name: "Free Public Schools"; later became the Magazine of Young People's Liberation
  • Her Say (1977–c. 1982) — feminist news service founded by Marlene Edmunds and Anne Millner (formerly of Zodiac News Service), [21] as well as Shelley Buck [22]
  • New York News Service (c. 1973–1974) [14] — founded by Rex Weiner and Deanne Stillman [23] (Weiner wrote for the East Village Other and founded the New York Ace ) [14]
  • People's Translation Service (1972–c. 1975) [24]
  • Tricontinental News Service (1973–c. 1974) [24]
  • Zodiac News Service (1972–1980s)
  • Zoo World Newservice (April 1972–May 12, 1973) [25] — founded by Tom Newton, formerly of Earth magazine [14]

1980s–1990s

2000s

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Fifth Estate</i> (periodical) American periodical

Fifth Estate is a U.S. periodical, based in Detroit, Michigan, begun in 1965.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Print syndication</span> Sale of news items to other news outlets

Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, political cartoons, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. The syndicates offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own and/or represent copyrights. Other terms for the service include a newspaper syndicate, a press syndicate, and a feature syndicate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Underground press</span> Publications produced without the official approval of a dominant group

The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of a dominant group. In specific recent Asian, American and Western European context, the term "underground press" has most frequently been employed to refer to the independently published and distributed underground papers associated with the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s in India and Bangladesh in Asia, in the United States and Canada in North America, and the United Kingdom and other western nations. It can also refer to the newspapers produced independently in repressive regimes. In German occupied Europe, for example, a thriving underground press operated, usually in association with the Resistance. Other notable examples include the samizdat and bibuła, which operated in the Soviet Union and Poland respectively, during the Cold War.

Liberation News Service (LNS) was a New Left, anti-war underground press news agency that distributed news bulletins and photographs to hundreds of subscribing underground, alternative and radical newspapers from 1967 to 1981. Considered the "Associated Press" for the underground press, at its zenith the LNS served more than 500 papers. Founded in Washington, D.C., it operated out of New York City for most of its existence.

The Underground Press Syndicate (UPS), later known as the Alternative Press Syndicate (APS), was a network of countercultural newspapers and magazines that operated from 1966 into the late 1970s. As it evolved, the Underground Press Syndicate created an Underground Press Service, and later its own magazine.

The United States Student Press Association (USSPA) was a national organization of campus newspapers and editors active in the 1960s. A program of the National Student Association (NSA), the USSPA formed a national news agency for college publications called Collegiate Press Service.

Collegiate Press Service, also called College Press Service (CPS), was a news agency supplying stories to student newspapers. It operated under various owners and names from 1962 to c. 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Association of Alternative Newsmedia</span> Organization

The Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN) is a trade association of alternative weekly newspapers in North America. It provides services to many generally liberal or progressive weekly newspapers across the United States and in Canada. AAN also operates AltWeeklies.com — a web portal that highlights the best news stories, features, arts criticism, and political commentary from its member newspapers.

Marshall Irving Bloom was an American journalist and activist, best known as co-founder in 1967 of the Liberation News Service, the "Associated Press" of the underground press.

<i>Los Angeles Free Press</i> Defunct American underground newspaper

The Los Angeles Free Press, also called the "Freep", is often cited as the first, and certainly was the largest, of the underground newspapers of the 1960s. The Freep was founded in 1964 by Art Kunkin, who served as its publisher until 1971 and continued on as its editor-in-chief through June 1973. The paper closed in 1978. It was unsuccessfully revived a number of times afterward.

<i>The Great Speckled Bird</i> (newspaper)

The Great Speckled Bird was a counterculture underground newspaper based in Atlanta from 1968 to 1976 and 1988 through 1990. Commonly known as The Bird, it was founded by New Left activists from Emory University and members of the Southern Student Organizing Committee, an offshoot of Students for a Democratic Society. Founding editors included Tom and Stephanie Coffin, Howard Romaine and Gene Guerrero Jr. The first issue appeared March 8, 1968, and within 6 months it was publishing weekly. By 1970 it was the third largest weekly newspaper in Georgia with a paid circulation of 22,000 copies. The paper subscribed to Liberation News Service, a leftist news collective. The office of The Great Speckled Bird at the north end of Piedmont Park was firebombed and destroyed on May 6, 1972. In a letter to the editor of the New York Review of Books, Jack Newfield et al. noted that the bombing occurred after the paper published an exposé of the mayor of Atlanta.

Dispatch News Service International (DNSI) was an alternative news agency that operated from 1968 to 1973. Initially focusing on in-depth reporting on the Vietnam War, DNS as it was commonly known, established its main operations in Saigon, South Vietnam. Reporters traveled extensively throughout Southeast Asia, reporting from various capitals, but its focus remained the countries of Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand.

<i>Chicago Seed</i> (newspaper)

The Chicago Seed was an underground newspaper published biweekly in Chicago, Illinois from May 1967 to 1974; there were 121 issues published in all. It was notable for its colorful psychedelic graphics and its eclectic, non-doctrinaire radical politics. Important events covered by Seed writers and artists were the trial of the Chicago Eight, Woodstock, and the murder of Fred Hampton. At its peak, the Seed circulated between 30,000 and 40,000 copies, with national distribution.

<i>The Rag</i> Underground newspaper

The Rag was an underground newspaper published in Austin, Texas from 1966–1977. The weekly paper covered political and cultural topics that the conventional press ignored, such as the growing antiwar movement, the sexual revolution, gay liberation, and drug culture. It encouraged these political constituencies and countercultural communities to coalesce into a significant political force in Austin. As the sixth member of the Underground Press Syndicate and the first underground paper in the South, The Rag helped shape a flourishing national underground press.

The Columbus Free Press is an American alternative journal published in Columbus, Ohio, since 1970. Founded as an underground newspaper centered on anti-war and student activist issues, after the winding down of the Vietnam War it successfully made the transition to the alternative weekly format focusing on lifestyles, alternative culture, and investigative journalism, while continuing to espouse progressive politics. Although published monthly, it has also had quarterly, bi-weekly and weekly schedules at various times in its history, with plans calling for a return to a weekly format by the end of 2014.

<i>The Paper</i> (American newspaper)

The Paper was a weekly underground newspaper published in East Lansing, Michigan, beginning in December 1965. It was one of the five original founding members of the Underground Press Syndicate.

<i>San Francisco Express Times</i> Underground newspaper, later known as Good Times

San Francisco Express Times was a counterculture tabloid underground newspaper edited by Marvin Garson and published weekly in San Francisco, California from January 24, 1968, to March 25, 1969, for a total of 61 issues, covering and promoting radical politics, rock music, arts and progressive culture in the Bay Area. It was a member of the Underground Press Syndicate, and sold for 15 cents.

<i>Space City</i> (newspaper)

Space City! was an underground newspaper published in Houston, Texas from June 5, 1969 to August 3, 1972. The founders were Students for a Democratic Society veterans and former members of the staff of the Austin, Texas, underground newspaper, The Rag, one of the earliest and most influential of the Sixties underground papers. The original editorial collective was composed of Thorne Dreyer, who had been the founding "funnel" of The Rag in 1966; Victoria Smith, a former reporter for the St. Paul Dispatch; community organizers Cam Duncan and Sue Mithun Duncan; and radical journalists Dennis Fitzgerald and Judy Gitlin Fitzgerald.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thorne Webb Dreyer</span> American journalist(born 1945)

Thorne Webb Dreyer is an American writer, editor, publisher, and political activist who played a major role in the 1960s-1970s counterculture, New Left, and underground press movements. Dreyer now lives in Austin, Texas, where he edits the progressive internet news magazine, The Rag Blog, hosts Rag Radio on KOOP 91.7-FM, and is a director of the New Journalism Project.

<i>Earth</i> (1970s magazine)

Earth magazine was a counterculture magazine published in the 1970s. It later became Earth News, an alternative news agency for radio stations. Former staffers from Earth later formed a number of alternative news agencies of their own, all of which survived into the 1980s.

References

Citations

  1. ↑ "Financial". The Boston Globe . Boston. 22 August 1971. p. 56.
  2. ↑ "RISING UNREST". The New York Times. 4 April 1965. p. 191.
  3. ↑ Crewdson, John M. (27 December 1977). "C.I.A. established many links to journalists in U.S. and abroad". The New York Times. p. 1. Retrieved 20 January 2009.
  4. ↑ "IPS – Inter Press Service News Agency » Our history". Archived from the original on 15 January 2018. Retrieved 19 September 2019.
  5. ↑ Oeffner, Annalena. The role of the Inter Press Service in the international mediascape: The case of IPS reporting on the 2005 World Social Forum. diplom.de. ISBN   9783832491802.
  6. ↑ Peck, Abe (1985). Uncovering the Sixties: The Life and Times of the Underground Press. New York: Pantheon Books.
  7. ↑ McMillian, John (2011). Smoking typewriters: the Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-531992-7.
  8. 1 2 Reed, John (26 July 2016). "The Underground Press and Its Extraordinary Moment in US History". Hyperallergic .
  9. ↑ "'I sent them a good boy and they made him a murderer'". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 23 August 2020.
  10. ↑ Weber, Bruce (26 August 2010). "Franz Schurmann, Cold War Expert on China, Dies at 84". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 1 January 2019.
  11. 1 2 Berlet, p. 285.
  12. ↑ "Jonathan Newhall, 79". California News Publishers Association. 10 March 2021.
  13. ↑ NEWHALL, BARBARA FALCONER (27 February 2021). "Jonathan Newhall. My Husband of Forty-Four Years". Barbara Falconer Newhall.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Wachsberger, Ken, ed. (2011). Insider Histories of the Vietnam Era Underground Press. Voices from the Underground, Part 1. MSU Press. ISBN   9781609172206.
  15. ↑ Carmody, Deirdre (12 May 1978). "Sale of Small News Service in Capital to Have a Big Effect". The New York Times .
  16. ↑ Kurtz, Howard (24 October 1993). "LOCAL NEWS HEROES". The Washington Post .
  17. ↑ "About AlterNet". AlterNet. Archived from the original on 22 February 1997. Launched in November 1987 by the Institute for Alternative Journalism (IAJ)...
  18. ↑ "SNN.BZ – SyndicatedNews.NET" . Retrieved 31 March 2023.
  19. ↑ "Dispatch News Service International". TriCollege Libraries: Archives and Manuscripts. DNSI suspended operations March 1973.
  20. ↑ Kester, Grant (Fall 1989). "Riots and Rent Strikes: Documentary During the Great Society Era" (PDF). Exposure. Vol. 27, no. 2. p. 29.
  21. ↑ Gaylor, Annie Laurie (February 1982). "Her Say: A Goldmine of News About Women". Womansight: News for North Texas Women. Vol. 2, no. 8. p. 1.
  22. ↑ "Her Say, Nationally Syndicated News". Whirlwind. Vol. 4, no. 1. 8 October 1981. p. 3.
  23. ↑ Rosenkranz, Patrick (2008). Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution, 1963-1975. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books. p. 164.
  24. 1 2 Berlet, p. 286.
  25. ↑ Fisher, Craig (5 May 1973). "The Coast" (PDF). Record World .
  26. ↑ "Liberation News Service". Connexipedia. Retrieved 28 January 2024.
  27. ↑ "Open Reporter". Archived from the original on 25 October 2015. Retrieved 5 November 2015. A mobile app that allows citizens and community activists to directly report newsworthy events to journalists.
  28. ↑ "Website of Scoop Analytics". Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 12 December 2016.

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