[IMC-US] RE: Indymedia Newsreal Tour Grant Proposal

[bradley at riseup.net]

Hey all,

I want to express my personal concern about this tour and grant proposal.

Why does the group of people (I bet they are great people!) proposing this
tour want to call themself "Indymedia Newsreal"?

Why would a group want to plan this thing, under the name of "Indymedia
Newsreal" and then contact the local IMCs to set up local events.
"Indymedia Newsreal" has not, to my knowledge, asked local IMCs how they
would feel about this tour or anything! "Indymedia Newsreal" should ask
local IMCs for support, not the Funding Exchange “Mobilize the Vote” Fund
(even though the Funding Exchagne may be a made up of a great group of
people as well).

http://www.fex.org/voting_is_a_basic_right.shtml
http://www.fex.org/mjf.shtml

Again, I want to express serious concern about an Indymedia Newsreal Tour,
as currently proposed.

If there is concern from people about this tour, then I do not feel it
should take place under the name of Indymedia (and putting a price on
priceless Independent Media footage.)

The more I think about this proposal
http://deproduction.org/Mobilize_Draft6.htm
the more problems I have with it.

sincerely,
Bradley
santa cruz indymedia *volunteer*

- - - - - - - - -

Budget

Following is the proposed Tour Budget, including all costs for the Tour
Director, Project Coordinator, and Videographer.  The center column
includes the costs which will be funded by Just Media, while the column on
the right consists of the funds we are requesting from the Funding
Exchange “Mobilize the Vote” Fund

Wages

Tour Director >> $ 5,000.00

Project Coordinator >> $ 5,000.00

Videographer >> $ 5,000.00

- - - - -


> <cross-post imc-europe,imc-us at lists.cu.groogroo.com>
>
> hi,
> A message was sent to imc-europe-commwork here:
>
> http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-europe-commwork/attachments/20040613/79d55716/IMC-SatelliteIndymediaNewsrealTourGrantProposal.mht
>
> (start from
> http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-europe-commwork/2004-June/000279.html
> and click on the URL at the bottom if is broken in this message)
>
>  i'm not sure if this is really relevant to imc-europe, since (at
> least to me) it's not clear what (if anything) is being requested from
> indymedia, and it's clearly fairly USA-nationalistic:
>
> "Broadcast nationwide",
> "a national audience",
> "aired nationwide",
> "across the nation",
> "national distribution",
> "aired nationwide on Free Speech TV",
> "will be broadcast nationwide",
> "national progressive",
> "will be aired nation-wide on FSTV",
>
> and "the country" is also used 9 times - but "USA" exists nowhere, and
> "the US" exist only twice - so it's probably more relevant to IMC
> US. People who want to see more about IMC US, you'll find links to the
> organising process, mailing lists, etc etc on the twiki:
>
> http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/NewImcUSProcess
>
> (Yes, yes, there were concerns about the idea of having IMC US, mostly
> about nationalism etc - these are listed on the page - and a more
> up-to-date discussion of concerns and solutions is on this wiki:
>
> http://brainstorm.ucimc.org/ucimcWiki/imc-us )
>
> Anyway the text is about some group calling itself "Indymedia
> Newsreal" and wanting to do a tour of the US and asks funds from two
> groups - but it doesn't seem to be a request for indymedia funds. Some
> people seem uncomfortable that there's the name "indymedia" involved -
> probably because it's involved with encouraging people to vote and
> doesn't seem to be very grassroots and probably the communication is not
> (so far anyway) very clear.
>
> http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/ImcVideo leads to
> #  North American Newsreal
> http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/NewsReal
> which doesn't say much about this project.
>
> On Sun, 13 Jun 2004, azalai wrote:
>
>> Hi!
>> Blank from Portland IMC wants to share this information with as many
>> people from the network as possible, so we could know what is being
>> planned. It's been forwarded as well to the imc-process list.
>
> i can't see it in the imc-process archive. Where is it? Or maybe it's just
> waiting moderation.
>
>> On my part just a comment: I wouldn't like Indymedia's name to be used
>> for this shitty thing!
>>
>> marais
>
> IMHO, before "sharing the information with as many people from the
> network as possible", it makes sense to try to find out a bit more,
> e.g. find out if they are integrated into IMC US. Anyway, i've added
> what info i could find.
>
> i can't find any request on imc-finance.
>
> If the group has problems integrating with existing IMCs in the USA,
> then their ambition to try to do a tour of local IMCs and help people
> network is a bit strange.
>
> And their web page - with the same text - has no URLs to mailing lists
> or the indymedia twiki or any other form of electronic participative
> decision-making, so there are clearly some big communication problems:
>
> http://deproduction.org/Mobilize_Draft6.htm
>
> Anyway, maybe imc-us people might want to discuss this among
> yourselves - (or send this to imc-us-process - that's your business :)
> - probably the people involved have the right intentions, and just
> have communication problems?
>
> pozdr
> boud (imc pl volunteer)
>
> PS: While i agree that voting in national democracies is not a high
> priority, IMHO chomsky is right regarding the marginal difference
> between Kerry and Bush: the difference is tiny, but a tiny positive
> difference which affects 6 billion people is something worth giving
> *some* (not top, but some) priority.
>
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