AlterNet (United States)

AlterNet is a progressive online alternative news source that not only serves as a source of original content but also aggregates other alternative media online. It is a creation of the nonprofit Independent Media Institute (IMI), originally founded in 1983 as the nonprofit group Institute for Alternative Journalism (IAJ). It promotes and strengthens the independent press in an increasingly concentrated media landscape. AlterNet plays an important role in the editorial planning of many alternative papers.

As of 2010, Don Hazen was executive editor of the IMI and executive editor of AlterNet. Hazen was the former publisher of Mother Jones magazine, another U.S. independent nonprofit publication. The staff largely consists of professional journalists and others with direct experience with the topics about which they write. Whereas earlier incarnations of AlterNet encouraged user-created content, independently produced blogs, other media outlets, and staff writers now generate the site's featured content. Users are encouraged to engage in discussion in the comments section that follows each article. The site has over 30,000 registered users.

The AlterNet of the late 2000s served primarily as a news source and aggregator and less as a newswire, collecting stories from other popular alternative locations such as The Huffington Post, Democracy Now! and The Nation, while concurrently including stories featured on such mainstream news sources as CNN and The Washington Post. AlterNet had 12 areas of special coverage, each with an editor and a weekly newsletter. These were Rights & Liberties, Corporate Accountability & Workplace, Democracy & Elections, Environment, Media Culture, Reproductive Justice & Gender, Health & Wellness, War on Iraq, Water, Immigration, Drug Reporter, and Sex & Relationships.

Thus, AlterNet brings to the forefront topics often reduced to subplots in mainstream media. Mainstream news often breaks down into local news, politics, sports, world news, and business, before moving onto living, arts, and other sections. AlterNet evolved its distinctive direction over time: The very first website listed six subsections, with more traditional categories such as Arts & Entertainment and Books & Authors.

AlterNet acted as an important center for online alternative media, providing a one-stop location for a variety of content from a variety of sources. The latest figures showed that the website received 3 million visitors monthly with over 7.5 million page views. According to the site, many readers came from Google, Digg, and Reddit.