(Having occasionally written and donated some articles to The Shadow during the last three decades--which were occasionally published by the Lower East Side anti-war newspaper--thought 2022 was now a good time to interview by email The Shadow's editor, Chris Flash, about the newspaper's history, Manhattan's "fourth estate" and New York City news coverage in the 21st century. Text of interview originally was posted on Upper West Side Patch's website).
In the 1960s and early 1970s in Manhattan, anti-war underground counter-cultural weekly newspapers, like the East Village Other [EVO) and RAT, that were both Lower East Side-based, were also read by many Upper West Side anti-war readers who identified with the counter-culture of the 1960s and early 1970s. How is The Shadow similar or different, in the way it covers New York City, national and world events, and U.S. culture, to how the East Village Other and RAT covered the news and culture in the 1960s and early 1970s?
CHRIS FLASH [CF]:As a result of the false and negative reports by mainstream media about the Tompkins Square Police Riot, that I had personally witnessed, we realized the need to resurrect the underground press, as it had existed and flourished on the Lower East Side from the late-1960s through the mid-1970s. Those papers included The East Village Other, Other Scenes, The Village Voice (not exactly underground, but very relevant), the RAT and Overthrow (originally The Yipster Times, published by our heroes, the YIPPIES).
We decided to model ourselves after the more radical of the underground papers, so we followed the models of the RAT and Overthrow (which stopped publishing about six months before The SHADOW started publishing.) Like The RAT and Overthrow, The SHADOW was determined to present information and news in order to encourage political activism and to appeal to the counterculture in New York City.
In the 1970s in Manhattan, anti-war counter-cultural groups that were based on the Lower East Side--like the Yippies and Zippies--occasionally published and distributed newspapers like The Yipster Times and Overthrow, which published some articles supportive of the Rock Liberation Front and its demos against hip capitalist music industry publications, like Jann Wenner's then-owned Rolling Stone magazine, as well as articles that questioned the Warren Commission's "official story" about what happened in Dallas, Texas on Nov. 22, 1963. How is The Shadow newspaper similar or different to The Yipster Times and Overthrow, in the kinds of articles it has been publishing since the 1990s?
CF: Like Yipster Times/Overthrow, The SHADOW was NOT dependent on advertisers, so we didn't have to pull punches or water down or pull stories out of fear of losing ad income. Like Overthrow and The RAT, we published controversial reports and many how-to pieces for demonstrators and activists, as well as a Down By Law section featuring items written by movement lawyers.
We had (and still have) dedicated investigative reporters who are more like detectives (which we also have working for us!) when it comes to getting the dirt on corrupt politicians or corporate scum.
In what ways do think The Shadow's approach to journalism during the last 30 years has, historically, been different or similar, to how the Village Voice--which, historically, was owned by Billionaire Rupert Murdoch and Billionaire Leonard Stern at different times--has covered the news and U.S. culture?
CF: Before becoming a commodity to be bought and sold between non-caring billionaires who gave not a damn about its mission nor purpose, the Voice was started by a group of intellectual hip people, including writer Norman Mailer, to provide news that was of interest to their readers.
In their time, at their peak, the Voice was a thick "must read" weekly paper, jam-packed with news and reviews and great writers who provided in-depth exposés, including Wayne Barrett and Jack Newfield. Nat Hentoff wrote great pieces as well.
Once cat litter magnate Leonard Stern got his mitts on the Voice, mass-firings followed. When the Voice lost its great writers, it lost its voice.
The SHADOW's approach to journalism was and is to go for the jugular when exposing government conspiracies, corrupt politicians and kops abusing their authority, presenting eye-witness first person reportage of demonstrations and other events.
The idea of "balanced journalism" was and is irrelevant to us because we don't need to call the NYPD press office for their quote when we SEE riot kops beating people in the park. We report on what we see, what we experience and what we KNOW. We at The SHADOW also refuse to remove ourselves from a story as some "journalists" think they are required to do in order to avoid an appearance of bias.
The SHADOW has always taken a STAND, whether supporting the Lower East Side squatter movement, in which abandoned city-owned buildings were resuscitated by community members who made them habitable at NO cost to the city or to taxpayers, defending the homeless in and around Tompkins Square Park, working with activists to provide them with food and materials and defending them against police raids, or demonstrating against the US invasion of Iraq in 1991, joining demonstrators marching to confront NYC television stations over their distorted coverage of anti-war protests.
We have never been afraid to present investigative journalism with a sharp point of view. Though we are definitely opinionated, everything we report is TRUE and DOCUMENTED. (end of part 2. To be continued)
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