By Greg Guma
Long before the Internet emerged as a potential tool to distribute "alternative" news and views, many communities had what were called alternative weekly newspapers. Like the "underground press" of the 1960s and early '70s, many of these papers saw journalism as a form of social activism and were loosely linked to struggling news services and syndicates. New York had the Village Voice, San Francisco had the Bay Guardian and Arizona had the New Times. Some papers emerged from the anti-war movement; others focused on the need for local reform and adopted the muckraking tone of early 20th-century advocacy journalism.
However, by the late '70s, the passion was draining out of most weeklies, while a trend toward consolidation and mainstream acceptance was underway. When the owners of two dozen weeklies formed a trade association in 1978, at first they didn't even want the word "alternative" in the group's name. Today, over 100 papers belong to the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN), and about a hundred more alternative papers are being published. However, chains are rapidly gobbling up these papers in larger markets. The two largest chains are New Times, which owns eight papers, and Village Voice Media, which owns the L.A. Weekly and many new suburban "alternatives." All told, chains already control weeklies reaching half of the 17 million people who read alternative papers in the United States.
Most of the remaining independent papers have become more like the dailies they once challenged. Political coverage often takes a back seat to cultural and lifestyle features. As the dailies have learned to affect the conventions of what used to be called "New Journalism," weeklies have adopted the detached approach of the mainstream press.
If current trends continue, the most successful weeklies are likely to be bought by daily-newspaper chains or media conglomerates. Although they and the rest may occasionally engage in local muckraking, they're not likely to take on corporate power, promote labor organizing or expose institutions responsible for inequality at home or abroad. Yet, there's still hope for renewal in the emergence of a new generation of weeklies that provide a truly alternative worldview. The response to papers like Chicago's New City suggests that media consolidation and the assimilation of the old "alternatives" could spark fresh competition.
Although the growth of specialized 'zines and diverse online news sites demonstrates that a large potential audience is still out there, weekly newspapers remain essential to creating conditions for social progress. Rather than appealing to special interests, or requiring access to the Internet, they can reach large general audiences that have few other sources of news. The potential to counter the corporate media consensus is enormous. Linked to other papers and the world via the Web, they now have the ability to bring stories like those honored by Project Censored to large local audiences every week, breaking through media blackouts. An important local story, apt to be ignored by the chains and networks, can be disseminated across the country. The same holds for breakthroughs and movements on the other side of the world.
To truly be an alternative, however, weeklies will also have to overcome their tendency to adopt the conventions of corporate press: detachment, reliance on "official" sources, and the illusion of objectivity. What made many past alternative papers effective, often creating a foundation for economic success, were their connections to communities, their defiance of conventional wisdom, and an individuality and passion for the truth that shone through in the writing itself.
In an era of media globalization and centralized ownership, the need for independent papers, linked to communities but sensitive to global issues, is greater than ever. Despite its potential, the Internet is an exclusive medium, only reaching a limited number of "users," and has its own distribution limitations. Even in the largely electronic "information age," the power of print persists, and newspapers remain essential to the formation of public opinion.
In These Times publisher Beth Schulman, who helped launch the Independent Press Association, has written that Independent newspapers and magazines are the places "where we begin to describe and name public problems, where we undertake the first discussion of issues that shape the daily lives of ordinary people." Given that, leaving newspaper readers with no way to learn about the world — or their own communities — except the local (and likely chain-owned) daily not only would be a tragedy. It could be a fatal mistake.
Liberating Radio
Over 20 years ago, David Barsamian started his radio career in Boulder, Colorado with a one-hour program on KNGU. But his big break didn't come until 1986, when he launched a national program while working for another station in the southern part of the state. His idea was to interview people like Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned linguist and radical thinker who rarely gets face time on talk TV, edit the conversation to program length, and uplink the results to a satellite. Today, Barsamian's Alternative Radio is carried today on 100 stations in the United States and Canada, and in 70 other countries via shortwave.
Writing in his new book on media monopoly and its alternatives, "War, Lies and Videotape" (International Action Center), Barsamian argues that radio is one of the most accessible vehicles for alternative viewpoints. Its production is inexpensive, and satellite distribution (for about $100 per program) can provide a link to hundreds of stations. With all its media problems, he notes, the United States still has at least 100 community radio stations, the most developed and evolved such network in the world. In addition, over 400 stations have dishes and downlinks that let them obtain programming from satellites.
Although Barsamian isn't specially impressed with National Public Radio (NPR), which runs the satellite system, or its mostly university-run clones around the country, he sees potential in those few willing to take risks. He's more enthusiastic about the growth of community-run stations "where there is a pluralism in programming and certainly more diversity in terms of gender and races among the staff and volunteers." Together, they suggest the potential of a "sustainable media movement" in radio. The idea is both to penetrate existing systems and create new ones. "Radio provides a means of intellectual self-defense and a vehicle for connecting to others," Barsamian writes. Like the best of the alternative press, its radio cousins convey energy, vitality and a commitment to improving communities.
Despite mainstreaming at NPR, conflict between staff and management within the Pacifica Radio network and the domination of commercial radio by right-wing talk shows, progressive programming has gained ground in recent years. Shows like "Democracy Now," distributed by Pacifica, "CounterSpin" from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) and the National Radio Project's "Making Contact," reach many communities via satellite. More progressive progamming is in the works.
Meanwhile, micro-radio stations continue to pop up around the country. These low-power operations, collectively known as "pirate radio," seize a piece of the local airwaves without the benefit of FCC approval. Their listening range is small, but so is the cost — as little as $1000 to get on the air.
Recently, it looked as though the FCC would authorize licenses for low-power, noncommercial broadcasting, with a range of up to ten miles. But in April, the House overruled the FCC, requiring that any low-power operation must be separated from existing stations by three frequencies. If the Senate agrees, this will mean only 70 stations can be approved, mostly in uninhabited areas. Fortunately, this isn't likely to deter many "pirate" broadcasters. In April, for example, the Independent Media Center that was launched prior to the World Bank/IMF protests in Washington, D.C., ran a low-power station throughout the week, providing uncensored coverage of the events.
Media visionaries like Barsamian see radio as a central medium for social action and engagement. That's certainly been the case in other parts of the world, where poverty and limited literacy make it virtually the only way to reach a large audience. In the United States, the next big step could be national programming that provides a counterpoint to NPR's increasingly tame newscasts, not to mention commercial radio or TV's daily body count and menu of info-tainment. Radio has as much potential as any medium to help change society, especially if linked with other electronic media, online Web sites and networks and print outlets. Accessible and affordable, it's an essential tool for challenging the "knowledge monopoly" of elites.
Online Convergence
When the Pentagon developed the Internet in the 1960s, ostensibly to help the military and government function during and after a nuclear war, few imagined that it would eventually serve as a vital tool for grassroots organizing. Among the first signs was its role in Mexico's Zapatista rebellion; e-mail allowed the rebels to reach a worldwide audience and helped activists organize support networks. Since then, it has played a part in efforts to free death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, build labor solidarity and mobilize opposition to environmental threats.
In 1999, the Internet was instrumental in countering NATO's efforts to mold public opinion about the bombing of Yugoslavia (see Toward Freedom, July, 1999). Providing access to information that governments and corporate media chose to ignore or suppress, it provided a democratic mechanism for organizing, sharing news and debating strategy across borders. Some sites circulated instantaneous news from the fronts, tracking aircraft from takeoff to target. Before the end of the year, it also played an important part in the mobilization to derail the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle.
There's no doubt that computers and the Internet are making a difference for many groups and movements, both Left and Right. But whether such "new media" will provide an opportunity to promote progressive views and news that challenge conventional coverage to large, general audiences is considerably less certain. On the contrary, the ability to reach the average "Netizen" is rapidly being undermined by large conglomerates, which already influence what most people encounter on the Web.
In only five years, the Internet has been transformed from an enormous library into an incessant billboard. Many search engines, the starting point for millions of users, now mingle targeted ads with search results. Some are even beginning to solicit money for top placement. As Harvard Internet expert Andrew Shapiro explains: "What the big players are paying for is the path of least resistance. Everything else gets jumbled in the mix. This means that in the broadcast paradigm of the future, high-quality, public-interest content will probably be available, but only to those who are most determined to find it."
In the first phase of the electronic media age, the main problem was scarcity. There were only a limited number of places available on the TV and radio dial and only a few broadcast outlets providing the news. In the latest phase — call it a period of media convergence — the real challenge is abundance. Many people, even those who haven't joined the electronic global village, are experiencing information fatigue. 
The result is ruthless competition for attention, a battle currently being won by a small number of "brand names," some of them the same players who dominated before. A recent study of Internet marketing confirms that the Internet names most familiar to users are Amazon, Microsoft, AOL, Netscape and Ebay. Along with Barnes and Noble, Walmart, IBM, Intel and Coke, they are having the greatest impact on the Internet environment.
Nevertheless, the convergence phase does offer some promising avenues for independent media. One promising initiative is the Convergence Project, an attempt to create a global network of journalists, writers and activists. "This would be a kind of alternative, non-commercial news wire service," explains Manse Jacobi, Webmaster for Free Speech Internet Television, a site that hosts community-based audio and video programming. "Currently, alternative news sources look like tiny islands scattered in a vast sea of disinformation." What's missing, he argues, is a physical distribution infrastructure that brings these voices together.
That type of convergence was already visible during the recent protests against corporate globalization in Seattle and Washington. Recognizing that mainstream news outlets would distort the point of those mobilizations, organizers established an Independent Media Center (IMC) in each city to offer alternative news. IMC's are also operating in Boston, Boulder and Philadelphia (site of the Republican National Convention this July).
And what is an IMC? In Washington, it was a hastily-converted warehouse just blocks from the action, offering progressive journalists and broadcasters state-of-the-art tools for uploading and publishing video, audio, photos and written reports. In one corner, writers on laptops filed breaking news with papers around the country. In another, technicians logged videos for later compilation, editing and a nationwide satellite-cast in cooperation with Deep Dish Satellite TV. On a wall-size map, volunteers tracked the confrontations between activists and police, while others nearby taped TV coverage on a bank of monitors. Meanwhile, in a sound proof room, radio broadcasters operated a micro-radio station that sent counter-programming across the city.
Rather than caving in to "straight" journalism's competitive ethic, these media activists were emphasizing cooperation and synergy. The goal, as explained in the IMC's "Blind Spot," a daily news bulletin published in Seattle and DC, is to "further the self-determination of people under-represented in media production and content and to illuminate and analyze local and global issues that impact ecosystems, communities, individuals and the future." Echoing the passion and commitment of an earlier generation of alternative journalists, they're attempting to make their working style reflect their agenda — participation, democracy, sustainability and openness. In short, independent media as a form of "globalization from below."
This model — bottom-up communication from many independent sources — could yet pose a threat to the media giants. Their goal, of course, is to hold into and hopefully expand their audience share, mainly to sell advertising. That's why alternative media needs its own solid economic base, rooted in communities, as well as strong ties with similar operations elsewhere, such as online sites Znet and the MediaChannel, and different media outlets with shared concerns. Beyond that, alternative media also needs the courage to advocate openly for the kind of society that values diversity in what corporate journalism calls "the marketplace of ideas."
Seizing the Moment
The information revolution clearly opens up new possibilities for social change. Like Gutenberg's invention of moveable type, global information systems create at least the possibility of widespread media literacy — not to downplay the growing gap based on class, race and underdevelopment. Moveable type took the printed word beyond the privileged few; telecommunications and computers could make useful knowledge accessible to all. They might even help spur a shift in values from uniformity to diversity, from centralization to local democracy and from organizational hierarchy to cooperative problem-solving units.
But this will depend largely on the growth of a movement for media democracy and empowerment that promotes self-management of information, along with the cultivation of new skills. Effective media organizers are often generalists able to create knowledge out of large information flows and also pattern-finders who work easily in a team environment. They embrace inter-activity, take advantage of affordable delivery modes like e-mail and welcome the chance to communicate with people different then themselves.
We already know what the media giants will do: continue to provide distractions — from compulsive consumerism to the "spectacle of the week" — while "spinning" the news to reinforce the status quo. But it's still possible to harness our new technologies to extend freedom and meet the needs of the planet and humanity. Hopefully, the independent and alternative media will seize the moment, in this period of convergence, not only to speak up but also to unite.
- Greg Guma is the editor of Toward Freedom. A contributor to progressive publications for more than 25 years, he edited Vermont's leading alternative weekly, The Vanguard Press, from 1978 to 1983. TF and the Vermont sub-chapter of the National Writer's Union are currently developing plans for an independent media conference in Vermont later this year.
