Free Speech Radio News

A beacon in the global alternative media movement, Free Speech Radio News brings independent news, analysis, and commentary to nearly 100 affiliate stations across the United States.

Free Speech Radio News reports national and international news as it affects real people and communities.  Here’s how we do it:

Reporters all over the United States and the globe. Free Speech Radio News has scores of reporters who file stories from all regions of the United States and from every continent except Antarctica.  FSRN’s network of reporters brings your listeners important news from where it happens.

Living in the communities they report from. Almost all Free Speech Radio News reporters live and work in the communities they report from, providing a richness of context, background, and local knowledge in their stories.  Knowledge of place that helps explain a story and make global connections for listeners in your community.

Covering big stories as they affect real people. Free Speech Radio News covers the critical stories of our day – Obama’s first months in office, the economic meltdown, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It’s important to cover the actions of elected officials and decision-makers, but it’s equally important to show how those decisions affect real people – people like your listeners. We find the real people in the top news items and highlight their stories.

Covering stories that are often left out of U.S. media. Free Speech Radio News finds important stories that aren’t being told elsewhere and brings them to your listeners. Stories that investigate social problems and abuse of power, stories that show the human costs of war and poverty.  But also stories that connect people and places, stories about people making positive change in their communities.

A brief history

FSRN formed in January 2000 when dozens of Pacifica Network News reporters went on strike to protest the network's gag rule barring coverage of internal governance matters. The striking reporters collaborated with the Take Back Pacifica Movement and Indymedia to produce an alternative newscast by journalists in 40 states and 50 countries.

In March 2002, FSRN settled its strike with Pacifica's new management and replaced Pacifica Network News as the network's daily national & international newscast.  Since then, FSRN has produced its daily newscast for Pacifica stations and affiliates, as well as other non-Pacifica stations.  Pacifica has remained a primary funder of FSRN's production.

Past and present FSRN corespondents include Dahr Jamail, Hiba Dawood, and David Enders in Iraq; Rami Almeghari in the Gaza Strip; Gabe Matthews on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan; Nicole Karsin and Manuel Rueda in Colombia; Sam Olukoya in Nigeria; and many more.

Today, FSRN's decentralized production team includes staff members in Richmond, VA; Eugene, OR; Tampa, FL; Berkeley, CA; Washington, DC; New Dehli, India; and Bogota, Colombia.

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