Zodiac News Service
{{notability|date=April 2025}}
{{Infobox company
| name = Zodiac News Service
| logo =
| type = News agency
| industry = Underground press
| fate = Defunct (early 1980s)
| predecessor =
| successor =
| founded = August {{Start date and age|1972}} in San Francisco
| founders = Jon Newhall and John Farley
| defunct =
| hq_location = Howard Street
| hq_location_city = San Francisco
| hq_location_country =
| area_served = United States
| key_people =
| products = News bulletins, photographs
| owner =
| num_employees =
| num_employees_year =
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| website =
}}
Zodiac News Service was an alternative news agency for radio stations and counterculture media. It was founded in 1972 by Jon Newhall, who had worked at the short-lived Earth News, a service of Earth magazine.{{cite news|url=https://cnpa.com/jonathan-newhall-79/ |title=Jonathan Newhall, 79 |date=March 10, 2021 |department=News|work=California News Publishers Association}}{{cite web|url=https://barbarafalconernewhall.com/2021/02/27/jonathan-newhall/ |title=Jonathan Newhall. My Husband of Forty-Four Years |date=Feb 27, 2021 |first=Barbara Falconer |last= Newhall|website=BARBARA FALCONER NEWHALL: A Case of the Human Condition: Riffs on Life From a Veteran Journalist}}
Overview
Zodiac News Service was an alternative national news source founded in 1972 by former Earth News staffer Jon Newhall along with John Farley.{{cite news|title=John Farley Fiancé of Janet C. Wood|work=The New York Times |date=May 5, 1974|quote=He is a founder and general manager of Zodiac News Service, a national college news service in San Francisco.|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1974/05/05/archives/john-farley-fiance-of-janet-c-wood.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Bk8.AEru.Z3uSsRMrypZI&smid=url-share}} (Newhall was the son of Scott Newhall, owner of The Newhall Signal and former long-time editor of the San Francisco Chronicle; and Ruth Newhall, "Chronicle reporter who later became editor of The Signal herself.")
Zodiac News Service produced daily packets of anti-Vietnam War, civil rights, environment, marijuana, women’s issues, and rock and roll news — also man bites dog items that Newhall called "bizarros."{{cite book|editor-last=Wachsberger |editor-first=Ken |date=2011|title=Insider Histories of the Vietnam Era Underground Press. Voices from the Underground, Part 1 |publisher=MSU Press| ISBN =9781609172206}}
The Zodiac staff printed the packets in their office on Howard Street in the then low-rent, south-of-market area of San Francisco. Monday through Friday, the staff would choose stories from local and national publications along with original pieces. The articles would be typed up and then run through a mimeograph machine, followed by a collator. The packets were stuffed into envelopes, run through a postage machine, and driven to the post office for delivery to subscribers.
Zodiac News Service’s mission was to provide reliable news, produced according to journalistic ethics and standards, to outlets seeking sources of news not reported in the mainstream media. Subscribers included FM and college radio stations, newspapers, and alternative weeklies across the United States and Canada. At its height, Zodiac News Service was carried by hundreds of news outlets.
Staff at Zodiac News Service went on to found various publications. In 1977, Zodiac staffers Marlene Edmunds and Anne Millner formed Her Say, a feminist alternative news service, along with Shelley Buck. Zodiac News Service distributed the Her Say dispatches.{{cite news|title=Her Say, Nationally Syndicated News |work=Whirlwind |volume= 4 |number= 1 |date=October 8, 1981| page= 3}} By 1980, Her Say had over 100 radio subscribers, as well as print outlets like Ms. and Mother Jones.{{cite news|last=Gaylor |first=Annie Laurie |date=February 1982 |title=Her Say: A Goldmine of News About Women |work=Womansight: News for North Texas Women|volume=2|number= 8|pages= 1, 11}}
In 1978, Zodiac News Service staff member Bill Hartman co-founded the San Francisco Bay Times,{{cite news|title=About Our Cover: June 9, 2022|url=https://sfbaytimes.com/about-our-cover-june-9-2022/|date=June 9, 2022|work=San Francisco Bay Times|quote=Perhaps the most prominent is Bay Times Co-Founder Bill Hartman.}} the first LGBTQ newspaper founded jointly by gay men and women. The paper continues today as a multiplatform publication.
Both Zodiac and Her Say lasted into the early 1980s.{{cite magazine|title=Editor's Notes|first=ROBERT |last=POOLE|date=Oct 1981|work=Reason|url=https://reason.com/1981/10/01/editors-notes-28/|quote=The Zodiac News Service sent out a story based on the article, which has resulted in radio interviews thus far on eight stations...}}