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

[Sascha Meinrath]

Hi all,

Just a bit of background and some suggestions:

> 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"?

The Indymedia Newsreal has been an ongoing project begun in 2000.  It is a
collaboration among IMCs that predates many of the global network's
working groups (and probably quite a few IMCs as well).  Information on
the project is available at:  http://satellite.indymedia.org

> 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).

Actually, there was an open (and long) discussion about the Indymedia
Newsreal several years back.  It might predate many people's active
involvement in Global Indymedia, but the discussions should be archived.
Because the project is a collaboration among IMCs and is open to
participation from all IMCs, I think the name makes a lot of sense.
Recently, several people who have been heavily involved in the project
have wanted to make a tour to raise awareness of the project and increase
involvement -- which is probably a very good thing given the confusion of
this project's history.

> 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.)

If anyone is concerned with the project's name, I encourage you to make a
proposal to the Global Indymedia Process list and forge a new consensus to
change the name of the project.  It has taken many years to get the
project to the point where it is today and the tour is a logical outgrowth
of the Newsreal's maturation.  Given the confusion over things, if people
have questions over the history of the project I'd strongly encourage
folks to either read through the Indymedia archives or ask questions
before assuming things.

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

There's been a lot of false assumptions made of late about various
Indymedia projects.  And I think it's important that folks don't jump to
conclusions -- especially since so many of them have been way off-base.
Over the last few years Indymedia has grown to become a fairly massive
organization with a tremendous number of highly autonomous initiatives.

It's no longer possible to keep track of all the different projects that
are going on -- I worry that some folks are pushing for a more centralized
decision-making process rather than decentralizing control over projects
to those who are directly participating and doing the work.  Indymedia has
been built upon a foundation of trust and individual initiative; I worry
that we undermine this core strength when we fail to engage each other
constructively, ask questions first, or assume things without
understanding Indymedia's history and past precedents.

In solidarity,

--Sascha Meinrath
Urbana-Champaign IMC