| A Free Paper for Free People | |
 One of manyIndypendent newsboxes located throughout New York City | |
| Type | Monthly newspaper |
|---|---|
| Owner(s) | The Indypendent, Inc. |
| Founded | 2000; 26 years ago (2000) |
| Language | English |
| City | Brooklyn, New York |
| Country | United States |
| Website | indypendent |
The Indypendent is a progressive newspaper based in Brooklyn, New York, United States. It is published monthly, distributed worldwide and is available for free throughoutNew York City and online. It currently prints 30,000 copies per issue, covering local, national and international news, food, cinema and culture. Reader donations comprise the bulk ofThe Indypendent's funding.
Building on theIndymedia network andanti-globalization movement following theWTO Ministerial Conference of 1999, New York City activists Heather Haddon and Ana Nogueira launched a four-page newspaper (The Unst8ed) in advance of the Sept. 8, 2000 U.N. Millennium Summit.[citation needed] Coinciding with the founding of a local Indymedia chapter in New York, the paper focused on rising global opposition to unchecked corporate power. By its second issue the paper was renamedThe Indypendent, and sought to bring the journalism of Indymedia "offline" to those without internet access, to bridge the gap between local and global issues, and to inform members of both the activist and non-activist community.[citation needed]
Prior to theSeptember 11, 2001 attacksThe Indypendent focused largely, though not entirely, on local issues, examining the corporatization of New York public schools, the decimation of public space, and the placing of power plants in overwhelmingly poor areas of New York City.[citation needed] Following 9/11, the paper increasingly covered international and national affairs, in addition to local issues.[citation needed] The paper increasingly grew in the physical sense, as well, reaching 24 pages in the days leading up to the 2002World Economic Forum meetings in New York. In first days of the Iraq War, the paper increased its publishing frequency and decreased its size in order to better deal with the surge of content.[citation needed] In the month before the2004 Republican National Convention, the paper went color.[citation needed]
The Indypendent is a volunteer-driven newspaper. It has two full-time staff members and relies on a core group of volunteers as well as a rotating cast of contributing writers.[1] John Tarleton is the current editor, Peter Rugh the associate editor, Frank Reynoso the illustration director, Mikael Tarkela the director of design, and Elia Gran the social media editor. Ellen Davidson, Alina Mogilyanskaya, Nicholas Powers, and Steven Wishnia are contributing editors to the paper.[2]
The Indypendent has won numerous awards from the New York City Independent Press Association ("Ippies"), including 11 in 2005.[3] Writer Sarah Stuteville won a 2004 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism for her work with theIndypendent and has since founded theCommon Language Project.[citation needed] Most of the paper's volunteers are active within various elements of the New York City social justice community.[citation needed]
The Indypendent′s June 2002 decision to expel one of its members for disruptive behavior caused great consternation in the network, though similar personality clashes have since become rather common within Indymedia. The paper was one of the first Indymedia projects to accept paid advertising, and it was also one of the first projects to formally pay its volunteers for their labor.[citation needed] The paper's wide-ranging acceptance of left-wing ideologies (including more traditionally leftist andMaoist viewpoints) has also been criticized by manyanarchists.[citation needed]
The Indypendent has been heralded as the paper that those who miss the political reporting ofThe Village Voice should read for local news. The newspaper is considered one of the most reliable independent sources for off-the-beaten-path journalism in New York City, as reported byThe Village Voice in 2017.[4]The Indypendent was also celebrated byDemocracy Now! with Amy Goodman — the most widely known Indymedia outlet — in 2019 as a newspaper that grew out of New York City Indymedia.[5] Other left-leaning publications across the city, country and world have re-publishedIndypendent articles, as the publication's reporters often cover topics that are not covered elsewhere.
In recent years,The Indypendent has taken on a more prominent role in reporting on election politics on the local, state and presidential level. In 2018, the publication was the first to have CongresswomanAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez on its cover. Later that year, New York SenatorJulia Salazar would also make the cover, as noticed byTablet magazine.[6] During New York City's 2021 mayoral election,Indypendent reporter Theodore Hamm was mentioned byNew York Magazine as having "followed the Brooklyn Democratic Party closely" based on his reporting for theIndy.[7]