[Imc] Batten Award

[nancy dietrich]

John,
Good idea with giving them a call, and it's great that you took the time
to do it!

> Thanks for the most generous offer, Mike.  But before anyone gets 
> their
> shorts in too much of a twist over this, know that I phoned the good 
> folks
> at the Pew Center for Civic Journalism in Washington DC today, just 
> for the
> hell of it.  I spoke to a woman named Dana Felty about the James K. 
> Batten
> Awards for Excellence in Civic Journalism (which, by the way, are in 
> their
> final year).
> 
> I explained to Ms. Felty who we are - that we of the 
> Urbana-Champaign IMC
> are the very ESSENCE of civic journalism, that we exist by virtue of
> voluntary contributions and volunteer labor, that our mission is to 
> empower
> ordinary citizens to present perspectives that may be different from 
> those
> of the corporately-owned media, etc., etc. She was familiar, she 
> said, with
> the concept of indymedia.
> 
> I mainly just wanted to find out whether we could submit a body of 
> work that
> would incorporate everything we do: the web site, the radio news 
> hour, and
> the newspaper.  But here's the exquisite irony:
> 
> Ms. Felty told me that we don't qualify for the award at all!  Mr. 
> Batten
> created the award to "reward news organizations that are pressured 
> by daily
> deadlines" - I wrote it down - to go beyond those pressures and do 
> something
> extraordinary in terms of civic journalism.  In other words, the 
> purpose of
> the award, she said, was to "light a fire" under the corporate media 
> to do
> outstanding civic journalism.
> 
> So since we're not corporate media and we're not under the "pressure 
> of
> daily deadlines", it appears that we don't qualify for the civic 
> journalism
> award as defined. Apparently the corporations need the monetary 
> incentives
> more than we do. 
> 
> In fairness, Mr. Batten probably didn't envision the indymedia 
> phenomenon
> when he created the award, though I would think the board of 
> directors could
> take it into consideration.  Ms. Felty - who was a nice person, I 
> should add
> - did say that we in the indymedia movement "perform a valuable 
> function in
> challenging the corporate media to do a better job."  I thanked her
> profusely for the vote of confidence, as you might imagine, which 
> was easily
> worth $25,000.  She also mentioned that there are "other sources of 
> funding"
> out there in GrantLand, though she didn't suggest any specific ones 
> for
> which we might qualify.
> 
> I'm not making any of this up.  But if anyone wants to double-check 
> the
> information I'm presenting here, feel free to phone the Pew Center 
> at (202)
> 331-3200 and ask for Dana Felty.  You won't find this stuff I'm 
> telling you
> spelled out on the Pew Center's web site, and had I not called we 
> might have
> done a whole ton of work for absolutely nothing.
> 
> Disgustedly,
> 
> John
> 
> P.S.  As an aside, I've been unable to locate photos of the Ladies 
> and
> Laddies Against War ANYWHERE to date.  It seems that the Powers on 
> High
> don't want those folks' pitchers took for some reason.  :)  If 
> anyone wants
> to take their photos, or knows where some might be located, it would 
> be most
> helpful.
> 
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Nancy :-)

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