Magazine Issue 5&6 - Winter 1997
The Alternative Media...

The first weekend in September saw radical journalists from all over the country descend on Oxford for the first Alternative Media Gathering. Organised by Corporate Watch, New Internationalist and Undercurrents, it provided an opportunity to share experiences and focus on campaigning collectively against the flow of the mainstream media and all they stand for. The main themes coming out of the gathering were the need to show solidarity with Gandalf defendents and the idea of starting up an alternative news agency. Another conclusion was that activists seem quite well catered for in terms of media ... below is just a selection of some of the publications that challenge the establishment and provide a voice for radical opinion.

These, along with community newsletters and radio stations, small press publications, websites, listings guides and self-published rants by self-publicists all have a role to play in combatting the homogeneity of the mass produced, mass circulated media. Quality varies but there’s nothing like settling down with a magnifying glass to read your way to revolution. For something really obscure, try “The Listening Voice” (the newsletter of the Equi-Phallic alliance proclaiming such mad headlines as “Wessex Hills are falsies shock!”) and Heads & Tales (one man’s drug rant zine with everything you could possibly want to know about drugs plus what you didn’t, available c/o The Tribe of the Spoon, PO Box 11954 London NW2 5WJ).

West 7th Avenue, Vancouver, BC, V6H 1B7 Canada. 001 604 736 9401 http://www.adbusters.org Subvertising and spoofing corporate culture. As featured in Undercurrents 7.

The Big Issue, 57-61 Clerkenwell Rd, London EC1M 5NP. Street paper sold by homeless. This weekly news magazine now has a greater circulation than some of the national daily broadsheets. Exclusive news, arty reviews. Available in cities around Britain from badged vendors at 80p; 45p goes to vendor.

Counter Information c/o Transmission, 28 King Street, Glasgow G1 5QP. Free quarterly newsheet produced by independent Scottish collective to assist in struggle against injustice, oppression and exploitation. Distribution info for north of England from PO Box HP 171, Leeds LS6 1XX.

Daily Hammer, c/o Box X, 111 Magdalen Road, Oxford. More or less quarterly small print run paper for the Ploughshares Support network. It particularly helps to support those imprisoned for their acts of disarmament.

Do or Die c/o SDEF! Prior House, Tilbury Place, Brighton, East Sussex. Book sized journal aimed at promoting wider understanding of issues amongst activists with analysis of campaigns and actions. Last issue included sixty feature articles, reviews, letters and plenty of international news.

Earth First! Action Update c/o Manchester EF! Dept 29, 1 Newton street, M1 1HW, tel:0161 224 9846 actionupdate@gn.apc.org http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/campaigns/ef/earthfirst.html Excellent monthly NVDA review, contacts, diary etc.

The Ecologist Agriculture House, Bath Road, Sturminster Newton, Dorset DT10 1BB. High quality bi-monthly journal of lengthy in-depth feature articles.

Ethical Consumer Ethical Consumer Research Association , 41 Old Birley Street, Manchester M15 5RF. tel: 0161 226 2929 fax: 0161 226 6277. E-Mail: Ethicon@mcr1.poptel.org.uk Bi-monthly “Which?” type magazine started in 1989 and published by the Ethical Consumer Research Association. Buy nothing - if not, buy ethically. Features on green issues, companies, etc., with company responses always reproduced on letters page. Issue 50 promises to be a bumper celebration issue. Subscription £17 a year.

Evading Standards One-off newspaper produced for London Reclaim the Streets party in April of this year. A spoof of the Evening Standard, 20, 000 copies were produced but seized by the police from the distribution point, with charges being made for conspiracy to incite affray and for using the Evening Standard logo. Within three hours the publication had been put onto the web (GET THIS SITE XAN or SOMEONE!) and the paper was reprinted and mysteriously ended up on the shelves of WH Smith where people thought it was for real.

Fourth World Review, 24 Abercorn Place, London NW8 9XP. Thinking persons’ journal edited by John Papworth, founder of Resurgence magazine (‘now relegated to the aromatherapy ghetto’!) and the London priest recently castigated by the establishment for advocating shoplifting super-markets. Expounding anti-globalist view that Small is Beautiful, he talks of “neighbourhood cells as the blood cells of civilisations - without them, the civilisations suffer from political leukeamia.”

Genethics News, PO Box 6313, London 6313. Bi-monthly magazine exploring the politics and ethics of genetics and of genetic engineering and demystifying genetic science.

Genetix Update, c/o PO box 9656, London N4 4JY Tel: 0181 374 9516 gen@earthling.net http://home.rednet.co.uk/homepages/gen.html Excellent (4-sides) newsletter by the UK Genetic Engineering Network. Monthly round-up of the latest - as seen on e-mail. Free copy supplied with this CW5&6’s mailout.

Green Anarchist c/o BCM 1715 London WC1N 3XX. See page 8. Features “Diary of Community Resistance”, anarcho-purist rants and prisoner support e.g how to boil water using a biro and two razor blades.

GreenLine, PO Box 5, Lostwithiel, Cornwall PL22 OYT. Accessible Reader’s Digest-type roundup of the green movement

Green World, 49 York Rd, Aldershot, Hants. GU11 3JQ. tel/fax: 01252 330506 Green Party magazine. Reflects the political needs of the green movement and provides a window on green politics.£7 for four issues.

Guilfin PO Box 217, Guildford, Surrey GU1 1WS. Part of the Free Information Networks which provide information and listings on actions, events and music. Free.

The Law, PO Box 3878, London SW12 9ZE. Informative quarterly full of useful legal precedents.

New Internationalist (UK Subscriptions) PO Box 79, Hertford SG14 1AQ tel: 01992 822 899 newint@gn.apc.org http://www.oneworld.org/ni/ Full global technicolour monthly magazine which started in the 1970’s with a focus on development and international themes. Aims to reflect the world we live in and campaign on the side of the poor against the rich, with each issue analysing a different topic. Current subscription price £24.95.

OneWorldOnline: www.oneworld.org The international alternative media organisation on the internet. Supersite with on-line news service connected to partner campaign group sites.

Open Eye, BM Open Eye, London WC1N 3XX. Courageous and intelligent investigative journal.

Peace News, 5 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX. Tel: 0171 2783344. Founded in 1936 by pacifists, it became essential reading for peace activists in the 1980’s when it had a strong anarcho-feminist line. After near collapse in the late 1980’s it then merged with “War Resistance International”. News, reviews, debate. Issued monthly under the banner “for non-violent revolution”.

Positive News The Six Bells, Church Street, Bishops Castle SY9 5AA Tel.: 01588 630 Fax.: 01588 630 122 positive.news@btinternet.com http://www.oneworld.org/positive_news. Sick of depressing journalistic rants about misery and pain and the destruction of the planet? Smile as you sit in your armchair reading this tabloid for a change - everything’s going to be just fine. Prozac anyone?.

Red Pepper 1b Waterlow Road, London N19 5NU Tel. 0171 281 7024 Fax. 0171 263 9345 redpepper@online.rednet.co uk http://www.redpepper.org.uk Hipster left/green mag currently featuring our very own Corporate Watch page.

SchNews c/o On The Fiddle, PO Box 2600, Brighton, BN2 2DX tel: 01273 685 913. http://www.cbuzz.co.uk/Schnews/index.html Producers of the fab weekly direct action newsletter that has been going for three years. It all began with weekly alternative newsreadings by the Justice? group when they were squatting the Courthouse in Brighton. Regular columns include the infamous “Crap Arrest of the Week”. The Schnews team now receive so many stories that they are thinking of opening a (Sch)News Agency.

Squall PO Box 8959, London N19 5HW. tel: 0171 561 1204 fax: 0171 272 9243. squall@phreak.intermedia.co.uk http://www.phreak.intermedia.co.uk/squall Kicking magazine for the active that should be reappearing phoenix-like soon.

Undercurrents 16b Cherwell Street, Oxford OX4 1BG tel: 01865 203 663 fax: 01865 243 562 underc@gn.apc.org Dubbed “the Pathe news of the ‘90’s” this biannual video direct action magazine was set up in 1993 as a direct challenge to TV news, which has now started to show footage shot by Undercurrents. Undercurrents also helps people to create their own media and become “camcorder activists” by using video in their campaigns. Undercurrents has an archive of footage and will send appropriate bits to campaigns for their use. A certain car manufacturer tried to get Undercurrents to give them footage of protestors for use in a commercial (they refused). Group showings of Undercurrents are particularly encouraged. Price £12.95.

The Verge Postbox 94115, 1090 GC Amsterdam, The Netherlands Tel. +31 20 665 7743 Fax. +31 20 692 8757 VERGE@eyfa.antenna.nl http://www.antenna.nl/eyfa In its own words, a “Europeanwide environmental action magazine, covering actions, ecological lifestyle, backgrounds; news that mainstream media won’t cover ... a platform for youth environmental networking in Europe.” Published by European Youth Forest Action and printed beautifully using stencils on handmade recycled paper.