[IMC-US] personal reprtback for indy folks about theNationalCOnference on Media Reform.

[ali t]

both kat and mike have echoed my thoughts to a great degree. good thing 
i slacked off writing this e-mail for a few days because i couldn't 
have put it better. a few things to build upon mike's e-mail and talk a 
bit about us, indymedia,  rather than them, "media reform".

i went to the conference expecting precisely what i experienced. but i 
thought there might be opportunities to discuss and constructively 
build upon the divergences that have been elaborated on this thread. 
while most of us lie upon the opposite side of the spectrum as free 
press and its cohorts, there is a space in between that can use careful 
navigation. prometheus radio project does this well. they identify the 
problem: communities (whether it be white liberals in new england or 
the imokolee workers in florida) don't have access to radio technology, 
they go thru the legislative steps to ensure legality: lobby congress 
and the FCC but don't stop there (why i respect them immensely) and put 
the tools of media into those that need it: have barn raisings and 
actually build radio stations.

the tension at the conference was so obvious that at points it made me 
overly anxious about the whole situation. The two women of color at the 
opening plenary emphasized that media reform should not be done for the 
sake of media reform  but for the goals of social justice (and 
international social justice). where was this goal in the conference? 
after a quick glance at the program i only see a couple panels that 
adressed the issue.

as was previously mentioned, indymedia suffers from some of the same 
symptoms that we criticize free press and the media reform conference 
of having, i'm not sure how i feel about the terminology "media 
justice" but since that is what has been used to describe  the creation 
of a new media system by those who are oppressed to extinguish 
oppression, i will use it as well. on numerous occasions thruout the 
history of the network various indymedia activists have remarked how 
indymedia is not challenging the dominant forms of oppression in 
society and they are often replicated within indymedia. alas not 
partaking in the media justice struggle. many times it has been raised 
how indymedia is formed of white,male and middle class individuals in 
the united states.

but one of the factors that distinguish us from "free press" is that we 
acknowledge this problem and talk about it. this was clearly witnessed 
by anyone who went to the conference in austin. the question now is 
that, since we have identified a major problem what do we do about it? 
and in terms of the media reformists, how do we present to them that 
this is what they need to do as well, if they wish to have an impact?

Accessibility is a big issue. both in terms of the technology and 
interms of us, the people who are in the us indymedia milieu right now. 
how do we take care of this issue? do we focus on building indymedia 
centers in people of color and working class communities? offer 
skillshares in those communities?

in my opinion one of the greatest strengths that indymedia has is the 
decentralized network that is established.  we can contribute to the 
media justice movement by facilitating the connection of those 
oppressed communities with each other thru indymedia. the fact that a 
victim of police brutality in oakland can tell her/his story to another 
victim in detroit, directly, unmediated is realizing the full potential 
of this tool/tactic that we have. if this is done i believe that we can 
contribute to the self-empowerment of marginalized communities via 
indymedia.

the media reform was a big liberal fest and perhaps this was what left 
such a sour taste in my mouth. thousands of people cheering "we want 
Al!", the aplauding of NPR and Jim Lehrer by Moyers etc. it made me 
sick. a great number of the attendees were definitely what could be 
called grassroots. but the vantage point was overwhelmingly towards the 
vertical, geared towards congress and the old white men that dominate 
washington dc. and it was kind of ironic to see some of those old white 
men who were at the conference remark "wow it's so good to get out of 
the beltway" (i heard this more than once). fuck! if it's so good to 
get out of the beltway why are you trying to get into the depth of it!?

as others have already mentioned, it was this verticalness that 
bothered me immensely. grassroots organizing doesn't mean mobilizing 
the grassroots to have an effect on systems that are inherently 
anti-community and anti-grassroots. this is what moveon.org does so 
effectively. mobilizing the grassroots for their own obsoleteness. and 
this is what free press was doing this past weekend.

i don't think we should leave the media reform scene just yet though, 
but we should articulate our ideas to them in a clear manner. if not 
sooner then at the next conference.


ali
sfbay imc volunteer