United States Student Press Association

Last updated
United States Student Press Association
Company typeJournalism association
Industry Student publications
Foundedc. 1962
Defunctc. 1971
FateDefunct
Headquarters
Area served
United States
Key people
Roger Ebert (1963–1964)
Marshall Bloom (1967)
Parent National Student Association
Subsidiaries Collegiate Press Service

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 (which eventually spun off on its own, lasting until the late 1990s).

Contents

Based in Washington, D.C., the USSPA held a national convention of college student newspaper staff each summer at a member college campus, and a national student editors conference in Washington each year during the academic year.

It was later revealed that the USSPA was underwritten by clandestine funding from the CIA and right-wing organizations like Reader's Digest . [1] [2]

In 1967 journalist Marshall Bloom was designated as heir apparent to USSPA's executive director position, but his push to send student editors to Cuba and defy the U.S. travel ban led the incumbent executive director and other national staff to withdraw their endorsement and support. Bloom sought to win the position at USSPA's annual meeting in Minneapolis in August 1967 but lost a close vote of all student editor representatives to another candidate.

As a result of the vote, Bloom was purged from the USSPA. [3] [4] Soon afterward, Bloom and his colleague Ray Mungo formed the alternative news agency Liberation News Service. [5] [6]

USSPA later became independent, then suffered financial setbacks in the early 1970s, and disbanded.

Notable members

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medill School of Journalism</span> Constituent school of Northwestern University

The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications is a constituent school of Northwestern University that offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. It frequently ranks as the top school of journalism in the United States. Medill alumni include over 40 Pulitzer Prize laureates, numerous national correspondents for major networks, many well-known reporters, columnists and media executives.

The Seattle Liberation Front, or SLF, was a radical anti-Vietnam War movement, based in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. The group, founded by the University of Washington visiting philosophy professor and political activist Michael Lerner, carried out its protest activities from 1970 to 1971. The most famous members of the SLF were the "Seattle Seven," who were charged with "conspiracy to incite a riot" in the wake of a violent protest at a courthouse. The members of the Seattle Seven were Lerner, Michael Abeles, Jeff Dowd, Joe Kelly, Susan Stern, Roger Lippman and Charles Marshall III.

<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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Corn</span> American journalist (born 1959)

David Corn is an American political journalist and author. He is the Washington, D.C. bureau chief for Mother Jones and is best known as a cable television commentator. Corn worked at The Nation from 1987 to 2007, where he served as Washington editor.

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 National Student Association (NSA) was a confederation of college and university student governments that was in operation from 1947 to 1978.

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.

Raymond Mungo is an American author, co-author, or editor of more than a dozen books. He writes about business, economics, and financial matters as well as cultural issues.

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.

An alternative news agency 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Reston</span> American journalist and newspaper editor (1909–1995)

James Barrett Reston, nicknamed "Scotty", was an American journalist whose career spanned the mid-1930s to the early 1990s. He was associated for many years with The New York Times.

<i>The Michigan Daily</i> Newspaper in Ann Arbor, Michigan

The Michigan Daily, also known as 'The Daily,' is the independent student newspaper of the University of Michigan published in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Established in 1890, the newspaper is financially as well as editorially independent from the university. The Daily is the largest student newspaper in the United States with a staff of over 500 undergraduate students. The newspaper is managed by two editors-in-chief and a business manager. The current editors-in-chief are Samantha Rich and Dana Elobaid, who were elected in November 2023.

The Daily Orange, commonly referred to as The D.O., is an independent student newspaper published in Syracuse, New York. It is free and published once a week during the Syracuse University academic year.

<i>Washington Square News</i> Weekly student newspaper of New York University

Washington Square News (WSN) is the weekly student newspaper of New York University (NYU). It has a circulation of 10,000 and an estimated 55,000 online readers. It is published in print on Monday, in addition to online publication Tuesday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters, with additional issues published in the summer. It serves the NYU, Greenwich Village, and East Village communities in Manhattan, New York City.

<i>The Cornell Daily Sun</i> Independent daily newspaper published in Ithaca, New York, United States

The Cornell Daily Sun is an independent newspaper published three times a week in Ithaca, New York, by students at Cornell University and hired employees. Founded in 1880, The Sun is the oldest continuously independent college daily in the United States.

The State News is the student newspaper of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. It is supported by a combination of advertising revenue and a $7.50 refundable tax that students pay at each semester's matriculation. Though The State News is supported by a student tax, the faculty and administration do not interfere in the paper's content. The State News is governed by a Board of Directors, which comprises journalism professionals, faculty and students. In 2010, the Princeton Review ranked The State News as the #8 best college newspaper in the country. And in 2015, the Society of Professional Journalists named TSN as the nation's best daily college newspaper for 2014.

<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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allen Young (writer)</span> American journalist (born 1941)

Allen Young is an American journalist, author, editor and publisher who is also a social, political and environmental activist.

<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.

References

Notes

  1. Crewdson, John M. (December 27, 1977). "C.I.A. established many links to journalists in U.S. and abroad". The New York Times. p. 1. Retrieved January 20, 2009.
  2. Berlet, Chip (2011). "Muckraking Gadflies Buzz Reality". In Wachsberger, Ken (ed.). Insider Histories of the Vietnam Era Underground Press. Voices from the Underground, Part 1. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press. p. 282. ISBN   978-0870139833.
  3. Leamer, Laurence (1972). The paper revolutionaries: the rise of the underground press. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN   978-0-671-21143-1.
  4. Glessing, Robert J. (1970). The underground press in America . Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN   978-0-253-20146-1.
  5. 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.
  6. Mungo, Raymond (2012). Famous long ago: my life and hard times with Liberation News Service. University of Massachusetts Press.
  7. Martin, Douglas (April 4, 2013). "Roger Ebert Dies at 70; a Critic for the Common Man". New York Times.
  8. Ebert, Roger (Apr 15, 1966). "Mr. James B. Reston, Washington Bureau, The New York Times... [letter from Ebert to James Reston]" (PDF). U. of Illinois Archives.

Sources