Newsies

Now an obsolete term — see Newszine, which is used instead.

From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959

Fanzines intending to give news of fan activities. Certain usage distinguishes the newszine, a fanzine full of news, from the newsletter, often no more than a flier, often put out by convention/conference committees to report on local activities. (But Bob Tucker's Bloomington/SF News Letter was full of general news.) Before and during World War II they ordinarily appeared weekly, but there have been triweeklies (once every three weeks) and there was a publication by McPhail in the quarterly FAPA mailing which called itself a news sheet. Dick Wilson's Science Fiction News Letter was the earliest, but the most important historically was Taurasi's, which as Fantasy-News soon began to compete. Will Sykora took over Fantasy News for a while and it folded during the war, but Taurasi began again with Fantasy News when he came home from the wars. Its name was changed to Science Fiction Times later (1957) when fantasy became a negligible part of our field. FT early in its life attained maybe the largest circulation of any fanzine since Fantasy Magazine days at least, and has had the longest publication life of any fan magazine. Since 1938 there has nearly always been at least one more-or-less regular newsie in fandom; a biweekly schedule is normal at the moment of writing. A brief thing was the FANEWS[CARD] (tho Ted Carnell published a cardzine for some months after Great Britain went to war.)

From Fancyclopedia 2 Supplement, ca. 1960

The first was Dan McPhail's 1931 SF News, which was turned into a subzine in 1935 and then subtitled "the newsmagazine for the fantasy fan". It was also a pioneer in reporting news of fandom, in contract to its contemporary Fantasy Magazine, which largely ignored fanactivity.

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