As Yorkshire Bylines approaches its fifth year in existence, we can celebrate the continuing success of citizen journalism. However, as we do so, it’s important to acknowledge the contribution of earlier alternatives to the mainstream media.
One of these was undoubtedly Leeds Other Paper. Founded in January 1974, it had 20 years of successful reporting on local – and national – issues, before closing in 1994. I was fortunate enough to speak to Tony Harcup, a former journalist on the paper about his involvement with Leeds Other Paper.
“I’d just come to Leeds University as a student and I picked up a copy of the Leeds Other Paper in a newsagent. In every issue there was an invitation to people to get involved. There was a contact address and a phone number and I just started going along to editorial meetings. Typically, they would suggest writing something – I just got more involved.
“That was my introduction really to journalism. It was a good education because it wasn’t only the traditional elements such as punctuation or spelling, but there was a critical perspective on journalism – why haven’t we spoken to this person? What aren’t we saying? What other points of view could we bring in?”
Giving people a voice
The 1970s were a time of massive unrest. The Vietnam War was just coming to an end and there was a rise in both fascism and anti-fascism. Unsurprisingly, there was also a rise in the number of political alternative and underground papers; both local and national ones. Leeds Other Paper was an important part of this movement. At the time, the media in Leeds was represented by The Yorkshire Post and the Yorkshire Evening Post, owned by a company that (until the late 1960s) was called Yorkshire Conservative Newspapers Limited. Although these papers covered local issues, they tended to report from mainstream perspectives, rather than the effect on the individuals involved in the stories.
Harcup continues: “The whole ethos of Leeds Other Paper was to hear from the people directly involved and the people at the bottom of the pile. So that might be workers in an industrial dispute or council tenants on a housing estate. In a city like Leeds, there were hundreds of people involved in various things and they felt that their activities and their views were just not being represented in the mainstream media.”
Scooping the mainstream
Recognition for the alternative viewpoint of the paper came mysteriously one night, when a brown paper envelope was dropped through the letterbox. It contained a hitherto unpublished, leaked government pamphlet called Protect and Survive. At the height of the Cold War, there was a genuine fear of nuclear conflict. Leeds Other Paper ran this as a front-page story, reproducing some of the cartoons and advice. This scoop naturally attracted the attention of the mainstream media, including The Yorkshire Post. “They very rarely followed up our stories and they never liked to mention us by name”, Harcup reminisces. “They would sometimes say ‘another local newspaper’. They sent one of their journalists round to buy a photocopy from us, so they could run a story on it. They paid us £15!”
Exciting though this was, it was only part of what Leeds Other Paper were trying to do. They listed – free of charge – new developments like rape crisis centres, Women’s Aid and the gay Switchboard. Leeds Other Paper also reported on the first Reclaim the Night march in the UK, which took place in Leeds.
They also offered free listings for gigs, theatre or cinema – particularly some of the more radical theatre groups. There were also listings for folk gigs, political meetings, campaigns and demonstrations.
“A number of people would have probably bought the paper mainly to find out what gigs were on at local pubs and stuff like that. But then there would be the news and they would hopefully absorb some of the news. So Leeds Other Paper was a local paper reflecting a wider culture.”
For 20 years, Leeds Other Paper did exactly that. So why did it eventually close?
How did it survive so long?
Harcup laughs. “I think in a way, I’d reverse the question. How did it survive so long? How did it survive 20 years? We lasted longer than many other alternative papers. Eventually, it just ran out of steam. Some of us were no longer involved because we’d moved on to do other things. Maybe if it had survived a bit longer than 1994, it would have ended up as an online thing where it would have lost the costs of the printing and distribution of a physical product? Maybe it would have lost something else in the process, who knows?”
So, did Leeds Other Paper set a precedent for today’s citizen journalism?
“I would say yes. It wasn’t a phrase that we used at the time. We were engaged in journalism. We were engaged in acts of citizenship because we cared about what was happening to the city in which we lived. We were giving voice and amplifying the voices of Leeds citizens and all that was coming together in the production of a regular paper. We called it alternative journalism. Some people call it citizen journalism. I just call it journalism. And that’s the crucial thing to remember”.
Tony has recently launched an account on Bluesky to keep alive the memory and spirit of Leeds Other Paper.
