Knoxville Voice

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Knoxville Voice

The August 9, 2007 front page of
Knoxville Voice
Type Bi-weekly alternative newspaper
Format Tabloid
Owner Knoxville Voice, LLC
Publisher Dane Baker
Editor Elizabeth Wright
Founded 2006
Price Free
Headquarters 402 South Gay Street
Suite 202
Knoxville, Tennessee, 37902
Flag of the United States United States
Website: knoxvoice.com

Knoxville Voice is a populist alternative newspaper in Knoxville, Tennessee. It is published every two weeks and available free of charge in more than 300 locations throughout Knox and Blount counties. The paper debuted on April 20th, 2006. The summer 2007 sale of Knoxville alt-weekly Metro Pulse to media conglomerate E.W. Scripps, owner of the daily Knoxville News Sentinel, leaves the Knoxville Voice as the only major, general-interest independent alternative newspaper in Knoxville.

Contents

[edit] Origins and Influences

The Knoxville Voice was originally an African American newspaper, also published in Knoxville and devoted to minority cultural and civil rights issues. The last surviving issue (dated November 19, 1949) "focused almost exclusively on national news stories pertinent to African Americans, with a greater emphasis on the work of the NAACP to obtain equal rights, providing a glimpse of the beginnings of the civil rights movement of the 1960s."[1]

The paper continues an editorial tradition of alternative media that extends beyond Knoxville. The spectrum of influences runs from labor-run papers like the British Daily Herald to muckraking newsletters like I.F. Stone's Weekly. Like it's local, national, and international predecessors, Knoxville Voice practices advocacy journalism, covering stories as they affect the public at large and filling gaps in reporting left by mainstream media. With most mainstream media outlets owned by a handful of multinational corporations, polls regularly report that nearly half the U.S. public has little or no "trust and confidence" in the mass media.[2] Knoxville Voice is a reflection of such public attitudes embodied in its reporting and approach to news coverage.

[edit] Mission statement

As Knoxville's locally owned, independent and free newspaper, Knoxville Voice publishes bi-weekly with a focus on local news and cultural events. Knoxville Voice's mission is to:

  • Give voice to issues, events, and people in our community often underrepresented in mainstream media
  • Sustain a reader demographic that is as diverse as the issues we cover


Knoxville Voice accomplishes this mission by:

  • Reporting stories as they affect ordinary people
  • Eschewing the interests of large corporations
  • Maintaining a progressive world view
  • Emphasizing social responsibility and democratic participation

[edit] Notable Editorial Features

Knoxville Voice regularly publishes opinion-editorial articles from notable local and national commentators, including the award-winning columnist Don Williams, local nuclear nonproliferation activist Ralph Hutchison, and scholar and activist Noam Chomsky. In early 2007, Don Williams left the News Sentinel, the Scripps-owned daily after 20 years and now writes a regular column and online blog for Knoxville Voice.

Knoxville Voice was the only local newspaper to publish an article critical of the controversial summer 2006 deal involving the long-term leasing of the Sunsphere, the iconic Knoxville structure built for the 1982 World's Fair.

[edit] Related links

[edit] Sources

  1. ^ Bobbie Morris, Knoxville Voice. Mysterious Heritage. Retrieved on 2007-08-18.: Copies of the two known surviving issues, dated 9/18/48 and 11/19/49, are on display at the Knoxville Voice office downtown.
  2. ^ Gallup poll. Media Use and Evaluation, Sept. 12-15, 2005. Retrieved on 2007-08-18.: When asked, "In general, how much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media — such as newspapers, T.V. and radio — when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly," 37% answered "not very much" and 12% answered "none at all." The responses have been consistent for a decade.

[edit] Further reading

  • Ben H. Bagdikian, The New Media Monopoly (Beacon Press, 2004)
  • Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, (Pantheon, 2002)
  • Robert W. McChesney, The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the Twenty-First Century (Monthly Review Press, 2004)
  • James Curran, The British Press, a Manifesto (MacMillan, 1978)