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.
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 formation of the international journalist cooperativeInter 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 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 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).
Dispatch News Service (1968–1971) — antiwar news agency; the first outlet to purchase Seymour Hersh's story about the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War; also operated Dispatch News Service International (DNSI)[19]
Underground Press Syndicate (1966–1978) — originally a syndicate but then began operating the Underground Press Service news agency; in 1973 was renamed Alternative Press Syndicate
1970s
Alternative Features Service (AFS) (June 1971–1973) — based in Berkeley; aspired to be the "King Features Syndicate of the Underground press."[11]
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 Liberation News Service (1990–1993) — "LNS was restarted as New Liberation News Service with Ray Mungo's blessing by a group of younger radical journalists led by Jason Pramas.... They ... publish[ed] NLNS from their offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts...."[26]
^Peck, Abe (1985). Uncovering the Sixties: The Life and Times of the Underground Press. New York: Pantheon Books.
^McMillian, John (2011). Smoking typewriters: the Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-531992-7.
^ abcdefgWachsberger, Ken, ed. (2011). Insider Histories of the Vietnam Era Underground Press. Voices from the Underground, Part 1. MSU Press. ISBN9781609172206.
^"About AlterNet". AlterNet. Archived from the original on 22 February 1997. Launched in November 1987 by the Institute for Alternative Journalism (IAJ)...
^"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.
Berlet, Chip (2011). "Muckraking Gadflies Buzz Reality". In Wachsberger, Ken (ed.). Insider Histories of the Vietnam Era Underground Press, Part 1. Voices from the Underground. Michigan State University Press. ISBN978-0870139833.
