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The phrase underground press, especially underground newspapers (or simply underground papers) is, these days, most often used in reference to the print media associated with the countercultural movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, although publishers of those journals had borrowed the name from previous underground presses such as the Dutch underground press during the Nazi occupations of the 1940s. The French resistance also published an underground press and prisoners of war (POWs) published an underground newspaper called Pow wow.
The underground press in the 60s and 70s existed in most countries with advanced economies and freedom of the press; similar publications existed to a lesser in some developing countries and as part of the samizdat movement in the communist states, notably Czechoslovakia. Typically weeklies, monthlies, or even "occasionals", and usually associated with left-wing politics, they evolved on the one hand into today's alternative weeklies and on the other into zines.
The underground press in Australia
The most prominent underground publication in Australia was Oz (1963–1969).
The underground press in the UK
Key underground press papers in the UK were International Times (IT) started in 1966 by John Hopkins which was joined in 1967 by Oz — a magazine originally published in Australia (1963–1969) and only later (1967–1973)in the UK — and Friends (later Friendz) which were based in the Ladbroke Grove area of London.
The underground press offered a platform to the socially impotent and mirrored the changing way of life in the UK Underground.
Police harassment of the UK Underground in general became commonplace to the point that in 1967 the police particularly focussed on the "source of the antagonism": the underground press. Harrassment had the opposite effect than was intended: if anything, it made the underground press stronger. "It focused attention, stiffened resolve, and tended to confirm that what were doing was considered dangerous to the establishment," remembered Mick Farren [1] (http://www.thanatosoft.freeserve.co.uk/undergroundfiles/interview.htm). From April 1967 on the police raided the offices of International Times to try and close the paper down. In order to raise money for IT a benefit event was put together, "The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream" Alexandra Palace on 29 April, 1967.
By the end of the decade, community artists and bands such as Pink Floyd, (who later "went commercial"), the Deviants, Pink Fairies, Hawkwind, Michael Moorcock and Steve Peregrin Took would arise in a symbiotic co-operation with the underground press. The underground press publicised these bands and this made it possible for them to tour and get record deals. The band members travelled around spreading the ethos and the demand for the newspapers and magazines grew and flourished for a while.
The flaunting of a defiant sexuality within the underground press provoked prosecution. IT was taken to court for publishing small ads for homosexuals, despite the legalisation of homosexuality between consenting adults in private. The Oz "School Kids" issue, brought charges against the three Oz editors who were convicted and given jail sentences. This was the first time the Obscene Publications Act, 1959, was combined with a moral conspiracy charge.
The underground press in the United States and Canada
Arguably, the first underground newspaper of the 1960s was the Los Angeles Free Press, founded in 1965. The countercultural press drew inspiration from some predecessors that had begun in the 1950s, such as the Village Voice and Paul Krassner's satirical paper The Realist. By 1967, the cooperative Underground Press Syndicate (UPS) was formed at the instigation of the publisher of another early paper, The East Village Other. The UPS allowed member papers to freely reprint content from any of the other member papers. By 1969, virtually every sizeable city or college town in North America boasted at least one underground newspaper. Other prominent underground papers included the San Francisco Oracle, theBerkeley Barb and Berkeley Tribe (Berkeley, California); Fifth Estate (Detroit), Other Scenes(dispatched from various locations around the world); The Helix (Seattle); The Chicago Seed; The Great Speckled Bird (Atlanta); RAT (New York City), and in Canada, Georgia Straight (Vancouver). Georgia Straight, (as well as the Village Voice) outlived the underground movement, evolving into alternative weeklies still published today; others died with the era. In a similar fashion, the Underground Press Syndicate tried to adapt and renamed itself the Alternative Press Syndicate, but it collapsed, and was supplanted by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.
References
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