Reposted from:
 http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/imc-us/2005-May/thread.html

Hola everyone. This is Jessica from Arizona IMC.

First, I had a great time hanging out with all of you in St. Louis. Thank you to everyone who has taken time to post and/or read all these comments. It is crucial that we take the dialogue we had in St. Louis back to our own IMCs as well as to keep it rolling on a national level.

Since many have articulated the problems with the NCMR conference so succinctly, I would just like to add a not-so-short commentary on my experience.

While the conference was what many of us expected, I learned a great deal about the demographics and vision of the media reform movement, and how it lacks the holistic nature of indymedia. In every workshop I was at, I thought to myself, "While these people bang their heads on the wall on how to fix (fill in the blank), indymedia is an obvious solution." My greatest frustration was that indymedia folks had little room at the panels to share what we do. I was surprised how many of the conference attendees were interested to learn more about indymedia. At the "media activism 101" workshop, before the panelists began, immediately there were three questions about indymedia. The moderator said that the panel was not going to address these questions (it didn't matter since no one on the panel could have answered them anyway.) Nor in the workshop was there any mention of direct action media (be the media) or media activism direct action. Irritated, I went up to the microphone during the question and answer session and gave what I would later coin "the indymedia blurb." I also presented the challenge of doing media direct action, such as pulling plugs from corporate media news vans, blocking stupid people from being interviewed by commercial media, etc.

The next workshop I attended "Grassroots Organizing for Media Change" would have been perfect for the topic of indymedia, yet again, there was no mention of us. So, I stood up and gave the blurb again.

Many people came up to me in the hallways telling me what I said was really interesting. So, I decided that at every workshop I went to I would say something about indymedia.

Saturday morning, Tarik (from Birmingham IMC) and I talked about organizing an improv "what is indymedia" workshop during the caucus sessions later that afternoon. We decided to post an indymedia planning session at lunch. About 10 of us met and decided two things: first, that we would split up and attend the next workshops so we could mention indymedia in all of them; second, that the "Independent media producers" caucus would be a good time to hold the indymedia caucus. (*Note: In Austin, I left thinking that indymedia was going to have its own caucus reserved, mainly so we could further the discussion of indymedia.us. But, somehow the caucus got expanded to be "independent media producers." So, I am not sure what happened....)

I ended up going to the "Cultural diversity vs. free trade: A call to action" workshop. While the panelists were interesting, I strongly felt that indymedia should have been a part of this one since we were born largely from the anti-globalization movement. At the end, I made sure I was the first to the microphone. I gave a brief history of indymedia and then told a short story about my experiences covering the Andean Free Trade Agreements talks in Tucson last November, and how thanks to Peru, Colombia and Portland IMCs, we were able to create global coverage. (Portland IMC had live radio coverage, Peru IMC and Colombia IMC helped me with questions to ask the delegates as well as offered background on some issues.)

I then went to the "Journalist caucus". This was especially interesting to hear commercial/mainstream journalists talk about what they can do and the problems they are having. I guess some of my comments were blogged (thanks bht for finding them!). Basically, I suggested these journalists could post to indymedia in cases of being censored at their news organizations. The group decided to try to do something pretty cool. They want to set up a website where they can pass on story tips anonymously that are being censored in their own media companies. I told them about how indymedia has been successful in setting up open-publishing websites sensitive to security culture and that maybe our tech people could be a resource for them.

I was very excited by our ability to react quickly and tactfully Saturday night when we passed out 800 quarter sheet fliers (there were about 2,000 people there) at the main music/speaker event. The fliers explained what indymedia is on one side and on the other it mentioned our makeshift IMC in the lobby that we had set up as well as to encourage people to sign the St. Louis petition to get a civilian oversight board for the police department. We made signs and were extremely visible. I am confidence we reached many people that night. I was approached by three Free Press organizers who were not too thrilled by what we were doing. Word had spread fast that the indymedia people were a little upset. I tried to explain to them why were upset and what we felt the shortcomings of the media reform movement were. One ironically responded, You dont need to tell me about these issues, I understand I am a socialist.

I agree that we need to present a well-thought out response to the media reform movement. The response needs to let the media reform movement know that, like Sydney Levy from Media Alliance said in the closing plenary, There can be no media democracy without social justice. Indymedia is a solution to all the problems that were dissected at the conference: globalization, corporate dominance, gender, race, etc. We cannot let the media reform movement dictate the conversations on how to confront the problems with the media and society.

In Austin, someone brought up the fact that the media reform movement wants to know if indymedia is an ally or if we want any part in it. What happened at this conference makes three things clear: 1. the media reform movement will go no where without its grassroots media counterpart; 2. indymedia must stay engaged in the movement because the media revolution needs to reach out to everyone; 3. the media reform movement is not a long-term solution.

Media reform is almost an oxymoron. Our media system is not broken. What we have today is the natural progression of commercial media. It is healthy and strong and actually doesnt need reforming, it is doing exactly what it is supposed to do: sell news and maximize profit. Those in the media reform movement are trying to instill some sort of democratic ethic and media moral into a system that is constructed with capitalistic principles. It is this structure that is leading to all the problems the media reformists want to fix, yet, they dont realize the source of the problem is the backbone of the structure: capitalism. With that said, I think many in the media reform movement do not actually understand indymedia. It is the general dilemma anarchists have all the time trying to explain why capitalism is the source of so many social problems. This is the challenge we all face on a daily basis.

Now is a crucial time for indymedia in two respects. First, it is extremely important that we concisely explain the movement and its goals to the media reformists. We need to be proactive to break down the confusion between media democracy and media justice. It is an important time to align our goals with other allies working on media and social justice. Secondly, this is the time to look at our own movement and see how we can expand it within our communities.

With the latter, I have several points about how I see our role (our as in those of us extremely active in indymedia) in the media revolution. Our first goal should be building IMCs, creating editorial policies and collectives, and maintaining those websites. This includes helping people with tech resources, etc. Once the website is up, the momentum of indymedia can naturally begin. Our second goal must to be outreach. This can include everything from word-of-mouth, flyering, making presentations to students and social organizations, etc. The third goal should be working on content. This is accomplished by outreach primarily. But, skill sharing must happen as well. John Tarlton in NYC indymedia and The Indypendent, has been leading community workshops that teach skills needed by community members wanting to be journalists. Arizona IMC put together the pocketbook for the indymedia journalists that gives resources and pointers for grassroots journalism (email me if you want an electronic copy). There are probably many others out there that are working on skill sharing as well. This was the greatest criticism many had of the IMC conference in Austin- the lack of solid skill share sessions ranging from tech, photography, video, writing, etc. Skill sharing is what will not only keep minimize hierarchies created by knowledge and skill level, but it will also keep indymedia expanding and improve the quality of our content. (For anyone who wants to talk specifically about outreach ideas, I would be very interested.)

For the last several months, I have joined the group of us who live and breathe indymedia. I see how a true independent media is essential for the progression of every social movement. If we want revolution, we must first reclaim how we communicate with each other. It is time to break down the walls the mainstream media has established and begin interacting on a community level from a local scale to a global community.

More or less, that is my indymedia manifesto.

The NMRC conferences can always be a great way to connect with energetic, knowledgeable and resourceful people from all of our communities. But we must demand that indymedia has more visible presence at next years conference. Aside from having a basic what is indymedia workshop, we need to organize to do several skill shares. It is what we do best. Provide resources for people to empower themselves.

Again, the most rewarding part of the conference was to hang out with everyone in indymedia. Meeting face-to-face this year has strengthened the movement considerably.

Thank you for reading this to the end.

Solidarity from the southwest,

Jessica

p.s. my primary email address is  cienega@gmail.com, so please use that if you want to contact me directly. if the list moderator is reading, can you please change my email address on the listserv?? Gracias!









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