An alternative news agency (or alternative news service) operates in a similar fashion to a commercial news agency

News agency

A news agency is an organization of journalists established to supply news reports to news organizations: newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. Such an agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire or news service.-History:The oldest news agency is Agence...

, but defines itself as an alternative to commercial or "mainstream" operations. They span the political spectrum, but most frequently are progressive or radical left. Sometimes they combine the services of a news agency

News agency

A news agency is an organization of journalists established to supply news reports to news organizations: newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. Such an agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire or news service.-History:The oldest news agency is Agence...

 and a news syndicate

Print syndication

Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....

. Among the primary clients are alternative weekly newspapers

Alternative weekly

An alternative newspaper is a type of newspaper, that eschews comprehensive coverage of general news in favor of stylized reporting, opinionated reviews and columns, investigations into edgy topics and magazine-style feature stories highlighting local people and culture. Their news coverage is more...

.

Active

• After the Press
• All Headline News
  All Headline News
  All Headline News is a United States based news agency or wire service. Launched in 2003 it has grown to become a major worldwide online news wire service, providing news and other content, to websites, digital signage, and other publishers who pay a fee for the service.The company's daily news...
  
  
• Alternet
  AlterNet
  AlterNet, a project of the non-profit Independent Media Institute, is a progressive/liberal activist news service. Launched in 1998, AlterNet now claims a readership of over 3 million visitors per month .AlterNet publishes original content as well as journalism from a wide variety of other sources...
  
  
• AltWeeklies.com
• Atlantic Free Press
  Atlantic Free Press
  Atlantic Free Press, an online political website, was founded in September 2006 by Publisher Richard Kastelein of V.O.F. Expathos, in Groningen, The Netherlands and has published over 13,000 articles from over 300 progressive writers worldwide since its inception.The publication's mission ...
  
  
• Choike.org (North/South issues)
• College Press Service
  College Press Service
  College Press Service is a commercial news agency supplying stories to student newspapers.It began as the news agency of the United States Student Press Association . When USSPA...
  
   (in its commercial incarnation)
• Compass Direct
  Compass Direct
  Compass Direct News is a Christian news agency founded in 1996 that reports exclusively on persecution of Christians around the world. It has a network of news bureaus and correspondents that produce news reports, features and analyses of situations and trends facing Christians living in what are...
  
  
• Inter Press Service
  Inter Press Service
  Inter Press Service is a global news agency. Its main focus is the production of independent news and analysis about events and processes affecting economic, social and political development....
  
   (North/South issues)
• Mathaba News Agency
  Mathaba News Agency
  The Mathaba News Agency , also called the Anti-Imperialism Center , is an alternative news agency created by the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 1982 to further world-revolutionary and anti-imperialist goals...
  
  
• Pacific Free Press
• Pacific News Service
  Pacific News Service
  Pacific News Service is a nonprofit media organization founded in 1969 by Franz Schurmann, the historian, and Orville Schell, a noted author, journalist and Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley...
  
  
• The Reggae News Agency
• RINF
  RINF
  RINF Alternative News is a daily updated source for under-reported news and current events. Heavy focus is placed on human rights issues and political dissent.- History :...
  
  

Defunct

• Liberation News Service
  Liberation News Service
  Liberation News Service was a New Left, Underground press news service which published news bulletins from 1967 to 1981.-History:The Liberation News Service was co-founded in the summer of 1967 by Ray Mungo and Marshall Bloom after the two of them were separated from the United States Student...
  
   Splintered off from College Press Service.
• New Liberation News Service
• Underground Press Service
  Underground Press Syndicate
  The Underground Press Syndicate, commonly known as UPS, and later known as the Alternative Press Syndicate or APS, was a network of countercultural newspapers and magazines formed in mid-1966 by the publishers of five early underground papers: the East Village Other, the Los Angeles Free Press, the...
  
   renamed Alternative Press Syndicate|Alternative Press Service
• College Press Service
  College Press Service
  College Press Service is a commercial news agency supplying stories to student newspapers.It began as the news agency of the United States Student Press Association . When USSPA...
  
   (student-run - in Washington, D.C. project of the United States Student Press Association
  United States Student Press Association
  The United States Student Press Association was a national organization of campus newspapers and editors active in the 1960s. It formed a national news agency called College Press Service . USSPA was developed as a program of the National Student Association . USSPA later became independent, then...
  
  )
• College Press Service
  College Press Service
  College Press Service is a commercial news agency supplying stories to student newspapers.It began as the news agency of the United States Student Press Association . When USSPA...
  
   (transformed into independent collective - in Denver)
• Alternative Press Features
• Community Press Features Founded circa 1971
• FPS Founded circa 1971 as a high school student news service with a sanitized name: "Free Public Schools."
• Dispatch News Service
  Dispatch News Service
  Dispatch News Service is a left-leaning news agency founded in 1968 by David Obst and Michael Morrow.DNS was the original outlet to purchase Seymour Hersh's story about the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, pushing it on 35 newspapers at $100 apiece....
  
  - the original outlet to purchase Seymour Hersh's story about the My Lai Massacre
  My Lai Massacre
  The My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of 347–504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Most of the victims were women, children , and...
  
  during the Vietnam War
• People’s Translation Service Founded circa 1972
• Zodiac News service Founded circa 1972
• Zoo World Newservice Founded circa 1972
• Earth News Service Founded circa 1972
• Newscript Dispatch Service Renamed from Earth News Service
• Tricontinental News Service Founded circa 1973
• New York News Service Founded circa 1973 by Rex Weiner and Deanne Stillman
• Appalachian News Service Founded circa 1974
• Her Say Founded circa 1977 by Marlene Edmunds of Zodiac News Service.