Underground pressA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWtion alone. Edited by people close to the working
class, they refl ected the chief perspectives of the
vanguard of the working-class movement and
directed themselves to its increased politiciza-
tion.
What beat the radicals of the nineteenth
century was competition by papers more
dedicated to entertainment and sensational-
ism; papers expanding through the power of
advertisements and sensitive to the values and
requirements of the advertisers. The radicals
found themselves faced with a challenge: remain
true to principles and thus risk being trapped
in a ghetto of reduced readership, or attempt to
marry principles with popularization.
Radicalism retreated during the twentieth
century but never surrendered. However, the
costs of publishing and the reliance upon adver-
tising proved increasingly formidable barriers to
underground, radical or alternative newspapers
and periodicals in the post-Second World War
period (from 1945). In the 1960s there was a brief
renaissance of protest: periodicals such as Oz,
IT, Frendz and Ink in one way or another got up
the nose of Authority, the Oz Schoolkids Issue
earning for itself the longest-ever obscenity trial
(see oz trial).
Distribution proved yet another hazard for the
small radical press. In the UK this has been prac-
tically a duopoly of W.H. Smith and Menzies,
whose hesitancy over providing the radical press
with distribution outlets has been rather more
to do with a view that radicals are just not good
business rather than for ideological reasons.
With the advent of the internet dissent-
ing voices found new platforms for comment
and debate, further threatening the viability of
newspapers, especially the local press (already
challenged by free papers and the burgeoning
growth of local council newsletters). See blog-
ging; indy media; journalism: citizen
journalism; mobilization; podcasting. See
also topic guide under media history.
▶Patricia Hollis, Th e Pauper Press (Oxford University
Press, 1970); Stanley Harrison, Poor Men’s Guardians:
A Survey of the Struggles for a Democratic Newspaper
Press, 1763–1973 (Lawrence & Wishart, 1974); Stephen
Koss, Th e Rise and Fall ofthe Political Press in Britain
(Collins 1990); Elisabeth Eisenstein, The Printing
Press as an Agent of Change (Cambridge University
Press, 1999); Chris Atton, Alternative Media (Sage,
2001); Jeremy Black, The English Press 1621–1861
(Sutton, 2001); John D.H. Downing (with Tamara
Vallareal Ford, Geneve Gil and Laura Stern), Radical
Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Move-
ments (Sage, 2001); Kevin Williams, Get Me a Murderthe best possible advantage of the people.’ Two
other matters elicited concern. Th e fi rst related
to criticisms of the monolithic nature of the BBC
(under the rigorous direction of Lord Reith – see
reithian) and the Committee recommended
more internal decentralization of control, espe-
cially towards the national regions.
Th e second concern, published in a Reserva-
tion written by Clement Attlee (1883–1967),
future Labour Prime Minister, called into
question the BBC’s ‘impartiality’ at the time of
the General Strike (1926): ‘I think,’ wrote Attlee,
‘that even in war-time the BBC must be allowed
to broadcast opinions other than those of the
Government.’ See public service broadcast-
ing (psb). See also topic guide under commis-
sions, committees, legislation.
Ultra-violet/fl uorescent photography Used
in the examination of forged or altered docu-
ments, identifying certain chemical compounds,
and in the examination of bacterial colonies. See
holography; infra-red photography.
Underground press Or radical, alternative or
samizdat; those newspapers that are commit-
tedly anti-establishment, opposing in part or
entirely the political and cultural conventions of
the time; often publishing information or views
seen as threatening by those in authority, and
likely to incur censorship.
In the UK the so-called ‘pauper press’ of the
nineteenth century, fi nding its readership in the
increasingly literate working class, was subject
to harshly repressive measures by government.
Editors such as William Cobbett, Henry Heth-
erington, William Sherwin, Richard Carlile and
James Watson courted arrest and imprisonment
and the shutting-down of their presses as a
routine professional hazard. Wooler’s Black
Dwarf stirred the government to wrath with its
criticism of the authorities in their handling of
the Peterloo Massacre (1819). Wooler escaped
libel action on the plea that he could not be said
to have written articles which he set up in type
without the interventions of a pen.
Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register had a
substantial circulation despite the crippling
stamp duty that forced him to charge one
shilling and a halfpenny per copy. Carlile’s
Republican was both republican and atheist; the
Chartist Oracle of Reason incurred blasphemy
prosecutions, while Bradlaugh’s National
Reformer declared itself ‘Published in Defi ance
of Her Majesty’s Government’.
As long as radical newspapers could fight
off the need to win advertising, they could
survive, despite prosecutions, relying on circula-