WSJ writer Jessica Firger spoke to Jed Brandt and Michael Levitin, the activists behind the unofficial newspaper of Zuccotti Park. The four-page OWSJ kicked off with a (semi-recycled) print run of 50,000 on Saturday:
The Occupied Wall Street Journal appears less concerned with traditional reporting than with firing up protesters and explaining the day-to-day operations of the demonstration. The debut issue featured a piece by former New York Times correspondent Chris Hedges, a call to action that begins: “Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial district or you stand on the wrong side of history.”
The paper’s first freelance commission came about by happenstance: Brandt met the award-winning journalist in Zuccotti Park and told Hedges about the project. Hedges promptly removed a few typed pages from his coat pocket — an article he was working on about the protest movement — and told Brandt he could print it.
Brandt and Levitin currently have enough Kickstarter money (around $44,000) to release five more issues, and they hope to eventually turn the hyper-local project into “a national publication, much like the newspaper that inspired its name.” (We assume just in terms of scale, not perspective.) Sadly, company brass did not join in the fun. As Firger dutifully noted, “A representative for the Wall Street Journal declined to comment.”
Protesters’ Newspaper Occupies a Familiar Name [Metropolis/WSJ]
