PCIM Publishes Archives from the Los Angeles Vanguard

by | Sep 8, 2022 | News

View the full Vanguard Archive here.

“The Vanguard is more than a newspaper, it is an organizing tool for community groups and individuals to fight back through citizen action. FIGHT BACK will be a regular feature of such efforts.”

The mission statement published in the very first issue of the Los Angeles Vanguard promised a combative and candid look at the issues that afflicted Los Angeles and the country at large that typically went unnoticed or ignored by mainstream corporate media. The Vanguard’s life was brief but impactful. During its 14-month run, the weekly paper won awards for its reporting on rampant violence against citizens by the para-military Los Angeles Police Department, invasive practices of the phone company Pacific Telephone (often on behalf of police agencies), judicial corruption, and nuclear hazards.

The rebellious publication quickly became a target of the LAPD’s Public Disorder Intelligence Division; they worked to send uncover cops to infiltrate the paper and bribed its ad sales agency to stop doing business with the Vanguard. The LAPD’s underhanded campaign ultimately succeeded, and the paper ceased publication less than two years after its creation.

The Park Center for Independent Media is proud to house the archives of the entirety of the Los Angeles Vanguard’s publication. We would like to thank David Lindorff for providing copies of the Vanguard’s publications, which will be displayed on our website as a historical record of the paper’s dissenting and impactful reporting. It is our hope that this archive will provide students, journalists, and anyone with a curiosity toward independent media with insight as to the history and accomplishments of this publication.

 

More from The Edge

The New Long COVID is College Without Classes

I was punched in the gut. It hurt. I thought this would be the seminar session to bring all the theories and histories of documentary across analog and digital together with a big political and epistemological impact. But I should have summoned my semiotic training to...

Warhol, Art, and Capitalism Before the Supreme Court

The Andy Warhol Foundation has lost its suit against photographer Lynn Goldsmith. The Supreme Court’s May 18, 2023, ruling positioned the decision as a defense of lesser known artists against famous ones. The majority argued that Fair Use was not applicable when...

How Media Bias Twists Public Perception of the Writers’ Strike

Outside of the corporate offices and backlots of Netflix, Disney, NBC, Universal, and Warner Brothers, masses of protestors stand with signs that range from serious to hilarious, all with the same message: writers need to be fairly paid for their work. Corporate media...

Motherhood, Technology, and Natalia Almada’s “Users”

Natalia Almada’s documentary essay film “Users” (2021) questions a mother’s deep ambivalence about technology. But the film’s aesthetics makes clear that she has already chosen technology. The film is the binational Mexican American director’s first shot in the United...

Guilty of Sexual Abuse (But Not Rape?)

On Contemptuous Men and the Women who Fight Back A short note about the subtitle before I begin: it is interesting how these gender terms hold sometimes in all their simplicity and binary force. Other than the title, when I use the term woman/en it is inclusive of...

The Drifting Smoke of the Burned-Over District

South Butler, New York, is a forgotten byway in American history. Its moment of notoriety came and went. Now it is just a crossroad hamlet struggling to matter like so many other such places in rural America. But once it did matter. In the decades before the Civil...

Capturing the Latino Vote

The 2024 election season has begun. Candidates identify political and policy priorities. Voters constantly wonder where on the political spectrum the country will land. At the same time, a political messaging battle about voter turnout and possible voter suppression...