Alternative Media Watch
Welcome to Alt. Media Watch,
Z Communications is itself, of course, an instance of alternative media - meaning media that is untied to corporate interests, media that is organized as closely in tune with its values as possible, and media which presents news and analysis that takes the side of people most often dismissed and denegrated.
As part of ZCom's approach, please help us by sending suggestions for additional web links to add to this page, in the right hand column, to sysop@zmag.org
However, as we already have a nice array of such links, please try even harder to send ideas you may have for other or additional content from our database you think ought to appear in content boxes on this page.
Also, if there is some writer associated with Z whose work you find particularly on point and plentiful think should be highlighted - see the highlight section of the left menu, let us know about that too.
And, finally, if you have some favorite grapjhics you think would be nice on this page, send those, as well!
Thank You.
Newest Alt. Media
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Goodman: “Don’t Hate the Media, Be the Media”
Reflections on 20 Years of Indymedia, a Radical Media Movement
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Resources for teachers and students offer useful tools but reinforce status quo
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Dolack: Resisting misleading narratives about Pacifica Radio
The counter-narratives about the recent takeover, and restoration, of New York City’s Pacifica radio station, WBAI, have apparently begun
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Tanaka: Response to Pete Dolack Articles on WBAI and Pacifica
The real danger to Pacifica is not a ‘corporate coup’. The real danger is a financial failure which is what the current governance structure has brought about
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Paul: Can Deadspin Live Again as a Worker-Owned Website?
The question about the former Deadspin workers isn’t just what’s next for them; it’s also about what’s next for us, the media consumers who need their voices so badly
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Levy: The Incredible Belief That Corporate Ownership Does Not Influence Media Content
Corporate ownership of media interferes with the core societal function of the press: reporting and investigating key issues at the intersection of public need and governance
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LaChance: Mother Jones Is Failing Its Namesake
The dismal conditions are part of the cruelty, but the existence of a place to sleep in a prison certainly does not negate the evil of its condition
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Goodale: Assange Indictment “Criminalizes the News Gathering Process”
A London judge has ordered WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to...
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Pilger: A ‘Very Long Uphill Road’ for Assange
It presents the most, the gravest threat to press freedom which I can remember
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Pilger: The Global War on Assange, Journalism & Dissent
Interview about the persecution of the WikiLeaks publisher and the rapid crackdown on investigative journalism
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Risen: The Indictment of Julian Assange
A true democracy does not allow its government to decide who is a journalist. A nation in which a leader gets to make that decision is on the road to dictatorship
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Pilger: The Assange arrest is a warning from history
The glimpse of Julian Assange being dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy in London is an emblem of the times.
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Assange was reduced from one of the few towering figures of our time – a man who will have a central place in history books, if we as a species live long enough to write those books – to nothing more than a sex pest, and a scruffy bail-skipper.
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Grim: Means TV, A Post-Capitalist Streaming Service
Launched Thursday morning, Means TV plans to bring a leftist lens to news and entertainment in the burgeoning subscription video-on-demand industry
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Flanders: Making American Journalism Great and Different
For all the changes that have hit the news, some things have remained the same: a handful of mostly pale, male editors and publishers downtown have defined who and what is newsworthy and who gets to tell the news
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Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent Revisited
Noam Chomsky's ideas on the media in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media have provided us with a guide, full of cautionary tales and ideas that are still controversial to this day
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Wokusch: The Case Against WikiLeaks Is a Crisis for the First Amendment
The Trump administration once celebrated WikiLeaks. Now it wants to prosecute Julian Assange simply for publishing things it doesn't like. That's a threat to all journalists
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"I think the Acosta incident is... a symbol of an attempt to discredit not only CNN but the entire press corps."
ZMag Alt. Media
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Street: Reflections on the Not-so Public Broadcasting System
the news and commentary one finds on PBS is in rich tune with the narrow capitalist parameters of acceptable coverage and debate that typify the more fully and explicitly for-profit and commercialized corporate media
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Staff: Danny Schechter, 1942-2015
Schechter infused almost all his work—whether it was for alternative or mainstream media—with his advocacy of human rights. In 1971, Schechter joined the Boston rock station WBCN-FM, where he found a following as “Danny Schechter, the News Dissector.” This Memorial was compiled from a number of emails to Z.
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Sargent: Our Dilemma, Your Dilemma
Since “Our Dilemma” appeared in the March issue, things have improved and we can take more time with our decision. Meanwhile, we would like to assure you that we have never asked ourselves, “Why Bother?”
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Information on Z's mission, submission guidelines, contacts, and subscription rates for 2014
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Rosen: User Generated Content & the Remaking of Media Publishing
Reports of newspapers and magazines closings are daily occurrences. Similar...
Alt. Media Video
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M.j.: Independent Publishing in India
Continuing our focus on independent publishing in India, we talk to...
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Harrison: Wikileaks: Interview with Investigations Editor Sarah Harrison
Interview on the case of Julian Assange, the findings of the UN working group on arbitrary detention, national security, international law and how one can support whistleblowers
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Schwarz: I.F. Stone’s One Weird Trick to Do Great Journalism
If you don’t know Stone but want to find out why he’s so beloved, the videos describe his approach and some of his accomplishments
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Katsiaounis: Greek Book Publishing in a Time of Crisis
The Greek social and material crisis has forced many book stores and publishers to close while writers and readers are considering new political ideas
Alt. Media Audio
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Schechter: Michael Albert On Participatory Media
A former member of Students for a Democratic Society, Michael would go on to develop, along with Robin Hahnel, an alternative to market capitalism called participatory economics.
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Wilpert: Announcing TeleSUR English
Greg Wilpert is director of teleSUR English, a newly launched multimedia website that is sponsored by teleSUR, the Latin American TV channel that is funded by the left governments of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay, Argentina, Nicaragua, and Cuba
Blogs Alt. Media
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Jensen: Enough with the Christopher Hitchen’s worship
I woke up this morning to a barrage of twitter...
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Albert: Parecon as Anarcho Snake Pit: Scene Setting
Finding Unity? Anarchism says, in all life's dimensions, reduce...
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Burrows: Montreal Anarchist Bookfair 2011
Montreal's annual Anarchist Bookfair is coming up on May 21-22,...
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Kearns: The “middle class mob”: press coverage of Saturday’s UK Uncut action
Discourses around protests develop pretty quickly such that it's tricky...
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Campagna: What Are We Struggling For? – Seminar
Last year’s student protests saw a new generation take to...
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Andrews: After 90 Years, History Still Unbalanced
Why is the town of Braintree still wrestling with a...
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Spannos: Athens Botanical Garden: Free Social Center
[Originally in Greek. Special thanks to Athens anti-authoritarian movement friends...