Alternative news agency explained

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.

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:

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),[1] 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.)[2]

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.[3] [4]

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, 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.[5] [6] [7]

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.[8] 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.[9]

The explosive growth of the underground press began to subside by 1970, 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;[10] ENS was later renamed Newscript Dispatch Service. Meanwhile, Jonathan Newhall,[11] [12] another former Earth staffer, formed Zodiac News Service.[13]

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.[14] [15]

The left-leaning news agency AlterNet was launched in 1987[16] 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

1980s–1990s

2000s

See also

References

Sources

Notes and References

  1. News: RISING UNREST. The New York Times. April 4, 1965. 191.
  2. News: Crewdson. John M.. December 27, 1977. C.I.A. established many links to journalists in U.S. and abroad . The New York Times. 1. January 20, 2009.
  3. Web site: IPS – Inter Press Service News Agency » Our history. en-US. 2019-09-19. 2018-01-15. https://web.archive.org/web/20180115200822/http://www.ips.org/institutional/get-to-know-us-2/our-history/. dead.
  4. Book: Oeffner, Annalena. [{{google books |plainurl=y |id=MAjrDAAAQBAJ|page=13}} The role of the Inter Press Service in the international mediascape: The case of IPS reporting on the 2005 World Social Forum]. diplom.de. 9783832491802. en.
  5. Book: Peck, Abe. Abe Peck. Uncovering the Sixties: The Life and Times of the Underground Press. New York. Pantheon Books. 1985.
  6. Book: McMillian, John. Smoking typewriters: the Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America. 2011. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-531992-7.
  7. News: Reed. John. The Underground Press and Its Extraordinary Moment in US History. Hyperallergic. July 26, 2016.
  8. Web site: 'I sent them a good boy and they made him a murderer'. The Pulitzer Prizes. 2020-08-23.
  9. News: Franz Schurmann, Cold War Expert on China, Dies at 84. Weber. Bruce. 2010-08-26. The New York Times. 2019-01-01. en-US. 0362-4331.
  10. Berlet, p. 285.
  11. Web site: Jonathan Newhall, 79. California News Publishers Association. Mar 10, 2021.
  12. Web site: Jonathan Newhall. My Husband of Forty-Four Years. Feb 27, 2021. BARBARA FALCONER . NEWHALL. Barbara Falconer Newhall.
  13. Book: Insider Histories of the Vietnam Era Underground Press. Ken . Wachsberger. MSU Press. 2011 . 9781609172206. Voices from the Underground, Part 1.
  14. News: Sale of Small News Service in Capital to Have a Big Effect. Deirdre . Carmody. May 12, 1978. The New York Times.
  15. News: LOCAL NEWS HEROES. Howard . Kurtz. Howard Kurtz. October 24, 1993. The Washington Post.
  16. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/19970222072340/http://www.alternet.org/aboutalter.html. Feb 22, 1997. About AlterNet. AlterNet. Launched in November 1987 by the Institute for Alternative Journalism (IAJ)....
  17. Web site: SNN.BZ – SyndicatedNews.NET. 31 March 2023.
  18. Web site: DNSI suspended operations March 1973.. Dispatch News Service International. TriCollege Libraries: Archives and Manuscripts.
  19. News: 29. Grant. Kester. Riots and Rent Strikes: Documentary During the Great Society Era . Exposure. 27. 2. Fall 1989.
  20. Womansight: News for North Texas Women. 2. 8. February 1982. Annie Laurie . Gaylor. Her Say: A Goldmine of News About Women. 1.
  21. News: Her Say, Nationally Syndicated News. Whirlwind. 4. 1. Oct 8, 1981. 3.
  22. Book: Rosenkranz, Patrick. Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution, 1963-1975. Seattle. Fantagraphics Books. 2008. 164.
  23. Berlet, p. 286.
  24. News: The Coast. Craig. Fisher. Record World. May 5, 1973.
  25. Web site: Liberation News Service. Connexipedia. Jan 28, 2024.
  26. Web site: Open Reporter. 5 November 2015. 25 October 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20151025091153/http://www.openreporter.org/. dead. A mobile app that allows citizens and community activists to directly report newsworthy events to journalists..
  27. Web site: Website of Scoop Analytics. 12 December 2016. 20 December 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20161220112520/https://www.scoopanalytics.com/. dead.

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