A young journalist’s search for love and truth at a tumultuous time of change.
Link to launch event page and video
As a fledgling reporter in the early 1970s, author Anita M. Harris and her college friends helped found a small newspaper on Third Street in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The Harrisburg Independent Press (AKA “HIP,”) was originally conceived to report on the Trial of the Harrisburg Seven– in which anti-Vietnam War nuns and priests were accused of conspiring to kidnap Presidential Advisor Henry Kissinger and blow up underground heating tunnels in Washington, DC. (True story!) Like most underground and alternative newspapers of the day, HIP covered civic, consumer, national and international issues–many with parallels in the unrest we are experiencing today.
In this unconventional memoir, Harris traces, from the point of view of Ani, her 23-year-old self, the founding of the newspaper, the trial, and the devastating Flood of 1972, which left 124 people dead. Interwoven, with humor and puzzlement, are stories of Ani’s love relationship, her coverage of poverty and social injustice, and HIP‘s reporting on topics ranging from dirty movies to slave labor, heroin sales, racial discrimination, a burgeoning feminist movement, abortion rights and opposition to the Indochina war.
Harris , who went on to write for Newsday and MacNeil Lehrer (now the NewsHour) of PBS, says she hopes the book will increase understanding of women’s changing roles, journalism, and how individuals impact and are impacted by the clashing forces of history. But, mainly, she hopes readers will enjoy the tale.