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), 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.)

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.

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.

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. 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.

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

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.

The left-leaning news agency AlterNet was launched in 1987 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

  • AlterNet (from 1987)
  • Association of Alternative Newsmedia/AltWeeklies.com (from 1978)
  • Inter Press Service (from 1965) — North/South issues
  • Syndicated News

Defunct

Pre-1960s

  • Associated Negro Press (1919–1964)

1960s

  • Collegiate Press Service (early 1960s–1990s) — originally a student-run project of the United States Student Press Association (Washington, DC); transformed into independent collective (Denver, Colorado) and later a private operation
  • 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)
  • Liberation News Service (1967–1981) — splintered off from Collegiate Press Service
  • Pacific News Service (1969–2017)
  • 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."
  • 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 as well as Shelley Buck
  • New York News Service (c. 1973–1974) (Weiner wrote for the East Village Other and founded the New York Ace)
  • Tricontinental News Service (1973– 1974) — founded by Tom Newton, formerly of Earth magazine

2000s

  • All Headline News (2000–2010)
  • Atlantic Free Press (2006–2011)
  • Choike.org ( 2010– 2012) — North/South issues; a project of the Third World Institute supported by Hivos and the Mott Foundation
  • Compass Direct News (2004–2012) — news agency of The Christian Post
  • The International Human Press (2010– 2020) — founded as a user-generated news site by college students from Arizona State University, University of Washington, and Tulane University
  • OpenReporter (2013– 2018)
  • Pacific Free Press (2007– 2020) — spun off from Atlantic Free Press
  • Reggae News Agency ( 2009)
  • Scoop Analytics (2015– 2017) — financial news based on social media trends

See also

  • Alternative media

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References

Citations

Sources

  • — Contains an article about the Underground Press Syndicate and other period alternative news services.