[Imc] IMC criteria

[Mike Lehman]

My thoughts:

We have a number of things going on in the responses to what should be
IMC criteria. We need to sort out what it is exactly we are referring
to. Some parts could be mission statements; some parts are more of the
nature of reporting objectives; still others seem greatly concerned with
the political nature of the news reporting process itself.

A good general mission statement is certainly an appropriate place to
put a descriptive explanation of what we hope to achieve. The difficult
question is when you try to apply such notions at a lower level.

Do we wish to critique individual news stories prior to publication? I
can't imagine anything more stifling to the free exchange of information
and the involvement of diverse folks with the IMC than to know that your
story must pass muster before some review board. I don't think that is
what anyone is really calling for, but simply speaking of criteria in
relation to individual stories puts you at the top of just exactly that
sort of slippery slope.

We need to realize that a large part of what we do is open and
accessible to the public e.g. the "Latest News" on the webpage. That
openness must be maintained in order to fulfill what I believe would be
contained in such a general mission statement.

On the other hand, we will need to deliver a consistent quality product
do such things as contract to replace Pacifica on WEFT, if that should
come to pass. That is where an editorial board would become necessary.
Such group would have to be given the autonomy to make day-to-day
decisions, without a lot of second-guessing, in order to effectively
function.

This is not something that can be done with group-wide, consensus-based
decisionmaking, unless we all want to meet everyday at 4pm to decide in
the next half hour what goes on at 5pm. It is something that should be
done by those doing the work, within a set of general guidelines
contained in a general mission statement.

If there is something that someone dislikes about how things are
handled, then it needs to be written up and posted to the webpage. The
other alternative is to get onto the editorial board yourself and take
part in doing the work yourself. I think this approach is also a good
way to deal with what goes up as news and editorial in the center
section of the webpage. We already basically do this with the hourly
programs we've been doing on WEFT. Those doing the work make the final
decisions, then it is up to those who may disagree with what is
presented to do their own work in putting together a response.

The most we should do is offer the right of response. This is a far
easier thing to handle and deal with than setting up some sort of review
board for our programming.

A solution for nudging people in the direction of doing good work is the
rating system for stories that was mentioned by Zach at today's meeting.
This will allow stuff to rise or fall on it's own merits, without
getting into some sort of censorship function as an organization.

Another factor is that anyone can post comments in reply to a story.
This will allow facts to be straightened out and critiques made to
individual stories. Once again, the initiative is on the part of those
who may disagree or find fault to do something creative with their
position, rather than to prevent others from expressing themselves in
their own way.

The open nature of the IMC should encourage us all to see that the best
thing to do with something that is disagreed with is do it your way and
post it on the webpage.

Finally, I believe, because of the open-to-everyone nature of the IMC
web system, that we need to put in place some kind of disclaimer about
the open side of the system. Libelous or otherwise legally actionable
material could be posted there by anyone. 

We should make it clear that such postings are the sole responsibility
of the author, to avoid folks trying to go after the IMC itself if
someone should decide to sue over anything posted there. This should
also be a reminder to those posting that avoiding such material is their
personal responsibility, which encourages the posting of better quality
work in general.

I would suggest at this point that we take up the writing of an
acceptable and succinct general mission statement. Every story can't
perfectly meet those criteria, but should be encouraged to be as good as
possible by the knowledge that this is what we strive for, without the
contributor feeling that they have to satisfy some vaguely defined
checklist of acceptability.

My thoughts about where to go from there are summed up above.

Mike Lehman