Harrisburg Independent Press
A Decade in Retrospect: 1971-1980
An Archive of Pennsylvania's Alternative Community Newspaper
A Truly Independent Press
The Harrisburg Independent Press was published in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, from 1971 to 1980. The weekly newspaper was founded to provide alternative news for the Harrisburg 7 trial during the Vietnam War. After the trial ended, the newspaper, known by its readers as HIP, continued on.
"The Harrisburg Independent Press has a muckracking spirit which for a newspaper of limited means and circulation is awesome."
- The Boston Globe
HIP: A Personal History
by Jim Wiggins
I first heard of the Harrisburg Independent Press in the spring of 1972, when I spotted a help-wanted ad on the bulletin board of the Daily Collegian, the student newspaper at Penn State where I’d worked prior to my graduation that March.
I was hanging around State College, papering my apartment with rejection letters from various news organizations that had decided they somehow could function quite well, thank you, without my services.
The First Issue
Welcome to the first issue of the Harrisburg Independent Press, a brand-new, truly independent newspaper, dedicated to serving the Harrisburg Area with a responsible alternative journalistic voice.
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We will not seek controversy for its own sake, but we will welcome it for the sake of reform and revelation.
