Anarchists Steal "News" Award at the Webby's

I'd be real disappointed if my film wins an Oscar...

Looks like the 'anarchists' have only provided the Webby's with more publicity. Nice one guys. You all sound like wanna-be type people!

no it was a nice shakeup of a show which was making every horrible thing about the internet seem like the greatest thing ever. i like ways of jamming culture and pushing anti-media messages out through media. kind of like pie-ing someone.

Indymedia is not news. It is quite clearly "activist" and furthermore is grade "b" propaganda. In order to be news you'd have to have a clear editorial policy, some clearly appointed editors, and some form of distinction between yourselves and the people you report on. You do what you do well, but what you fail at is being a news organization.

huh? what is news? what is objectivity? what is an expert? genuine anarcho, quit letting corporations define community concepts for you

Why does news have to be structured? why not "report" on what is happening around you.

She/he is right, IMC ain't news. And that's the great thing about it. If it were news, then it would claim to be objective. It would do so by relying on the usual suspects to explain the world to us - "authorative," "legitimate" sources.

These tend to be government types, business spokespeople, scientists, doctors, lawyers, rightwing think tanks, etc.

They tend to be white, male, wealthy.

They tend to represent the interests of the economic and political elite.

If IMC ever becomes news, you'll no longer count me as one of its participants.

Arnie

Hey, folks, calm donw, chill out! I think that action was great! It was funny aswell! We have to be more relaxed on what impression we give to the people, we have to be daring, and that action was daring!

As for indymedia being propaganda and so on, what I can only say is that indymedia is *much* better than CNN, NBC; whatever, for the simple reason that it has an open content policy, i.e., anyone's views are published, anyone's reports are published. That's the best thing about indymedia, and the most one. Sure sometimes I disagree with some articles, or think they're a bit slanted, so I comment on them, and thus we all learn from each other. I think that is much better than a central editorial group choosing articles. I've seen lots of instances where some guy posted some article wich had incorrect information and 3 or 4 people commented almost immediately correcting that information. Have you ever seen *that* in corporate media?


Daniel

Here's a letter from an Inside.com editor posted to Jim Rozmenko's web site:

Bogus protest
From MICHAEL HIRSCHORN: I was amused to see reports that our Webby for best news site was "stolen" as part of a protest against corporate media (I wish!). It seemed pretty evident at the time that this was just part of the show, which included numerous interruptions of this sort, many of them quite hi-larious. One tip-off that this was all a joke: the "replacement" Webby that was produced in a matter of seconds had "[Inside]" engraved on it. By the way, our competition for the award was CNN, BBC, CNet, and Salon. On the corporate whore scale, I'd say we come in fourth, though you could argue that CNet out-indies us simply by being based in San Francisco.

Take that, kneejerk "anarchists."

i like how self proclaimed anarchists are going around claiming to speak on the anti-authoritarian and anarchist movements behalf without even discussing with the general movement if they think it is a good tactic or time to engage in stunts?

anarcho-punks time to grow up.

Guess what? Everything said so far about Indymedia being a propaganda media machine is a joke when you look at CNN, ABC news etc. I mean, come on, who's the real propoganda machine here anyway? Not that any news can claim to be totall objective... not that any human being can claim to be totally objective, so hey, cool out. Besides, I hope to have the brains to be able to sift out the propoganda from whatever I see and hear and to be able to read between the lines, so what's the dilly? I'd prefer propaganda as agitprop made by people in the interests of most as oppposed to propoganda made by corporations in the interest of a few.

unlike you lot I am actually a journalist by profession and my politics are libertarian socialist.
but whatever this site might be good at it is not a news provider.
someone earlier mentioned that this site is great because it doesn't talk to the usual suspects. that is wrong on two counts. first it does talk to the usual suspects - just its own set of them. I would much rather see you lot get an interview with a CEO and put your case to them than read another "news" article about someone telling me globalisation is bad news.
secondly from a journalistic point of view your news coverage is very, very biased. it is, as someone said, propaganda. haven't read your Chomsky? you are filtering information to fit the ideology - just in the reverse way the corporate media does it. I would much rather you were a news site with an anarcho slant than an anarcho site that makes a fist of doing news. because of the approach you take you end up as an Activist rather than News site which I think is an entirely fair categorisation.
surely a gooapproach for a site like this would be to try and get ordinary people looking at it with the hope that some of the ideas get put across. if you really wanted to do that you would be trying to make this a populist site, with sports and TV on it and other stuff that people actually want to read about - you could still write this stuff from an anarcho perspective. instead at the moment the site is about activists for activists and stuck in the anarcho ghetto.
finally to the person wailing about corporate media being run by white, middle class males - who the fuck do you think are the anarchists these days? in the UK barring a few of the people in and around Class War the anarchist movement is generally middle class, predominantly male and almost exclusively white (I am all of these by the way) - and I am sure the US isn't much different. should we therefore boycott the anarchist movement?

Count me as one anarchist DIY journalist who got a good laugh this morning when he heard about this caper. I visited the Webby website last night and was struck by how maintream the awards have been. This definitely one awards show that needed to have its self-importance deflated.

This stunt wasn't quite on the level of the stunt that Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin pulled on the New York Stock Exchange, or as ambitious as the Great San Francisco Pie Fight, but as long as anarchists keep their sense of humor, we can make a revolution that is fun for all.

As for Mr. Libertarian Socialist Professional Journalist, I'd like to see some stories that you've written. Send me some URLs and I'll believe that you are really an anarchist. The Indymedia Network is doing an awesome job of providing a mixture of serious news and opinion. I've seen how the features people work and I can say, without insulting their DIY attitude, that they are professional in what they are doing.

Our journalism is biased? Hello, when was journalism unbiased? Perhaps you are still under the sway of the propaganda you learned in J-School, but mainstream journalism has never been unbiased and objective.

As for the majority of anarchists being all white males, I think the facts, at least here in the U.S., put a lie to that distortion. I've visited many anarchist communities this year and can say that the demographics of anarchism are much diverse than they were 10 years ago.

to me, indymedia is about re-defining and re-evaluating what "news" is. It is blurring the line between activism and news. sure, this indymedia site is biased... so is ALL reporting. humans are not wired to be "objective." objectivity is a huge myth. and big corporations are definitely not objective, they have too many financial interests at stake - atleast money doesn't drive what indymedia reports!

it's about allowing people to tell their own stories, not about some corporation telling them what is going on in their neighborhoods. corporatization of media and the merging of media into fewer and fewer hands... is cutting off people's communication - further isolating us. regular people need to communicate more with each other... we can turn to each other to figure out what is going on, instead of believing what the "expert" "professional" reporters to tell us.

also, i thought stealing the news award was daring and funny!

The Webby Awards are a celebration of corporate domination over the internet. The whole purpose is to take a popularly created participatory and democratic medium and laude the work of people who are squeeze profit out of it. Sure there are some categories such as activism, the arts, and weird, but the focus, in their rhetoric and during the ceremonies, are the profit hungry dot com’s.

I stole the webby award in the news category to protest the corporate domination over the news media both in the traditional and online mediums. When I got up to the stage I placed a copy of Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent on the podium, grabbed the news award, and yelled “Fuck the corporate media!” in to the microphone. Unfortunately they had already turned off the podium microphone speakers and only the online audience heard my message. With the award in hand I ran back down the stage and tried to leave the opera house. One of the webby security guards grabbed the award out of my hands as I pushed through the doors. He said something like “oh no you don’t” and I didn’t feel like fighting over, and breaking, the spring so I gave it back to him. He ran it back down the hall and gave it to winning news corporado.

Let me say that it wasn’t an official ‘stunt’ and the webby people really didn’t like my action. They apparently do like my website, protest.net, as it’s been nominated for the activism award both times they’ve had the category.

Some other higher up in the webby hierarchy came over to chew me out for “messing up their well planned event” and that they’d had to get the inside.com guy to fly out at the last minute from New York. After hanging out in the back of the theater for a while, not thinking it wise to walk back up to my third row seat, the security guards found me and tried to kick me out. They said “that was not cool, not cool….” I wanted to see more of the ceremony, maybe get people’s reactions to my action, so I pled that I was a nominee and that worked, they let me stay. They said something about how if I’d be ANYTHING other than a nominee they’d kick me out. I highly doubt that if I’d been a corporate sponsor they’d even threaten to kick me out, but that’s what he said.

I ran in to one of the judges in the hall, who I’d been talking to before. He again went off about how hard they worked to pull of this highly scripted event and I was messing it up for everybody. When I quipped that Webbies even have a tradition of disruption and I hadn’t even thrown the webby at the audience like jodi.org had, he said “well that was a long time ago.” Implying that things had changed, now at the webbies. Jodi.org had called them “greedy corporate bastards” back in 1999, and they still are greedy corporate bastards. Only now they’re whining about the dot bomb deflating their portfolios.

The webby awards have celebrated sites that pioneer the breaking down the wall between advertisers and news content such as amazon, inside.com, cnn, beliefnet, babycenter and many others. This is the wrong direction to take our collective technological development. We have a choice, either we can use this amazing new medium to become a truly popular mass medium where everybody has a voice or we can use it to drive hyper consumerism and friction free capitalism. For example, the technical achievement award went to Microsoft Windows Update and not projects that have been both major technical achievements and fulfill the internet’s potential as a libratory medium. I see such projects as FreeNet, Ogg Vorbis, Gnutella, Apache, *BSD, and Linux itself as all being much more important technical achievements. MWU is a clever way for Microsoft to send you bug fixes! Bugs they created and bugs that are a result of their top heavy corporate development model.

When the television, radio, and cable were introduced there was a struggle between people who wanted to use the medium for the common good and people who wanted to use the medium for profit and to reproduce the conditions of inequality and domination. The question was, do we use this new technology to reduce social, economic, and information inequality, or do we use it to create a new class of wealthy. This struggle has played out across the world. In the US we have the most corporate and profit driven society and our media systems have been shaped to reflect and reproduce those values. Quickly we saw the rhetoric of the ‘information superhighway’ be replace with the ecommerce gold rush. The internet is a creation our society, like all communications mediums it is communal property. We must not let the internet go the way of the newspaper, radio, television, and cable. The communications commons must not be partitioned and sold for private profit.

Perhaps this collapse of the hyper inflated internet stocks will help us take the internet back from the VC’s, dot commers, marketing spin miesters, and ecommerce biz dev stiff’s. This is a medium that can allow us to radically change the balance of information power. Foucault said “Power is not possessed, rather is exercised.” We must exercise our power as creators of technology, consumers of news and culture, people who are willing to think critically about the world to fight for the liberation of our internet.

DotCom’s Burn: The Internet Lives Free!

to me, indymedia is about re-defining and re-evaluating what "news" is. It is blurring the line between activism and news. sure, this indymedia site is biased... so is ALL reporting. humans are not wired to be "objective." objectivity is a huge myth. and big corporations are definitely not objective, they have too many financial interests at stake - atleast money doesn't drive what indymedia reports!

it's about allowing people to tell their own stories, not about some corporation telling them what is going on in their neighborhoods. corporatization of media and the merging of media into fewer and fewer hands... is cutting off people's communication - further isolating us. regular people need to communicate more with each other... we can turn to each other to figure out what is going on, instead of believing what the "expert" "professional" reporters to tell us.

also, i thought stealing the news award was daring and funny!

These news corps are all about propaganda, reporting very unsubjectively (a lot of these are opinion pieces in my view). Indy media is better then this type of news because it attempts to give stories and forum of those that are being degraded under the policies enacted by governments and business interests (who have a great voice in corp news).

I dont think anyone should lighten up whatsoever.

Whats so scary about the libertarian article above is that he thinks that an interview with a ceo is just as valid
as the actual cause and effect based accounts we get from much of the stuff on Indymedia. Here again you have to take into account the source. Who is the most "real"? Someone who directly profits from slavery and enviromental chaos or the ones who suffer under these conditions?

However it is certainly heartening to see that indymedia is reaching the "underserved" population of corporate reporters. Maybe now they will clearly see the misery they are abetting and maybe someof them will actually
go out of their way to dig for the facts and pass by the interviews with corp execs and high level officials.

Even if they dont change it doesnt matter at this instant thousands of pr hacks are combing through endless volumes of print and media in all forms to find out how much people know (regardless of the reach of that media). Just the perception that someone is watching government and corporate machinations and taking note
is a big help.

"Corporate Media Sucks"
the degrees of seperation, between activism and apathy become smaller and smaller.

endless actions such as this need to occur everywhere
everyday. regardless of your idealogical needs and beliefs.


JUSTICE FOR THE PEOPLE,

NOT FOR YOUR BRAND-NAME POLITICS AND IDENTITIES!

The big cities are beginning to pave the way for Anarchism. It's name will be cleared and better understood. George W. Bush and his biggenst allies-big business better be ready for a social revolution again because the people, workers and students are just beginning to understand how much they are actually taken advantage of and capitalized upon. Check out the Kate Sharpley archive which will be brought out by AK Press. The quickest way to understand and have a hands on view of thousands of work by Anarchists around the world and the U.S. "The Soft War: Notes from Madrid," a novel about an American foreign correspondent in Spain who learns about the history of Anarchism, The Spanish Civil War and erotic love while drinking absinthe until the late hours with a rebel Anarchist group in Madrid is one of the many chronicles of the misunderstood (Anarchists and Anarchism). It's time to look elsewhere for our political beliefs. George W. Bush and the privatization and corporatization of the United States are driving people away from political status- quo.
Ask AK Press (literary publisher) to view the works of Eamon Loingsigh, excellent new writer for a new age! His best work thus far is the novel I previously mentioned "The Soft War: Notes from Madrid."

sounds like the high point of a pretty boring show.

I can't believe someone other than myself has actually read "The soft War; Notes from Madrid." A friend of mine who works at Dystel literary Managemnt showed it to me. He said they were probably going to turn it down, too controversial for them. Too real more than likely. "The Soft War... hasnt been published yet (as far as I know) but I heard Noam Chomsky may write an introduction to it and Soft Skull Press here in N.Y. may accept it. If anyone wants to know what Anarchism is about (its social implications) you've got to read that one. Anarchism lives!
I've got to quit my job:(

I am trying to be constructive here. So here are a few points:

1) To me the most important function of a site like this is to get the message across to the most people, ordinary people whose current perception of anarchism is an excuse for young males - usually from a priveleged backround - to chuck bricks at cops. These people are not going to be convinced this movement is worth bothering with if the most important news story you can find today is someone nicking an award at a press do. It means absolutely nothing to anyone outside the ghetto.

2) It does bother me as both a journalist and a leftie that you seem so blase about objectivity. Of course it is hard but that doesn't mean you don't aim for it. It's a good job John Pilger doesn't think like that.
The point is that the left does not have a monopoly on the truth. This argument is well-covered in that bit in George Orwell's Homage To Catalonia where he talks about the media coverage of the Spanish Civil War.

3) I don't think an interview with a CEO is any more or less valid than an interview with a peasant from Chiapas - what do you mean by validity? My general point is that as a movement we need to reach outside the ghetto. Many ordinary people would like to see the CEO of a company they work for given a grilling, give them an interview with someone from Ya Basta and they will look elswhere.

4) Mr Anon seems to describe me as a PR hack and a corporate reporter. Am I a corporate reporter because I am employed, I do a job to earn money to rent a flat etc? Then who is not corporate? Damn that corporate working class!
Note that in this entire discussion there doesn't seem to be anyone who isn't in or close to the movement. Chuck wants me to prove that I'm an anarchist (otherwise I'm not alllowed to play anymore) - is that really a libertarian approach to a discussion board? vet the credentials of who is making the point before you decide whether you believe it or not.

I do admire what you are doing here. I am just trying to make suggestions on how its potential could be maximised and get out to a wider audience.

In solidarity
Mr Libertarian Socialist Professional Journalist

An "Empire(c)" "Tie Fighter(c)" "reaction panel" as the background set peice for the awards is chiling.
Darth Vader(c) is not heroic, no matter how hard George LUCAS(c) trys to suck at our hearts for forgivness. Evil is a personal action (usually romantic) at the expense of other people and/or Alderan(c) (the planet).
OUR planet is not living by the rules in George's lazy juniorhighschool mind.
We all had difficult parents. IMHExperience, Anarchist don't use this excuse to plunder and infect our world.
Life is a free lunch, and i like working 12 hour days to keep it free.

Keep "Differentiated Services" out of our internet ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc-retrieval.txt

hi tom,

regarding your point #4... i am female. you are a corporate reporter because you work for a corporation, because the corporation you works for makes the editorial decisions about your content, because the corporation you work for is one of the very few that control the media, and the corporation you work for will not put their financial interests at risk when it comes to exposing an injustice that might involve them.

after 8 years of creating news for public radio . I think i know what news is, its what ever I want to report. Therefore its has my bias and I am sure the CEOs of CNN have their axe to grind. I am sick of hearing about being objectivit, what the fuck is being objectivit its impossible. We all can make news any one of us, almost anything can become a news story, Itrained at the BBC and they are pretty good at the new deal,
USA has a stick up its butt when it comes to objectivit, its really starting to make me laught.

we the people make the news

people: all news is biased and all news is propaganda. the
difference with IMCs is that they don't ****>>PRETEND<<<****
to have "objectivity" (which corporations seem to aspire
to, though even they must know it's impossible, especially
in their case, considering the consolidated corporate
ownership of the, well, corporate media).

secondly:
"In order to be news you'd have to have a clear editorial policy, some clearly appointed editors, and some form of distinction between yourselves and the people you report
on."

um... no, your description has nothing to do with news
itself at all, it simply describes one form of organization
that has been chosen by one type of news medium. the news is
what is being reported on, the _medium_ is how that news is
reported on. i wish people would at least be open to the
idea that maybe, just maybe, that the way our society does
something is not the only way to do it.

in fact, the form of organization you mention seems to
lead to much more dangerous propaganda than IMCs do...
in corporate media, all editoral decisions are made by
a handful of people, maybe just one person, leading to a
very, VERY narrow spectrum; whereas IMC spectrum is
defined only by the autonomous choices made by people who
are drawn by their own choices to participate, and they
are not given any financial incentive to put forth the
"right" opinion ("editorial policy," as you call it.)
furthermore, this is known by those who read it, which
makes them more likely to form their own opinions and weigh
the reporting by its own merits, rather than by some sort
of assumed but baseless "authority".

ever ask someone, "what's new?" or "what's up?" their reply, unless it is "nothing," is news.

the corporate news sholdn't qualify as news either- most of it is pointless distractions (ie car crashes & things like that) and i htink has less right to claim to be "news" than indymedia. At least indymedia occasionaly reports on things that actualy matter, and avoid being little more than a distraction machine spouting propaganda (like the corporate media.)

I agree with the Libertarian Socialist Journalist. Indymedia is poor propaganda saying the same shit over and over. I think as a chat board its excellent, but as a news service it sucks.<p>A-Infos on the other hand is an amazing anarchist news service, with an editorial policy, and an editorial collective, and a really good signal to noise ratio.<p>All the discussions about objectivity and comparing indymedia to the corporate media are kind of fuct. Comparing it to A-Infos is perhaps a better way of looking at the inadequacies of this site.<p>Of course, the funniest part of all, is hearing about the CEO of indymedia stealing the news award. You can't win it, so you have to steal it.<p>I guess property is theft, and theft property!

> Global beat: True anarchist at the G-8
>
> By Dan Plesch
>
> LONDON - The demonstrators outside this weekend's G-8 meetings in Genoa,
> Italy, may appear to be unpleasant and belligerent but the true
> anarchist will be in inside the conference halls, advocating a policy of
> global nuclear anarchy with a manly hug and a Texas grin.
>
> President Bush and others in his administration have made it clear that
> they oppose the idea of controlling and limiting the spread of nuclear
> weapons through treaties. By pursuing such policies as national
> missile-defense system, even through it may violate the 1972
> Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the administration is making it clear
> that they are they true anarchists when it comes to respecting
> international laws.
>
> At first, calling a Republican president an anarchist may seem extreme
> and even counter-intuitive. After all, conservatives are known as
> upholders of the law. In fact, most observers fault the administration
> for taking a "unilateralist" approach to international affairs, rather
> than seeking bilateral or multilateral agreements.
>
> But the term "unilateralist" doesn't get across the truly revolutionary
> nature of what the president is attempting to do by saying that the
> United States will always act in what it perceives as its own best
> interests, even if that behavior runs counter to existing treaties or to
> international laws.
>
> In sharp contrast to his predecessors, President Bush seems more
> interested in abrogating existing agreements than in pursing new ones.
> The long list of arms-control accords that he seems willing to have the
> United States walk away from or is refusing to pursue include the ABM
> Treaty, a new START agreement with Russia, the Comprehensive Test Ban
> Treaty and the biological-weapons verification protocol.
>
> More than 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons remain in the hands
> of the United States and Russia. Their use and deployment has been
> controlled by agreements pursued by former Republican Presidents Nixon
> and Reagan. Those who call for doing away with such agreements offer two
> main arguments:
>
> · That any arms limitation is unenforceable.
>
> · That the United States is so strong that it has no interest in any
> agreement that imposes limits on itself.
>
> The first argument is akin to saying that murder should not be
> considered a crime because some killers get away.
>
> The second is a more worrying display of arrogance that reduces U.S.
> foreign policy to little more than the law of the jungle. It is a
> position that is particularly troubling for U.S. allies.
>
> Americans are rightly admired for leading the world in helping to build
> democracy, freedom, human rights and the rule of law. But right now,
> they are in danger of losing that position of moral leadership by
> walking away from international laws and obligations that have done so
> much to keep the world safe in the past.
>
> Now is not the time to start acting like an old-fashioned empire. It is
> time to start calling the policy that is coming out of the Bush White
> House what it truly is: anarchism.
>
> Dan Plesch is the director of the British American Security Information
> Council, an arms control advocacy group with offices in Washington and
> London. Readers can write to him at Global Beat Syndicate, 418 Lafayette
> St., Suite 554, New York, NY 10003. Its Web site is
> http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate

Why the hell does it matter whether its news or propadanda or what the fuck ever? For those of you "anarchist" reporters or whatever why are you arguing about something so unimportant? IMC is an outlet for information....

i am not understanding the true anarchist article at all..from what i get from it..it is saying that anarchy is going against what others want you to do...and simply doing what you want to do..for instance bush is doing what he wants to do as opposed to what the world wants to do..that isnt anarchy..maybe i am reading the entire thing wrong...but what the fuck is it trying to say...maybe someone can help me out here..i sometimes get lost in bullshit run around written articles...

Thank you Rabble for stealing the Webby! I was at the awards and it was indeed the highlight of a VERY boring awards show.

You are so right about the Webbys. They are everything evil that has evolved from the dotcom boom. Everyone is a poser with no substance. They don't really care about the web or even know what it's about. It's a complete self aggrandizing experience. I would like to see websites honored for doing a good job but so many websites that are truly good, weren't even nominated. As you say, it was all corporate sites that do mediocre jobs.

I love that they wanted to throw you out. What a bunch of pretentious hypocrites! Just as I suspected. I'm so disgusted that these are the people that are supposed to represent the web community. Thank goodness you could at least make a brief appearance to truly represent.

The debate over whether IndyMedia can be considered a "News" source really misses the point. There exists within the mainstream ( commercial) media a kind of a "cult" of "objectivity". Yet all news and reporting is inherently SUBjective so the moment you impose such an artificial ideal on the dynamic process of disseminating information you actually begin to tain the product according to a particular agenda - an agenda which benefits from the rendering of "news".
What I want out of any news source is to be given an honest admission regarding the reporter's perspective. If the reporter is involved or acquainted with the subject then fine; just say so. I'd rather have information from an intimate perspective than from a remote one as long as I can take the jusxtaposition of that perspective in to account.
Where some Indymeia reporting begins to break down is when rather than the reporter declaring his or her own bias it is represented instead by editorialisms that serve to obstruct rather than convey information. I chalk that up ti inexperience or lack of discipline but not necessarily dis-honesty. "Two friends of mine who shall remain anonymous staged an action at the Webby awards..." than; "Heroic anti-corporate freedom fighting anarchist revolutionaries invaded the trashy pro-capitalist glitter fest known as the Webby awards". See what I mean? For the most part I think IndyMedia reporters have a good handle on this. I'm not complaining.
Evan Davis

I didn't learn to fly by studying crashes and we may not fix this failing planet by studying failures !

Last May 9th there was a press conference at the National Press Club in D.C. 100 reporters with many camcorders watched 20 people come forward to reveal secrets kept hidden by death threats for over 50 years. 250,000 watched it live on the Internet. The media IGNORED it !

Governemtns and their corporate/military buddies have known we're being visited by folks from successful planets who can travel faster than light to get here. Bush wants to weaponize space to keep them away.

TOO FANTASTIC, TOO CRAZY ? Visit http://www.disclosureproject.org and find out the truth, See and hear that press conference yourself or get more info. on a computer CD from artr [at] juno.com. Send no money, just an address: use Subject: ART CD (so I don't miss it). You can donate later. -Art R.

I could argue about objectivity (confuses the relevant facts), editorial control (I expect you've identified the prejudice by now), 'you're not oppressed enough' (hardly news either), but instead I'll go for the personal tack.

OK you work for ITN or somesuch. First off, don't kid yourself that your politics have any beneficial effect on the output of your corporation.
Because:
In the first case, issues are ignored which you have little or no chance to raise.
If an issue is raised, you must restrain your input to keep your job.
If you affect the output without being traced or in acceptable doses, the edges (and you need the edges to pierce the consciousness) will be blunted, or the piece outright sat on.
Even if your perfect article, your masterwork untouched and uninterfered with found its way out of the broadcasting organ of your corporation, it would be in a minority of useful pieces and find itself swimming in the sea of media crap, shining light only too a select few on a single issue, and (here's the important bit) to the rest, would just be assimilated into the box in people's minds labelled "I know this now, so I don't have to think about it anymore"


But, I too want to be constructive (after such a prolonged dig!), so what can you do?

Apart from open the back door to the building when the rest of us storm it ;o)

Well, I don't know any CEOs to interview. You, however, have the rare advantage of being able to bring the resources associated with your corporation and your position to Indymedia.

Added to which, you have strong opinions about which way the thing should be going.

You have a news feed, which gives you an advantage as to how many articles you can reasonably contribute.


SO CONTRIBUTE!!
Take the site in the direction you want it to go.
Its the positive actions you take that count, not the amount of attrition against your employer.
I hope to see an independent and 'objective' interview with Murdoch on this site tomorrow.

Peace,
T

OK as we are agreed let's keep it constructive.

I have to disagree with you assessment of what the mainstream media can achieve but that's not really a debate for here.

You are right, I do have strong views about Indymedia because I think it is the germ of a brilliant opportunity for a radical media outlet. But it needs to get outside the ghetto and speak to normal non-activist people about normal stuff. A lot of people in the UK are concerned by what happened at Genoa, but a lot more are bothered by the state of the railways or how much their boss gets paid or crime in their neighbourhood or whatever (insert your US equivalents here). They may not be sexy causes, with photo opps of bomb-throwing rioters, but it's what they want to hear about. Radical media should cover that kind of stuff too and try and come up with thoughtful suggestions for change.

Sorry to sound boring, but where are our proposals of how we would solve the economic & social problems we have identified. Anti-capitalism OK, but what is the alternative economic system and what would it mean for some working class bloke who has set up his own small business fixing cars or whatever? If we want people on our side (because they ARE starting to listen to us) we need to start providing some answers as well as questions. Smash Capitalism won't be good enough on its own much longer.

Also looking much further ahead, where is the sports on here? or the TV/Cinema reviews? I'm only half-joking because in the long term how can any media outlet that wants ordinary people looking at it day in day out not have this kind of stuff on here? You may think that this kind of content is just stuff that distracts folks from The Struggle, but I think that infuses it with too much importance. The Morning Star newspaper in the UK (owned by the Communist Party) is the only left newspaper that ever had a serious audience - it has TV listings, sports etc.

Ultimately this is what the debate is really about isn't it? Is Indymedia intended to be a news service for activists, or a news service for everyone with a radical editorial line? I for one would much rather it was something like USA Today (I think that is probably your equivalent of The Sun) written from an anarcho slant.

Finally, in answer to your suggestion I have offered to do stuff for Indymedia UK. Would be happy to produce some kind of restaurant review column for you guys though (JOKE).

in solidarity
Rupert Murdoch's Lackey

looking at the homepage of this site, i see articles about police brutality in SF, homelessness, housing, union activity... interspersed with articles about radical protests. i think that there is more to go as communnity coalitions are built but you have to accept the fact that these local IMCs are going to be heavily community based, way more so than corporate media

yes I did read it and I take your point that it is more varied that just anti-capitalism protests.
but it's still not the sort of stuff that is going to make my mum visit infoshop is it? most people are not homeless/victims of police violence/or even in a union - where is the stuff for these people?