- "Required reading for anyone concerned about news media's role in American society." - Scott McClurg, Professor of Political Science, Souther Illinois University "Makes a convincing case that the U.S. news media provides the public with what it wants rather than what it needs." - Michael Delli Carpini, Dean, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

America was born in an act of rebellion, and protest and dissent have been crucial to our democracy ever since. Along the way, movements for social justice have created a wide array of pamphlets, broadsides, newsletters, newspapers, and even glossy magazines. In People's Movements, People's Press, Bob Ostertag brings this hidden history to light, examining the publications of the abolitionist, woman suffrage, gay and lesbian, and environmental movements, as well as the underground GI press during the Vietnam War. This fascinating story takes us from the sparse, privately owned media environment of the nineteenth century to the corporate media saturation of the present. Within these publications, we find powerful debates about the direction of a movement; impassioned cries for rights and civil liberties; lonely voices reaching out to others after being alienated by the mainstream press and the unaccepting world around them; and demands that now seem surprisingly reasonable but were at one time quite revolutionary. With both plain language and rigorous scholarship, Ostertag tells the story not only of the publications but the many colorful characters who created them. The story of the social justice movement press is deeply intertwined with the story of the movements themselves. In fact, Ostertag shows how reliance on the printed word fundamentally shaped what we now know as social movements. People's Movements, People's Press, then, offers a new view—from the ground up—of social transformation in America and raises the question of how social movements will change as they move from print to the Internet as their primary means of communication. As large corporations take over every media outlet available, People's Movements, People's Press reminds us of the great value and historical importance of independent, activist-driven media.

A landmark narrative history of American media that puts race at the center of the story. Here is a new, sweeping narrative history of American news media that puts race at the center of the story. From the earliest colonial newspapers to the Internet age, America’s racial divisions have played a central role in the creation of the country’s media system, just as the media has contributed to—and every so often, combated—racial oppression. News for All the People reveals how racial segregation distorted the information Americans received from the mainstream media. It unearths numerous examples of how publishers and broadcasters actually fomented racial violence and discrimination through their coverage. And it chronicles the influence federal media policies exerted in such conflicts. It depicts the struggle of Black, Latino, Asian, and Native American journalists who fought to create a vibrant yet little-known alternative, democratic press, and then, beginning in the 1970s, forced open the doors of the major media companies. The writing is fast-paced, story-driven, and replete with memorable portraits of individual journalists and media executives, both famous and obscure, heroes and villains. It weaves back and forth between the corporate and government leaders who built our segregated media system—such as Herbert Hoover, whose Federal Radio Commission eagerly awarded a license to a notorious Ku Klux Klan organization in the nation’s capital—and those who rebelled against that system, like Pittsburgh Courier publisher Robert L. Vann, who led a remarkable national campaign to get the black-face comedy Amos ’n’ Andy off the air. Based on years of original archival research and up-to-the-minute reporting and written by two veteran journalists and leading advocates for a more inclusive and democratic media system, News for All the People should become the standard history of American media.

The best way to learn history is to visualize it! Since 1998, Josh MacPhee has commissioned and produced over one hundred posters by over eighty artists that pay tribute to revolution, racial justice, women's rights, queer liberation, labor struggles, and creative activism and organizing. Celebrate People's History! presents these essential moments—acts of resistance and great events in an often hidden history of human and civil rights struggles—as a visual tour through decades and across continents, from the perspective of some of the most interesting and socially engaged artists working today. Celebrate People's History includes artwork by Cristy Road, Swoon, Nicole Schulman, Christopher Cardinale, Sabrina Jones, Eric Drooker, Klutch, Carrie Moyer, Laura Whitehorn, Dan Berger, Ricardo Levins Morales, Chris Stain, and more.

President Donald J. Trump drives liberals and the mainstream press berserk by labeling them the enemy of the American people. While the testy talking heads and petulant penmen in D.C. might disagree, all relevant evidence supports Trump’s claim. Hilariously told, Enemies: The Press vs. The American People is a knee-slapping account of the follies of the corporate press freak show. It highlights the media’s fact-free and for-profit deception of unsuspecting Americans while delivering the press the proverbial beat down it so richly deserves.

The Bible played a vital role in the lives, theology, and practice of the Protestant Reformers. These essays from the 2016 Wheaton Theology Conference bring together the reflections of church historians and theologians on the nature of the Bible as "the people's book," considering themes such as access to Scripture, the Bible's role in worship, and theological interpretation.