United States Student Press Association

The United States Student Press Association (USSPA) was a national organization of campus newspapers and editors active in the 1960s. It held a national convention of college student newspaper staff each summer at a member college campus, and a national student editors conference in Washington, DC each year during the academic year. It formed a national news agency called College Press Service (CPS). USSPA was developed as a program of the National Student Association (NSA). USSPA later became independent, then suffered financial setbacks in the early 1970s, and disbanded. The College Press Service was spun off and became a progressive alternative news collective in Denver, Colorado. It, too, later folded, selling its name to a commercial enterprise, and distributing the funds to progressive groups in Denver.[1][2]

In 1967 Marshall Bloom was designated as heir apparent to assume the Executive Director position and lead the organization, but his push to send student editors to Cuba and defy the U.S. travel ban led the incumbent Executive Director and other national staff to withdraw their endorsement and support. Bloom sought to win the position at the annual meeting of the U.S. Student Press Association in August 1967 but lost a close vote of all student editor representatives to another candidate. Soon after losing that vote, Bloom founded with Raymond Mungo the Liberation News Service.[3][4]

Roger Ebert served as president of the USSPA in 1963–64. Harry Nussdorf, of Queens College (CUNY), served as chair of the USSPA National Executive Board 1969–1970.


References
  1. Berlet, Chip (2011). “Muckraking Gadflies Buzz Reality,” In Ken Wachsberger, ed., Voices from the Underground : Insider Histories of the Vietnam Era Underground Press, Vol. 1, pp. 267-297. Michigan State Univ. Press.
  2. Wachsberger, Ken (2012). Voices from the underground : Insider histories of the Vietnam era underground press. Mica's Press.
  3. McMillian, John (2011). Smoking typewriters : the Sixties underground press and the rise of alternative media in America. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-531992-3.
  4. Mungo, Raymond (2012). Famous long ago : my life and hard times with Liberation News Service. University of Massachusetts Press.


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