San Diego Free Press

Last updated

The San Diego Free Press was an underground newspaper founded by philosophy students of Herbert Marcuse at the University of California, San Diego in November 1968, and published under that title biweekly until December 1969, when it became the weekly Street Journal starting with its 29th issue. The paper's contents were a mix of radical politics, alternative lifestyles, and the counterculture, reflecting in part Marcuse's Frankfurt School Marxist/Freudian ideas of cultural transformation. [1] [2]

Contents

Founders of the Free Press included Lowell Bergman, later an investigative reporter for 60 Minutes . Members of the staff commune, called The People's Commune, included John Lawrence, Richard Blackburn ("Black Dick"), Herman Rumper, and Larry Gottlieb. The Policy Coordinator, who wrote most of the editorials, was Jan Diepersloot, a graduate student in linguistics. The staff lived communally in a 3-story brick house in Hillcrest, and also had a dilapidated rural retreat in Ramona, where marijuana was sometimes grown. [3]

Both the Free Press and its successor the Street Journal were subjected to arrests by local police, and harassment and spying by the FBI. Break-ins, vandalism, and the fire-bombing of a car owned by the commune were allegedly carried out by paramilitary vigilantes calling themselves the Secret Army Organization (SAO). Police and members of the military Shore Patrol entered the commune and the paper's offices without a warrant, in search of deserters. Street vendors were arrested and the paper's editorial offices were broken into and robbed; in a break-in on Christmas Day 1969, a $4000 typesetting machine was thoroughly wrecked. Subsequent issues were printed from typewritten copy. Several weeks later a fund-raising cocktail party to raise funds for the Street Journal was raided by police, who arrested Diepersloot for selling alcohol without a license. [4]

The paper made powerful enemies in San Diego by running a series of investigative exposés, largely based on rumor, on the corruption of San Diego's richest and most powerful, including tycoon C. Arnholdt Smith, publisher James S. Copley, and race track owner John Alessio. The paper's close ties to the Movement for a Democratic Military (MDM) was a source of friction with local military bases. It became impossible for the paper to find a willing printer in San Diego and the staff had to go out of town, to Los Angeles or farther afield, to find printers. Financial shortfalls took their toll, and the Street Journal finally published its last issue toward the end of 1970. [5]

Revival

The title San Diego Free Press was revived as a local leftist alternative paper produced by Indymedia, starting in 2005. Other than the title it had no other ties to the original San Diego Free Press.

On June 4, 2012 a group, associated with the OB Rag, including former contributors to the original San Diego Free Press/Street Journal, started SanDiegoFreePress.org as a website featuring neighborhood news and progressive viewpoints. Stories are published 7 days a week, including a daily (m-f) news summary and weekly columns covering everything from photographic essays to politics.

SanDiegoFreePress.Org is a volunteer organization made up of citizen journalists, progressives and community activists. An editorial board oversees daily operations and sets policy. [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

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

Fifth Estate (FE) is a U.S. periodical, based in Detroit, Michigan, begun in 1965, and presently with staff members across North America who connect via the Internet. Its editorial collective sometimes has divergent views on the topics the magazine addresses but generally shares an anarchist, anti-authoritarian outlook and a non-dogmatic, action-oriented approach to change. The title implies that the periodical is an alternative to the fourth estate.

The Georgia Straight is a free Canadian weekly news and entertainment newspaper published in Vancouver, British Columbia, by Overstory Media Group. Often known simply as The Straight, it is delivered to newsboxes, post-secondary schools, public libraries and a large variety of other locations.

<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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Underground Press Syndicate</span>

The Underground Press Syndicate (UPS), later known as the Alternative Press Syndicate (APS), was a network of countercultural newspapers and magazines formed in mid-1966 by the publishers of five early underground papers: the East Village Other, the Los Angeles Free Press, the Berkeley Barb, The Paper, and Fifth Estate. As it evolved, the Underground Press Syndicate created an Underground Press Service, and later its own magazine. For many years the Underground Press Syndicate was run by Tom Forcade, who later founded High Times magazine.

<i>San Francisco Oracle</i>

The Oracle of the City of San Francisco, also known as the San Francisco Oracle, was an underground newspaper published in 12 issues from September 20, 1966, to February 1968 in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of that city. Allen Cohen (1940–2004), the editor during the paper's most vibrant period, and Michael Bowen, the art director, were among the founders of the publication. The Oracle was an early member of the Underground Press Syndicate.

<i>The San Diego Door</i>

The San Diego Door, was an underground newspaper that thrived from January 1968 to August 1974 in San Diego and San Diego County, Southern California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Counterculture of the 1960s</span> Anti-establishment cultural phenomenon

The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon that developed throughout much of the Western world in the 1960s and has been ongoing to the present day. The aggregate movement gained momentum as the civil rights movement in the United States continued to grow, and with the intensification of the Vietnam War, it would later become revolutionary to some. As the 1960s progressed, widespread social tensions also developed concerning other issues, and tended to flow along generational lines regarding human sexuality, women's rights, traditional modes of authority, rights of non-white people, end of racial segregation, experimentation with psychoactive drugs, and differing interpretations of the American Dream. Many key movements related to these issues were born or advanced within the counterculture of the 1960s.

<i>The Rag</i>

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 the drug culture. The Rag 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. According to historian and publisher Paul Buhle, The Rag was "one of the first, the most long-lasting and most influential" of the Sixties underground papers. In his 1972 book, The Paper Revolutionaries, Laurence Leamer called The Rag "one of the few legendary undergrounds."

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. Started by Michigan State University student Michael Kindman as a radical, counterculture alternative to the official MSU campus newspaper, it was sympathetic to the politics of SDS. Initially tolerated by the MSU school administration, The Paper briefly received funding from a campus publications board, before controversial content caused it to be banned from the MSU campus, but it continued to grow in popularity after the ban.

<i>San Francisco Express Times</i>

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 62 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>Berkeley Tribe</i>

The Berkeley Tribe was a radical counterculture weekly underground newspaper published in Berkeley, California from 1969 to 1972. It was formed after a bitter staff dispute with publisher Max Scherr and split the nationally known Berkeley Barb into new competing underground weeklies. In July 1969 some 40 editorial and production staff with the Barb went on strike for three weeks, then started publishing the Berkeley Tribe as a rival paper, after first printing an interim issue called Barb on Strike to discuss the strike issues with the readership. They incorporated as Red Mountain Tribe, named after Gallo's one gallon finger-ringed jug of cheap wine, Red Mountain. It became a leading publication of the New Left.

<i>Spokane Natural</i>

Spokane Natural was an underground newspaper published biweekly in Spokane, Washington from May 5, 1967 to November 13, 1970, by the Mandala Printshop, and edited by Russ Nobbs. It belonged to the Underground Press Syndicate and the Liberation News Service. The first issue was produced out of a converted barbershop storefront cum bookstore and hangout called the "Hippie Mission" on a cul-de-sac in Spokane, where Russ Nobbs and a visiting friend from the SF Bay area, Ormond Otvos wrote and produced the first 8 page issue on a hand-cranked Spirit duplicator. After several issues of pale blue "Ditto" print on white paper, The Natural moved to colored papers and occasionally colored ink with a Gestetner Mimeograph duplicator. Ultimately, the newspaper was printed on newsprint by sheet fed or web presses by various printers in Spokane, Seattle and Davenport, WA.

<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.

<i>Hundred Flowers</i> (newspaper) Underground publication of 1970s Minnesota

Hundred Flowers was an underground newspaper published in Minneapolis, Minnesota from April 17, 1970 to April 4, 1972. It was produced by a communal collective, with the main instigator being antiwar activist and former Smith College drama instructor Ed Felien. The 16-page, two-color tabloid was published weekly and cost 25 cents, circulating about 5,000 copies.

<i>Dallas Notes</i> Underground newspaper, 1967-1970

Dallas Notes was a biweekly underground newspaper published in Dallas, Texas from 1967 to 1970, and edited by Stoney Burns, whose father owned a printing company in Dallas. Initially founded by Doug Baker at Southern Methodist University in March 1967, under the title NOTES from the Underground, the first issues were run off after hours on a copy machine at Texas Instruments.

Pittsburgh Fair Witness was a radical counterculture underground newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1970 to 1973. The first 9 monthly issues were published starting in February 1970 under the title Grok. Beginning with vol. 1, no. 10 the title was changed to Pittsburgh Fair Witness and the paper shifted to publication once every three weeks; starting with the Dec. 3-17, 1971 issue it published on a biweekly schedule until its demise with vol. 4, no. 6. The PFW was staff-owned and published by a collective that called itself "The Commune." An editorial published in the May 26, 1972 issue under the heading "Our Rap" gives the paper's statement of purpose:

"The Fair Witness is published by a non-profit collective and is dedicated to the worldwide movement of people to control themselves—the movement to break down the authoritarian systems of government that are denying us our basic freedoms, that are responsible for needless genocidal wars, the perpetration of minority discrimination, the pollution of our environment and our bodies, the high concentration of power among the wealthy classes, exploitation of the individual, etc. The paper is dedicated to the struggle of all peoples to gain back the right to their own lives, the struggle to raise the consciousness of the world as a whole, the struggle to become independently productive through a working knowledge of the tools at our disposal. As a local paper our most important function concerns the movement here in western Pennsylvania."

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

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>OB Rag</i>

The OB Rag was an underground newspaper published between 1970 and 1975 in the Neighborhood of Ocean Beach, San Diego, California, United States. The O in the title is also a peace symbol. Other San Diego underground newspapers that dealt with similar issues include the San Diego Free Press and The San Diego Door.

References

  1. ↑ About this paper: San Diego Free Press. Chronicling America, Library of Congress. Retrieved Dec. 8, 2010.
  2. ↑ The Origins of the Alternative Press in San Diego: The Days of The Door by Doug Porter. OB Rag, Feb. 17, 2009. Retrieved Dec. 8, 2010.
  3. ↑ San Diego Free Press Will Blog for Food, at typepad.com. Retrieved Dec. 8, 2010.
  4. ↑ 'Underground Paper Raises City's Temper", by Lee Dye. Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1970, p. 3.
  5. ↑ Spying on the "San Diego Street Journal" (and Other Americans by David E. Kaplan. U.S. News & World Report, Jan. 6, 2006. Retrieved Dec. 8, 2010.
  6. ↑ sandiegofreepress.org
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.