Alternative press (U.S. political left)

Under the broad heading of the alternative press are several subcategories including periodicals published by groups, movements, or individuals affiliated with the U.S. political left. As the word press implies, these are printed publications, as opposed to electronic forms of alternative media

Alternative media

Alternative media are media which provide alternative information to the mainstream media in a given context, whether the mainstream media are commercial, publicly supported, or government-owned...

.

A large number of alternative and radical publications are indexed in the Alternative Press Index published by the Alternative Press Center, which also maintains a list of these periodicals browsable online.

Magazines

The Activist (available online) (from the Young Democratic Socialists
Young Democratic Socialists
Young Democratic Socialists is a democratic socialist youth organization in the United States. It is the youth section of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose political outlook it shares, and the American affiliate of the International Union of Socialist Youth...

)
AdBusters
AdBusters
The Adbusters Media Foundation is a Canadian-based not-for-profit, anti-consumerist, pro-environment organization founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver, British Columbia...

(a Canadian magazine)
Against the Current
Against the Current
Against the Current could refer to:* Against the Current, the journal of the socialist group Solidarity * Against the Current, a 2009 film starring Joseph Fiennes, Elizabeth Reaser, and Justin Kirk...

, bi-monthly journal published by the group, Solidarity (US)
Solidarity (US)
In left-wing politics in the United States, Solidarity is a socialist organization associated with the journal Against the Current. Solidarity is an organizational descendant of International Socialists, a Trotskyist organization based on the proposition that the Soviet Union was not a "degenerate...

(no relation to Polish organization Solidarność)
Cineaste
The Crisis
The Crisis
The Crisis is the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , and was founded in 1910 by W. E. B. Du Bois , Oswald Garrison Villard, J. Max Barber, Charles Edward Russell, Kelly Miller, W.S. Braithwaite, M. D. Maclean.The original title of the journal was...

(from the NAACP)
Dissent
Dissent (magazine)
Dissent is a quarterly magazine focusing on politics and culture edited by Michael Walzer and Michael Kazin. The magazine is published for the Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas, Inc by the University of Pennsylvania Press....
Extra!
Extra!
Extra! is a monthly magazine of media criticism published by the media watch group FAIR. First published in 1987, its first full-time editor was Martin A. Lee. Since 1990, it has been edited by Jim Naureckas...

(from FAIR
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting is a progressive media criticism organization based in New York City, founded in 1986.FAIR describes itself on its website as "the national media watch group" and defines its mission as working to "invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity...

)
Grist Magazine
Grist Magazine
Grist is a free American liberal non-profit online magazine that has been publishing environmental news and commentary with a wry twist since 1999. Grists taglines are "Gloom and doom with a sense of humor" and "A beacon in the smog"...
International Socialist Review
International Socialist Review
International Socialist Review may refer to:*International Socialist Review *International Socialist Review *International Socialist Review...

(available online) (from the International Socialist Organization
International Socialist Organization
The International Socialist Organization is a revolutionary socialist organization in the United States that identifies with the politics of International Socialism, a current of Trotskyism, and the Marxist political tradition that American socialist writer and activist Hal Draper called...

)
In These Times
In These Times
In These Times is a politically progressive monthly magazine of news and opinion published by the Institute for Public Affairs in Chicago...

(available online)
Left Turn
Left Turn
Left Turn is a bimonthly activist news magazine that focuses on international social justice movements. Based in New York and produced by an all volunteer editorial collective, the magazine promotes anti-imperialism and anti-authoritarianism....

(available online)
Ms.
Monthly Review
Monthly Review
Monthly Review is an independent Marxist journal published 11 times per year in New York City.-History:The publication was founded by Harvard University economics instructor Paul Sweezy, who became the first editor...
Mother Jones
The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
New Internationalist
New Internationalist
New Internationalist is a magazine from New Internationalist Publications, a co-operative-run publisher based in Oxford, England. It has editorial and sales offices in Toronto, Canada; Adelaide, Australia; Christchurch, New Zealand; and New York, USA....
New Politics
New Politics (magazine)
New Politics is an independent socialist journal founded in 1961 and still published in the United States today. While it is inclusive of articles from a variety of left-of-center positions, the publication leans strongly toward a Third camp, democratic Marxist perspective, placing it typically to...
Political Affairs Magazine
Political Affairs Magazine
Political Affairs Magazine is a monthly, online Marxist publication. It aims to provide an analysis of events from a working class point of view. Political Affairs Magazine is a publication of the Communist Party USA. It was founded in 1944 upon the closure of its predecessor, The Communist, which...
The Progressive
The Progressive
The Progressive is an American monthly magazine of politics, culture and progressivism with a pronounced liberal perspective on some issues. Known for its pacifism, it has strongly opposed military interventions, such as the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The magazine also devotes much coverage...
Socialism and Liberation, (available online), monthly magazine of the Party for Socialism and Liberation
Party for Socialism and Liberation
The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a Marxist-Leninist political party in the United States. It was originally created as the result of a split within the ranks of Workers World Party , although their political line is nearly identical. The San Francisco branch as well as several other...
Synthesis/Regeneration
Synthesis/Regeneration
Synthesis/Regeneration is an independently published quarterly magazine whose articles examine contemporary issues in environmental politics, energy development, energy policy, climate change, social change, and social justice....

(available online), A Magazine of Green Social Thought
Yes! Magazine
YES! Magazine
YES! Magazine is a non-profit, ad-free magazine that covers topics of social justice, environmental sustainability, alternative economics, and peace. The magazine is published by Positive Futures Network, founded by David Korten and Sarah van Gelder; Korten's wife, Fran Korten, is the publisher. ...
Z Magazine (available online)

No longer published

Clamor Magazine
Crossroads, editorial board containing members of C of C
Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
The Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism is a democratic socialist group in the United States which originated in 1991 as the Committees of Correspondence, a moderate, reformist wing of the Communist Party USA...

, DSA
Democratic Socialists of America
Democratic Socialists of America is a social-democratic organization in the United States and the U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International, an international federation of social-democratic,democratic socialist and labor political parties and organizations.DSA was formed in 1982 by a merger of...

, ex-SWP, ex-NCM
New Communist Movement
The New Communist Movement ' was a Marxist-Leninist political movement of the 1970s and 1980s in the United States. The term refers to a specific trend in the U.S. New Left which sought inspiration in the experience of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Chinese Revolution, and the Cuban...

and others. Published 1991 -1996.
Fourth International (available online). Socialist Workers Party. Published 1940 - 1945.
The Liberator (available online) Monthly culture and politics paper, founded by Max Eastman
Max Eastman
Max Forrester Eastman was an American writer on literature, philosophy and society, a poet, and a prominent political activist. For many years, Eastman was a supporter of socialism, a leading patron of the Harlem Renaissance and an activist for a number of liberal and radical causes...

as successor to The Masses
The Masses
The Masses was a graphically innovative magazine of socialist politics published monthly in the U.S. from 1911 until 1917, when Federal prosecutors brought charges against its editors for conspiring to obstruct conscription. It was succeeded by The Liberator and then later The New Masses...

.
The Masses
The Masses
The Masses was a graphically innovative magazine of socialist politics published monthly in the U.S. from 1911 until 1917, when Federal prosecutors brought charges against its editors for conspiring to obstruct conscription. It was succeeded by The Liberator and then later The New Masses...

. Published 1911 - 1917.
The New Leader
The New Leader
The New Leader was a political and cultural magazine begun in 1924 by a group of figures associated with the Socialist Party of America, including Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas, and published in New York by the American Labor Conference on International Affairs. Its orientation is liberal and...

. Published 1924-2010.
The New Masses
The New Masses
The "New Masses" was a prominent American Marxist publication edited by Walt Carmon, briefly by Whittaker Chambers, and primarily by Michael Gold, Granville Hicks, and Joseph Freeman....

. Published 1926–1948.
New Left Notes, Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...

. Published vol. 1 #1 1965 - vol. 4 # 31 Oct 2/1969.
Radical America
Radical America
Radical America was a left wing political magazine in the United States established in 1967. The magazine was founded by Paul Buhle and Mary Jo Buhle, activists in Students for a Democratic Society and served during its first few years of existence as an unofficial theoretical journal of that...

, 1967-1999, journal unofficially affiliated with SDS
Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...

, from 1967 to 1969; founded by SDS activists Paul Buhle
Paul Buhle
Paul Merlyn Buhle is a Senior Lecturer at Brown University, author or editor of 35 volumes including histories of radicalism in the United States and the Caribbean, studies of popular culture, and a series of nonfiction comic art volumes. He is the authorized biographer of C. L. R...

and Mary Jo Buhle.
Ramparts
Ramparts (magazine)
Ramparts was an American political and literary magazine, published from 1962 through 1975.-History:Founded by Edward M. Keating as a Catholic literary quarterly, the magazine became closely associated with the New Left after executive editor Warren Hinckle hired Robert Scheer as managing editor...

(1962–1975)
Socialist Review
Socialist Review (US)
Socialist Review is a left-wing political and cultural magazine published in the United States since 1970...

1970-2002
Studies on the Left, 1959-1967, edited by William Appleman Williams
William Appleman Williams
William Appleman Williams was one of the 20th century's most prominent revisionist historians of American diplomacy, and has been called "the favorite historian of the Middle American New Left." He achieved the height of his influence while on the faculty of the Department of History at the...

.
The Realist
The Realist
The Realist was a pioneering magazine of "social-political-religious criticism and satire," intended as a hybrid of a grown-ups version of Mad and Lyle Stuart's anti-censorship monthly The Independent. Edited and published by Paul Krassner, and often regarded as a milestone in the American...

, 1959–2001, edited and published by Paul Krassner
Paul Krassner
Paul Krassner is an author, journalist, stand-up comedian, and the founder, editor and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine The Realist, first published in 1958...
Win, New York, late 1960s-early 70s.

National newspapers

Burning Spear
Burning Spear
Winston Rodney, OD , also known as Burning Spear, is a Jamaican roots reggae singer and musician. Burning Spear is known for his Rastafari movement messages.-History:...

(available online) newspaper of the African People's Socialist Party
African People's Socialist Party
The African Peoples Socialist Party is a revolutionary organisation whose goal is to improve the living conditions of Black people in the United States and around the world. The Party was formed in May 1972 by the merger of three Black power organisations based in the US states of Florida and...
Challenge (available online) biweekly paper of the Progressive Labor Party
Democratic Left (available online) quarterly publication of the Democratic Socialists of America
Democratic Socialists of America
Democratic Socialists of America is a social-democratic organization in the United States and the U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International, an international federation of social-democratic,democratic socialist and labor political parties and organizations.DSA was formed in 1982 by a merger of...
Fight Back! (available online) paper associated with Freedom Road Socialist Organization
Freedom Road Socialist Organization
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization — known in Spanish as Organización Socialista del Camino para la Libertad — was formed in 1985 as many of the Maoist-oriented groups formed in the United States New Communist Movement of the 1970s were shrinking or collapsing...
Freedom Socialist (available online) bimonthly newspaper of the Freedom Socialist Party
Freedom Socialist Party
The Freedom Socialist Party is a socialist political party with a unique program of revolutionary feminism that emerged from a split in the United States Socialist Workers Party in 1966. It is currently a working class organization that works towards creating social justice and order for all...
Green Pages (available online) the quarterly newspaper of the Green Party of the United States
Green Party (United States)
The Green Party of the United States is a nationally recognized political party which officially formed in 1991. It is a voluntary association of state green parties. Prior to national formation, many state affiliates had already formed and were recognized by other state parties...
Industrial Worker (web page; the publication itself is not available online) - monthly newspaper of the Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...

(Wobblies)
The Indypendent (available online) biweekly paper published by the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

Independent Media Center
Independent Media Center
The Independent Media Center is a global participatory network of journalists that report on political and social issues. It originated during the Seattle anti-WTO protests worldwide in 1999 and remains closely associated with the global justice movement, which criticizes neo-liberalism and its...
Justice! (available online) bimonthly paper of Socialist Alternative (US)
Socialist Alternative (US)
Socialist Alternative is a Trotskyist organization in the United States. It is the US section of Committee for a Workers' International .-Publications:Socialist Alternative publishes a bimonthly newspaper called Justice....
The Militant
The Militant
The Militant is an international Socialist newsweekly connected to the Socialist Workers Party and the Pathfinder Tendency. It is published in the United States and distributed in other countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Sweden, Iceland, and New...

(available online) weekly paper of the Socialist Workers Party
MIM Notes (available online) monthly paper of the Maoist International Movement
News and Letters (available online) bimonthly paper of the News and Letters Committees
News and Letters Committees
News and Letters Committees is a small, revolutionary-socialist organization in the United States. It is the world's most prominent Marxist-Humanist organization....
The People (available online) bimonthly paper of the Socialist Labor Party
People's Tribune (available online) monthly paper of the Communist League, Communist Labor Party and the League of Revolutionaries for a New America
League of Revolutionaries for a New America
The League of Revolutionaries for a New America is an organization of revolutionaries in the United States formed with the stated goal of "educating revolutionaries and winning them over to a cooperative communist resolution to the problems faced in the economy and society." The League was...
People's Weekly World
People's Weekly World
The People's World is a news web site associated with the Communist Party USA.The People's World / Mundo Popular, formerly the People's Weekly World / Nuestro Mundo is a national, grassroots weekly newspaper and the direct descendant of the Daily Worker, founded in 1924...

(available online) the weekly paper of the Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
Revolution: Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (available online) weekly paper of the RCP. Continues Revolutionary Worker.
The Socialist (available online) bi-monthly paper of the Socialist Party USA
Socialist Party USA
The Socialist Party USA is a multi-tendency democratic-socialist party in the United States. The party states that it is the rightful continuation and successor to the tradition of the Socialist Party of America, which had lasted from 1901 to 1972.The party is officially committed to left-wing...
Socialist Worker
Socialist Worker
Socialist Worker is the name of several socialist/communist newspapers associated with the International Socialist Tendency...

(available online) weekly paper of the International Socialist Organization
Workers Vanguard (available online), biweekly paper of the Spartacist League
International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist)
The International Communist League , earlier known as the international Spartacist tendency is a Trotskyist international. Its largest constituent party is the Spartacist League...
Workers World (PDF available online) weekly paper of the Workers World Party
Workers World Party
Workers World Party is a far-left political party in the United States, founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy. Marcy and his followers split from the Socialist Workers Party in 1958 over a series of long-standing differences, among them Marcy's group's support for Henry A...

No longer published

The Black Panther (newspaper of the Black Panther Party
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....

)
The Call
The Call
- Publications :* The Call , a newspaper in Kansas City, Missouri, serving the Black American community* The New York Call, sometimes simply called The Call, a Socialist newspapter published by the Socialist Party of America...

daily paper of the Socialist Party of America
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...

(1908–1923)
The Class Struggle (available online) monthly paper of the Communist League of Struggle
Communist League of Struggle
The Communist League of Struggle was a small communist organization active in the United States during the 1930s. Founded by Albert Weisbord and his wife, Vera Buch, who were veterans of the Left Socialist movement and the Communist Party USA, the CLS briefly affiliated with Leon Trotsky...

(1931–1937)
The Crusader
African Blood Brotherhood
The African Blood Brotherhood for African Liberation and Redemption was a radical U.S. black liberation organization established in 1919 in New York City by journalist Cyril Briggs. The group was established as a propaganda organization built on the model of the secret society...

monthly magazine of the African Blood Brotherhood (1918–1922)
Daily Worker
Daily Worker
The Daily Worker was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, some attempts were made to make it appear that the paper reflected a...

daily paper of the Communist Party USA (1924–1957)
Grass Roots (National Publication for the Peoples' Parties)
Guardian New York City (1948–1992); unrelated to The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

newspaper.
Hammer and Sickle (League for Proletarian Revolution)
PM (newspaper)
PM (newspaper)
PM was a leftist New York City daily newspaper published by Ralph Ingersoll from June 1940 to June 1948 and bankrolled by the eccentric Chicago millionaire Marshall Field III....
R.P.M. (Detroit Organizing Committee)
War Times
War Times
War Times is a real-time strategy computer game. It was developed by Strategy First and produced by legend. It is a World War II strategy game where you can be either the allies or the axis and you usually have to complete a task that pertains to killing the opposing force or defending your base...

(available online)
Workers' Power paper of the International Socialists
International Socialists (US)
The International Socialists was a Third Camp Trotskyist group in the United States.The roots of the IS went back to the fall of 1964 when the Berkeley locals of the SP-SDF and YPSL left with 16 members to found the Independent Socialist Club led by Hal Draper and Joel Geier...

(ceased publication 1986 [?])

Labor newspapers

Colorado Labor Advocate (Denver, Colorado)
Criterion (UAW Local 961)
Industrial Worker
Industrial Worker
The Industrial Worker, "the voice of revolutionary industrial unionism," is the newspaper of the Industrial Workers of the World . It is currently released ten times a year, printed and edited by union labor, and is frequently distributed at radical bookstores, demonstrations, strikes and labor...

(available online) published 10 times per year by Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
Labor Notes
Labor Notes
Labor Notes is a non-profit organization and network for rank-and-file union members and grassroots labor activists. Though officially titled the Labor Education and Research Project, the project is best known by the title of its monthly magazine. The magazine reports news and analysis about labor...

(available online) monthly paper published by Labor Education & Research Project
Region Two Observer (Michigan Education Association)
Seattle Union Record (available online) daily paper published by the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild during Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...

newspaper strike. November 2000 - January 2001.
UE News (available online) monthly paper of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America , is an independent democratic rank-and-file labor union representing workers in both the private and public sectors across the United States....

No longer published

The Labor Herald monthly publication of the Trade Union Educational League
Trade Union Educational League
The Trade Union Educational League was established by William Z. Foster in 1920 as a means of uniting radicals within various trade unions for a common plan of action. The group was subsidized by the Communist International via the Communist Party of America from 1922...

(1921–1929)
Plaindealer published by the Wichita Trade and Labor Assembly. (1920–1930)
Portland Labor Press published by Central Labor Council of Portland, Oregon (1900–1915).
Seattle Union Record (history article online). Daily labor paper of Central Labor council of Seattle (1899–1928).
Voice of the People Tucson, Arizona. 1910 - 1911.
Worker's Chronicle Pittsburg, Kansas (1914–1923).

Local political newspapers

Changeover (Motor City Labor League)
Closer to It (Akron, Ohio)
El Gallo: La Voz de la Justicia (Denver, Colorado)
Inner City Voice (Sauti) - (Detroit, Michigan)
The Journey (MCLL & Control, Conflict, Change Book Club)
People's Voice (Detroit, Michigan)
Rock Creek Free Press
Rock Creek Free Press
The Rock Creek Free Press was an alternative, monthly newspaper published in Washington, DC.- History :The Rock Creek Free Press was founded in Washington, DC, in 2007. The first issue was dated January 23, 2007, and was distributed at a large anti-war rally that day on the National Mall...

(Washington, DC)
The Southern Patriot (Southern Conference Educational Fund)
Third Coast Press (Chicago, Illinois)
Knoxville Voice
Knoxville Voice
Knoxville Voice was a populist alternative newspaper in Knoxville, Tennessee. It was published every two weeks and available free of charge in more than 300 locations throughout Knox and Blount counties. The paper debuted on April 20, 2006 and ceased publication on January 8, 2009. The summer 2007...

(Knoxville, Tennessee)
The Portland Alliance (Portland, Oregon)

No longer published

I.F. Stone's Weekly - I.F. Stone.
In Fact - George Seldes
George Seldes
George Seldes was an American investigative journalist and media critic. The writer and critic Gilbert Seldes was his younger brother. Actress Marian Seldes is his niece....

.
New Options - Mark Satin
Mark Satin
Mark Ivor Satin is an American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher. Although often referred to as a "draft dodger" or "draft resister", he is better known for contributing to the development and dissemination of three political perspectives – neopacifism in the 1960s, New...

.

Magazines

No longer published

National newspapers

No longer published

Labor newspapers

No longer published

Local political newspapers

No longer published

See also

Archives

Articles

Websites with research materials on alternative (print) press