Page 43 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

| Alternat ve Med a n the Un ted States

coined the term “muckraker” for the audacious exposés that challenged en-
trenched wealth and corruption, both public and private. Those journalistic tra-
ditions remain an essential aspect of American media culture and continue to
influence alternative and freelance journalists.
Alternative media, sometimes referred to as community media, are often tied
to social movements for change and racial and economic justice. In the 1960s
“underground” newspapers flourished with antiwar voices and iconoclastic
comic artists such as R. Crumb. These papers grew out of the civil rights move-
ment, in which newspapers by the Black Panthers and others were key tools,
educating and mobilizing like-minded supporters for often militant actions that
challenged racism. Earlier in the century, antiwar voices had been published in
a magazine called The Masses, which included art by the “Ashcan School” of
painting—including William Glackens and John Sloan—and writers John Reed
and Max Eastman, among others. During WWI an entire press run of this mag-
azine was seized by the U.S. Postal Service. The government accused the maga-
zine of undermining the war effort.
The legacy of these traditions can be found in the long-form investigative re-
porting in much of the alternative press, in magazines and publications such as
Mother Jones, CounterPunch, The Progressive, Harper’s, and The Nation, among
others. These alternative sources of information stand outside a media world
dominated by corporate giants who have been charged with restricting informa-
tion unfavorable to the business sector. Corporate media counters that the alter-
native press is not popular, and the critiques it offers are outside of mainstream
concerns and issues. Defenders argue that slick styles and sensational formats
attract readers and audiences to material that distracts the public from impor-
tant democratic debates.

BroaDCasTing anD CaBLE ChannELs
Although electronic transmission in the United States had a lively start with
thousands of amateur radio broadcasters, the trend for decades after the Radio
Act of 1927 tended toward greater and greater consolidation of corporate use of
the airwaves. VHF and UHF television channels took a similar pattern. In the
1970s cable distribution advanced and more channels came on line, offering a
full channel of news (Cable News Network [CNN]), 24-hour sports channels
such as ESPN, and full-time entertainment channels, such as HBO, Showtime,
and A&E, the arts and entertainment network. However, these new channels
soon became commercially driven as part of the larger holdings of corporate
media empires.

nonCommErCiaL mEDia
Not all broadcast stations are commercial. There is electromagnetic spec-
trum space allocated for noncommercial and educational uses. Originally,
many of these channels were run by colleges and universities, although most
of them are now nonprofit entities that make up the key stations of PBS (Public