ABSTRACT
A growing scholarly literature concerned with a range of practices and products that might be termed ‘alternative media’ has emerged in recent years (Atton, 1999, 2002, 2003a, 2003b; Atton and Couldry, 2003; Bareiss, 2001; Beckerman, 2003; Caldwell, 2003; Davis, 2003; Downing, 2001, 2003; Forde et al., 2003; Gibbs, 2003; Haas, 2004; Hamilton and Atton, 2001; Harcup, 1998, 2003; Howley, 2003; Khiabany, 2000; Platon and Deuze, 2003; Rodriguez, 2001; Shaffer, 2003; Welch, 2003; also see Chapter 10 for some more recent examples). Definitions of alternative media are not fixed or universally accepted, and the term has been attached to ‘a heterogeneous set of media practices developed by very diverse groups and organizations, in specific and different contexts, and employing a great variety of media’ (Paiva, cited in Rodriguez, 2001). Labels such as ‘alternative press’ have tended to be used as ‘broad-brush collective terms for a disparate body of practices’ (Campbell, 2004, p. 178), but some common themes can be identified. Alternative media processes and products have been described as inhabiting – indeed, as being inseparable from – an alternative or plebeian public sphere (Atton, 1999: 54, 71; 2002, 35, 50; Habermas, 1989: xviii; 1992: 430). Within this context, the journalistic practices carried out within alternative media have been described, in a historical context, as ‘insurgent journalism’ (Curran and Seaton, 2003, p. 16); and, in a more contemporary context, as ‘counter-hegemonic journalism’ (Harcup, 2003, p. 372). Until comparatively recently, there has been a tendency to look at forms of journalism
practised within alternative media in isolation from – or in opposition to – forms of journalism practised in more mainstream or commercially dominant media. This is perhaps not surprising. Alternative media projects frequently define themselves as existing in opposition to mainstream media whether local, national or global, and they serve publics who in many cases are alienated from mainstream media (Harcup, 1998: 114). Yet, as both a journalist and academic, I am aware of a significant number of journalists currently working within mainstream media who previously
worked in some form of alternative media. Danny Schechter (2001: 287) describes himself as ‘a media professional with a unique vantage point, having worked in alternative and mainstream media, print, radio, and television’. Not quite unique, as we shall see. Yet, despite the publication of a handful of practitioner accounts (Fountain, 1988; Harcup, 1994; Schechter, 2001; Younge, 2004), this ‘crossover’ grouping has to date largely been absent from academic research with the exception of some work on the influence of the underground press of the 1960s on the commercial music press of the 1970s (see Frith, 1983: 168, 72; Forde, 2001: 24). There have been some indications of a less ‘either … or’ approach emerging
within the study of alternative media. Atton (2003b: 26-27), for example, talks of the ‘hybridity’ of journalistic practices within ‘the contemporary media landscape’, and points to ‘the complex, hybrid nature of alternative media in relation to its mainstream counterparts’. Similarly, Downing, writing in 2001, was self-critical about the ‘binarism’ of his earlier studies in which he ‘seriously simplified both mainstream and alternative media’; the reality, he realised, was rather more complicated on both sides of the equation (Downing, 2001: ix). It was to explore these complexities in the relationship between journalism in alternative and mainstream media that I sought to identify a group of journalists with experience of both and to invite them to reflect on their experiences. We are not dealing with monolithic entities labelled alternative media and main-
stream media. The forms of alternative media cited by the sample varied at least as much as did the forms of mainstream media, and included print, broadcast and online projects, both local and national, and spanned campaigning political (including party political) publications, underground cultural magazines, more investigative publications, and special interest outlets such as football or music fanzines. However, although not all the respondents were engaged in overtly political journalism, what these journalists have in common is that they were all once producing forms of media that were motivated by a desire, not to make profit, but to make change; and they have gone on to work in mainstream journalism. This chapter draws on the resulting qualitative research, which will be discussed in the context of relevant literature, to examine alternative media as one of a range of entry points into journalism, and to explore what those who have moved into mainstream journalism have to say about their motivations, experiences and observations. Many of those involved in alternative media see their journalism as ‘a political activity’
(Whitaker, 1981, p. 99; also see SchNews, 2004, p. 301), a perspective that appears to be far from the norm among journalists in the wider industry. Roy Greenslade, for example, recalls his experience as a trainee reporter on a local commercial weekly newspaper in the 1960s:
I had not become a journalist to do good works, to right wrongs, to serve the public interest, and I would be astounded if any of the scores of young journalists I then knew, on rival papers or at college, had done so either. Words like ethics and conscience were not part of our vocabulary. Most of us were seeking personal fame and fortune, and the trouble we took to report on stories
or to write well had more to do with building our reputations in order to advance ourselves than with an intense love of the craft itself.
