My intuition is telling me in very strong terms that now is the time
to once again publish a printed alternative weekly newspaper around which
our community and a new movement for social transformation can rally. Since
announcing this thought to you in an email last week, I have gone around to
various meetings and have personally made announcements to about 300 people
of meetings at which we will formulate our plans to reincarnate The Los
Angeles Free Press.
At these meetings I will present detailed plans--financial,
organizational and editorial--of the various steps I propose to take. By
December 10, which is not very far away, I would like to publish and begin
distributing a free 8 or 12 page preview edition, begin a subscription
campaign and have a business plan to show to those who can help with the
desirable start-up capital. There are hundreds of thousands of former Freep
readers who are ready to listen to a a restatement of the social vision
which once inspired them. There are 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 people in
this city who are ready, I believe, to pay a small amount at a vending
machine, a newsstand or for a mailed subscription to have a weekly
newspaper in which they can discuss what can be done to solve the cultural
and political problems of our time.
The existing L.A. Weekly and New Times are not fulfilling the role
of an alternative newspaper. Some of their articles are interesting and
well-written but mainly these articles fill the (few) holes between
advertisements and are there to guide the readers attention to those
advertisements. I think there is a fairly wide recognition that these two
papers don't really stand for anything and this creates a vacuum in which a
brash, controversial, thoughtful, reader-involved Free Press will stand
out. Our former readers are now the working adults of our community. They
have the resources to support a paper. We are going to test these waters.
For the time being I am involved in a full-time, stressful job and can
not be on the phone as much as I would like to talk to your personally. In
the next weeks I will do my best to renew these personal contacts but
meanwhile think of what you can do. Please do come to a meeting if you can.
Send me subscriptions ($20 for six months; $35 for a year) to 115 South
Topanga Canyon Blvd, Suite 166, Topanga, CA 90290. If you have an extra
hundred or two hundred dollars (or even a thousand or two) that is burning
a hole in your pocket, let me know and let's talk about comfortable
financial arrangements. Let me know what articles and what subjects you
would like to see in the new weekly. Let me know what you are prepared to
write yourself. Let me know what you can do to network among your own
circle of friends to make this huge project happen.
Yes, Gary and Ed and Susanne and Sheila and Lanny and Francis, I am
very serious about this project. I am vibrating with energy and I mean to
see this happen!
Another thing that the people on this list can do is the following:
(For the time being, I am just e-mailing the local "A" list and a few close
friends who no longer are in the L.A. area; I have yet to "roll out" the
larger email list I have accumulated these past years through my Internet
work). I plan for the preview edition to have a page or two of letters from
former readers and staff memebers of what the old Freep meant to them and
what they would like the reincarnated newspaper to be and do. So please sit
down to write your letter and then send it to me, e-mail, snail mail or in
person on Saturday.
We need a small office, phones, computers, printers, fax machine, etc.
etc. Everything we need is out there and will be attracted to the magnet of
our project. All that is needed is for a few people to add their energy to
mine, and for individuals all over the city to feel our combined energy.
That is the way this is going to happen. Send me as much energy as you can!
