Independent Media Institute (IMI)

IMI sold AlterNet to left-of-center news organization Raw Story in 2018 after the departure of its longtime executive director and AlterNet executive editor Don Hazen, who had been accused of sexual harassment by female journalists who had worked with or for AlterNet. ⁵

History and Leadership

Independent Media Institute (IMI) works to advance left-wing policy priorities and social causes through journalism and related media. ¹ It was founded in 1983 as the Institute for Alternative Journalism by left-wing journalists Alan Green and Margaret Engle as a syndication service for left-wing “alternative weekly” newspapers across the country. ^{2 3}

Executive director Jan Ritch-Frel is a former staffer for the 2004 presidential campaign of former Vermont Governor Howard Dean (D). ⁶ He is also the co-author of Neighbors from Hell, an illustrated children’s book described as “approximat[ing] some of the horrors of society that everyday people face, and the monstrous qualities that many people take on as they try to earn a living.” ⁷

The board chairman of the Independent Media Institute is environmentalist activist Heeten Kalan, who is a senior program officer for the left-of-center New World Foundation and a director of multiple funds for the foundation. ⁸

AlterNet

The Independent Media Institute is most widely known as the former home of AlterNet, which began in 1983 as a syndication service distributing the work of left-wing writers such as Michael Moore and Abbie Hoffman to “alternative” newspapers across the country. By 1991, AlterNet was syndicating content to roughly 125 left-leaning alternative papers. ^{2 3 9}

In 1998, AlterNet launched an online site at AlterNet.org that became one of the earliest and most prominent sites for left-wing journalism and commentary on the internet. AlterNet reported 2.6 million visitors to its site in April 2007 and claimed to peak at 6.5 million average visitors a month in 2016, at which point it was publishing 1,000 articles per month. ^{1 10 9}

In 2018, after a sexual harassment scandal forced the resignation of its long-time executive director and AlterNet.org executive editor Don Hazen, IMI sold AlterNet to the owners of left-of-center news organization Raw Story, which had been managing AlterNet’s advertising sales. ^{11 12 13}

Current Programs

After selling AlterNet in 2018, the Independent Media Institute turned its focus to acting as a funder, distributor, and publisher of left-wing advocacy journalism. ¹ It currently focuses on promoting left-wing economic, environmental and education policies, as well as advancing Democratic Party narratives on election security and participation. ¹⁴

Fellowship Program

Independent Media Institute operates a fellowship program that includes left-of-center activists as well as working members of left-wing media. ¹⁵ IMI coordinates its fellows’ writing projects, assists with editing and graphic design, and helps place the resulting work in third-party media outlets. ¹⁴

These fellows include Nancy Altman, president of left-of-center lobbying organization Social Security Works; ¹⁶ left-wing radio talk show host Thom Hartmann, ¹⁷ and left-wing author and freelance journalist Alexander Zaitchik. ¹⁸  

Local Peace Economy

Independent Media Institute collaborates with the left-wing advocacy group Code Pink on the “Local Peace Economy” initiative, which encourages readers to support left-leaning social and political causes with their everyday purchases and boycott products and companies that do not conform to those doctrines. ¹⁹

Economy for All

“Economy for All” is an Independent Media Institute media project that promotes left-wing economic narratives. Funded in part by a directed grant from the Ford Foundation, its editor is IMI fellow and Pacifica Radio host Sonali Kolhatkar. ^{20 21}

As part of the Economy for All initiative, Kolhatkar published an article in the avowedly Marxist ²² Socialist Unity Party’s publication “Struggle-La Lucha” that blamed “corporate food monopolies” and “global capitalism” for the 2022 shortages of infant formula in the United States. ²³

Controversy

Former Mother Jones publisher Don Hazen joined the Institute for Alternative Journalism as its executive director in 1991, then added the role of AlterNet’s executive editor in 1993 on the departure of IAJ co-founder Margaret Engle. ^{9 2} Under his leadership, the organization changed its name to the Independent Media Institute in the mid-1990s. ⁹

Hazen served in those roles until 2017, when BuzzFeed News published allegations of ongoing sexual harassment against him by six women, five of whom had worked for him as journalists at AlterNet. ⁵ Five women later participated in an hour-long episode of the National Public Radio (NPR) show “This American Life” that went into more depth about the allegations and the culture at AlterNet under Hazen. ²⁴

While AlterNet outwardly championed feminist causes and Hazen would regularly fundraise from left-of-center donors on the strength of its female journalists, the site’s former managing editor said Hazen had admitted to her that he considered female journalists’ physical attractiveness when making hiring decisions. ⁵ “He went to funders and got grants intended for websites that promote gender equality, even though AlterNet was owned and run by this one man, because he was pitching all of our work,” another former AlterNet editor told BuzzFeed News in 2017, “And he more or less sexually harassed people as much as he felt like he could get away with it.” ⁵

Left-wing news website The Intercept would later report that AlterNet “never had anything resembling a human resources department” and that there was no mechanism for employees to file complaints with the Independent Media Institute’s board. ²⁵

Hazen issued a statement denying “most of allegations” [sic] but resigned shortly after he was placed on indefinite suspension by the Independent Media Institute’s board of directors in December 2017. ^{26 11} The organization’s tax returns reported that Hazen was paid $140,076 as its “former executive director” in 2018, which was almost $7,000 more than new executive director Jan Frel received in compensation that year. ²⁷

Funding

The Independent Media Institute has received funding from numerous left-leaning foundations and other donors over its decades in operation. Some of its more high-profile funders include the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, ²⁸ John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, ²⁹ Glaser Progress Foundation, ³⁰ Carnegie Corporation of New York, ³¹ Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, ³² Arca Foundation, ³³ and Ford Foundation. ²⁰