UNDERGROUND PRESS FLOURISHES IN U.S.

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31543, 4 December 1967, Page 13

UNDERGROUND PRESS FLOURISHES IN U.S.

(From FRANK OLIVER, N.Z.P.A. special correspondent) WASHINGTON. X One of the most interesting developments of what is commonly called the revolt of youth the Hoppies, the dissenters from just about everything, the rebellion against the “Establishment,” the revolt against hangovers from Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian standards and moralities has been the establishment and extension of what is known as the underground press.

“Underground” is really a misleading term because these newspapers do not circulate surreptitiously. They are sent to subscribers through the mailed, hawked in the streets, spread for sale on news-stands and so on. Their avid readers incltide not only rebellious youth, potsmokers and LSD takers but also representatives of the mass media, that is, radio and television commentators and broadcasters and what must perhaps be called the ordinary or “above-ground” newspapers. A writer in the “New Re-

public” magazine refers to these underground papers as “the seedier media” and there is reason for the adjective, for they do contain a heavy peppering of four-letter words that do not find their way into brdinary newspapers or the comments of reporters on radio and television. They also go in for advertising which would not find a place in so-called family publications,

These underground newspapers appear in many large cities and usually their titles give a sense of their flavour—the “Berkeley B Barb,” (San Francisco area), the “Village Voice,” (Greenwich Village, New York), the “Fifth Estate,” and the “East Village Other,” (New York). The Hippy era seems to have been the reason for their flowering but now that the Hippy movement is dying, if not dead, these newspapers keep on, and some of them, after parlous times, are actually making money and paying contributors, a thing they did not do in the beginning. They also circulate widely. The “Village Voice" of Greenwich Village, New York, now has a-weekly circulation of 90,000, of which 20,000 go to subscribers in the various states, while more than a thousand go abroad, some of them to rather strange destinations such as Upper Volta, Togoland, Saudi Arabia and Russia. These newspapers are, says

one writer, all the things their admirers think they are—exciting, informative, “in” refreshing, audacious and lively. He adds that they are also recklessly undisciplined often badly written, yellow and often boring. But a lot of people agree that they provide some of the most exciting reading in the United States and newspaper scoops are more common to them than to ordinary daily and weekly newspapers. They were, for instance, full of the psychedelic pleasures of smoking banana peel long before the “above-ground” press said a word about it. And when science said there really was no “pot” in banana peel, the underground press could not have cared less. By that time the banana was forgotten and it was talking about other things entirely. Most people outside the Hippy ring and the revolt-of-youth movement read the underground press for humour which they get mainly from the advertisements.

Here are some samples from the “Village Voice”: “Veteran of three lunatic asylums wants to explore possibility of book with qualified writer,” “Murray—l shall always love you. John.” “Vivian. Please call immediately. Let me know you are well. Worried sick. Understand. Will let you choose your life —Mother,” “Male skier with car desires female skier for

Sat or Sun. trips to New England slopes.” Regarding the plea to Vivian, the publisher says his paper is one of the best advertising mediums for runaways.

There is a lack of inhibitions, too, in the news columns. Several of them, it is reported in the press, run a column by “Hip-pocrates” who is said to be a practising M.D., and who hands out advice to those who write in. The “New Republic” says he sometimes is really helpful for he answers questions the young would hardly dare put to the family doctor. The underground press has been described as a photographic negative of “bourgeois” newspapers and magazines, registering the same images but with all the colours reversed. What the ordinary press is for the underground is against. Where the ordinary paper publishes an account of an arrest, it is done from the standpoint of the police and the preservation of law and order. In the underground press the arrested is the victiril and the policeman the villain. One writer says that if a few years ago someone had sat down and asked himself what was riot being reported in the press, what causes were without their champions, what words could not be printed and then had decided to issue a paper containing all these things then he would have invented the underground press.

The underground talks about drugs, the draft, abortion, cops, rock and roll, flicks and sex.

“They are,” says a writer in the “New Republic,” “as current as this week’s pot bust and draft card burning, They oppose the war and their most interesting features are their ‘want’ ads, especially if you are a sadist looking for a masochist.”

Recently there appeared a report In depth on the New York underground press in the “Wall Street Journal.” The “Village Voice” began publishing in 1955 but did not start showing a profit until 1963. The editor owns 35 per cent of the paper, a part-time psychotherapist owns another third, and Norman Mailer, author of “The Naked and the Dead,” and other novels, owns a fifth. Mailer thinks it the best-written paper in New York.

. There was a time, it is alleged, when the paper started becoming a little respectable, but then competition came into the field in the shape of the “East Village Other.” This catered for Hippies and, says the writer, prompted the “Village Voice” to “go a little farther out” and readers have since noted more four-letter words, in the “Village Voice” and pictures that might have been banned in the past. “East Village Other” comes out twice a month and already has a circulation of 50,000.

The “Village Voice” has, as stated, a far-flung audience and it is said now to be read by politicians as well as writers for ordinary newspapers. Last year the Mayor of New York considered the “Village Voice” sufficiently important politically to attend its Christmas party. It still does not pay its contributors munificently. A columnist or a cartoonist gets $35 a time, some news stories earn $5O and a report from a ghetto riot scene (the “war zone”) earned the writer $6O. Contributors have been paid modest sums since the paper started making a profit in 1963. Sometimes writing for the underground press leads on to better things. One girl journalist on the “Village Voice” was noticed by other editors and she got writing assignments from such magazines as “Esquire” and the “New Yorker,” sometimes for fees as much as $7500. On the “Village Voice” she had never got more than $2O for any contribution. One of the best-known cartoonists in the country is Jules Feiffer. He appears in every issue of the “Village Voice.” He could not sell his work anywhere for a considerable time then, “the ‘Voice’ very kindly allowed me to give it away” and this “showcase” led to him being syndicated in a hundred daily newspapers across the country.”