What's the Matter with Indymedia?

I am a supporter of the Pacifica FM station in Los Angeles, because I am grateful for their work. I was able to give up my television set because of KPFK and internet resources available. "Free at last..."

So, yeah, I agree, talented journalists who are independents deserve to get a living wage. At the same time, I realize that we have mega-quantities of talent -- actors, musicians, painters, writers, etc. -- who need a day job in order to be able to share their gift when not a wage slave.

We can never have too much talent. But we can have more than are able to command stardom attention. It is one of the mysteries of our communities that talent can get recognized. And those who can draw an audience are rewarded by their audience.

I credit the US ability to have restrained itself from starting WWIII, so far, as much to those who have entertained us as those in the armed forces. I shrink from folks who cannot be entertained. (But maybe that's because I learned some years back that I was born to be 'audience.')

Celebrity for its own sake, however, infects our society, and those we idolize. Our independent newspaper, the OCWeekly (Orange County, CA) this week had four, count 'em, reviews of the new Kurt Cobain flick. Yeah, "Starry, starry night...." Most said it was worth seeing.

Would Cobain still be around if he knew what it means to deserve your success rather than to have sold out? I don't expect much help with that from MLM. So, keep up the good work.

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I dont know about that last post by the larouche supporter. It wasn't well written, but the point is still the same. IndyMedia has alot of Minutemen, nazi's and other rightwingers infultrating it. Alot of the leftest readership is also very extreme. I wouldn't put any kind of focus on lyndon larouche like that though. He really is leading a fight right now in Los Angeles, DC, and many other cities to change things for the better. Your opinion of him seems to be based soley on slanders. You obviously haven't read ANYTHING fully he ever wrote and didn't do any honest research into him at all. So he was a very poorly picked example for your argument.

Another good point: This site IS sponsered by Moveon.com like that other commenter suggested. Moveon IS founded and financed by a REAL fascist who economically killed thailand and many other countries and funds the extreme right wing of the republican party.

So if you really are a political writer you should do some research, and not just poor gas on to the fires of the Jacobin mobs.

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Hurray for Yippies!

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Interesting article :-)

The UK site does hide fascist posts to the site and also hide chem trail type posts and personally I wish all sites did...

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Your complaint that an IMC site put St. Louis in the Mississippi Delta region is wrong. You should really have correct facts before calling others out for bad facts.

From http://www.cr.nps.gov/delta/maps/map_area.htm
national parks website. Quote "The Lower Mississippi Delta Region is a large and diverse area encompassing all or parts of seven states bound together by their ties to the river. Broadly defined, the Delta region spans the entire lower portion of the river beginning in southern Illinois, covering portions of Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and including all of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana."

Seems that St. Louis is in the Mississippi delta region. I don't know where you got your fact that the delta is only at the end of the river, as Memphis is famous for being in the heart of the Mississippi delta. Having incorrect "facts" when criticizing others lack of fact checking leaves you with little credibility.

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"Portland has a similar policy in writing, but it sometimes seems more a formality than a reflection of practices."

This is false. At the time the author is referring to, there was no such policy in Portland regarding sexist, fascist etc posts.


"In the 1980s the city was a mecca for fascists and neonazis who beat an Ethiopian immigrant to death in 1988, and were subsequently driven out of town or underground. When I lived there in 2001, they briefly reemerged, and began using the Indymedia site to post recruitment messages for Volksfront--a white-supremacist, neonazi organization--as well as announcements of an upcoming meeting and concert featuring White Aryan Resistance leader Tom Metzger. Several antifascist organizers contacted the editorial group in an effort to have the posts hidden. Our requests were denied; we were told that we were undermining free speech by requesting censorship, and were invited to post messages in response to the fascists' recruitment efforts. To us, this was inadequate. Let the ACLU protect neonazis' free speech rights--they were using a community resource to spread their hate-based propaganda, and we wanted it stopped immediately."

This caused a number of us who were contributing to the indymedia effort in Portland to consider these issues. It was difficult keeping an open mind when these antifascist organizers were yelling at us, calling us nazi sympathizers and other such. I found them rude and offensive and seemingly unable to understand that we were not going to change a basic principle of the site right then and there at their demand. Internal discussion ensued for the next couple months. Then at one meeting a woman from the UK came to our meeting. She discussed in depth her rationale for editing and that free speech should not take precedent. I was very moved by her passionate and thoughtful arguments as were a few other people. Shortly afterwards, Portland IMC changed its policy.

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"Though that level of fascist material has not been seen on the site recently, it is unclear if this is due to the nazis going back underground or due to a policy shift at Portland Indymedia."

The reason it is unclear is because the author made no effort to find out. The policy is very clear. No posts by fascist groups, or general sexist, homophobic etc posts will be allowed to stay on the site. It is shoddy journalism to give readers the impression that the Portland policy is vague, or not applied.


"According to their creative cartography, St. Louis is in the "Mississippi Delta," despite the fact that the actual delta is confined to the southernmost tip of Louisiana, and the nearest Indymedia site is based over 80 miles away in New Orleans."

Another commenter explained the authors bioregional error. It is at this point that it becomes clear that the author still carries a grudge against Portland IMC. This article is supposed to be about constructive criticism, not personal vendetta and demeaning sarcastic comments.

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Jennifer, the delta of the Mississippi River is different from the Mississippi Delta, well known as a birthplace of blues, jazz, and rock and roll.

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Let me get this right, we, the unschooled masses, are the supplicants. Hat in hand, and exhibiting just the precise amount of humility, sitting up straight at our desks and never daydreaming through the skills sharing class of a self-anointed media experts then, if we are really good boys or girls, we may obtain a day pass, with which to open the IMC publishing gate.

The above sentence may have been a run on. I'm really not certain. Does it matter? What is important, in my estimation, is content over form.

Please realize anyone who can speak can write. When we get back up and running, the NJ IMC collective welcomes your submissions.

It is not necessary for you to have traveled outside the country, as a jet set activist. If so that is fine, but if not, just by the mere virtue that you are out and in your community, as am I, working to raise social consciousness, the fact that you want to improve things, that is your pass, that is your key. You are welcome. You are valued. You can be a part. We want you.

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As an active member of an undisclosed IMC chapter in the NorthEast I must give props to the author for articulating so well many of the frustrations that have driven me to question abandoning IMC all together on several ocasions during the roughly 2 years I've been in involved. While I can't say I'm completely agree with everyone word of this article for the most part I feel she gets it right.

One additional point that I think is worth mentioning is that although the "unique" circumstances surrounding Indymedia have certainly brought on many of the the problems outlined in the article, my experience has been that Indymedia is also plagued with very typical problems, the very same growth-inhibiting problems that have diseased progressive and radical communities of all kinds for years. The reasons for this are obvious given that many IMC volunteers found their way via other forms of activism which many still are involved in. The problem is that regardless of how powerful it has been and could be it isn't an activist organization, it's a journalistic vehicle or at least it's supposed to be. Also certain US chapters have the same wretched stench given off by the lame-duck-white-Left-intelligencia orgs which is a great repellent for people of color, working people, non-academics and just plain people who know what's up. (I cringe when interested person wants to know how to get involved an IMCer responds by saying "come to the general meeting" almost as much as i do at the general meeting."

I too yearn to be a social-change contributor which is why when I deal w/ "movement" individuals I'm quick tell how Indymedia aint the only hat I wear out of the fear of recieving the "so your playing a menial and almost irrelevant role in the struggle"-look. Even non-activist contributors and contributors that were activists but converted to focusing solely on journalism rarely see benefit in doing exhaustive, investigative, high-quality work just for Indymedia that's why so many sites feature writers and articles that also appear on Narco-News, Z-net, and other local non-corporate venues.

(Oh and just a sidenote, and please don't think i'm biased because of my user-name, but I strongly feel that IMC-Ireland should have been one of the "exemplary" collectives that were listed)

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In your comment on the Brazilian site - the use of Esperanto is mentioned as incredible.
Maybe you have heard about the fact that most people in the world don't speak English. It would be quite appropiate to promote a very easy to learn, politically and culturally neutral language as somewhat congruent to Indymedia's goals.
The use of Esperanto on the internet is now neither incredible nor neglegible - just try to google for Esperanto.


Cvi

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-- A response to Jennifer Whitney's article on indymedia, which can be found here

The spirit of critique and wanting to help move indymedia forward is something I really appreciate. However, Jennifer Whitney's article, "The Good, The Bad, & (sic) The Ugly: "What's the Matter with Indymedia?" is one part critique, and two parts personal axe grinding, three parts "Ra! Ra! UC, NYC, 501-c(3) IMC" . Beyond the fact that the article is so deliberately misleading in many ways, it should be critiqued on the facts and arguments that it proposes about editorial policy and the mission of indymedia. To its credit, this article raises some of the right types of questions about indymedia's effectiveness and methods, but to its detriment, gives all the wrong answers. Rather, it gives short sighted answers or all the same 'ol answers.


The full text of the article could not be included here. So please read the full article by Clicking on this link

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I´ve read the interesting article by Jennifer Whitney. I agree with her in many of her opinions, but, with respect to Esperanto, I think that she has a mistaken idea. I don´t blame her. Esperanto is still a new language, that most people don´t know. If she takes the trouble to investigate it, I´m sure that she is going to be a supporter of this "incredible" language.

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Why is no one concerned about the FBI's censorship of indymedia? See

http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Indymedia/

"On Thursday, October 7, 2004, more than 20 Independent Media Center (IMC) websites and other Internet services were taken offline pursuant to a Commissioner's Subpoena. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is representing the interests of Indymedia, a global collective of independent media organizations and thousands of journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage of news events. In addition, EFF is working in cooperation with lawyers who represent particular Independent Media Centers all around the world."


EFF Statements on the Indymedia Seizure

"Secret orders silencing media should be beyond the realm of possibility in a country that believes in freedom of speech," said EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "EFF was founded with the Steve Jackson Games case 14 years ago, and at that time we established that seizing entire servers because of a claim about some pieces of information on them is blatantly illegal and improper. It appears the government forgot this basic rule, and we will need to remind them."

"If Rackspace stands behind its claim of providing 'Fanatical Support' to its customers, it will go to bat for Indymedia—one of its biggest customers," said Kurt Opsahl, EFF Staff Attorney. "Rackspace should also fight for its own rights and join us in challenging the gag order preventing it from sharing its side of the story."
....

"The feds can't pull the plug on more than 20 news websites—our modern printing presses—based on a secret proceeding at the request of a foreign government. This is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment," said Kevin Bankston, EFF attorney and Equal Justice Works/Bruce J. Ennis Fellow. "As far as the Constitution is concerned, Indymedia has the same rights as any other news publisher. The government can't shut down the New York Times, and it can't shut down Indymedia."

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From the perspective of a journalist and activist, Jennifer Whitney critically evaluates indymedia, focussing on the concept of open publishing, and the contents it encourages. (...)

Effectively, Whitney argues for a re-establishment of the separation between journalist and audience, a boundary that indymedia set out to dissolve (...)

In my experience, the faults listed by Whitney are realities, even though a glance at the middle columns of many imc websites might lead to a more optimistic evaluation of the visibility of carefully written articles. However, I feel that in her overall critique, (...) Whitney has overlooked one crucial function of indymedia: the empowerment of people to gain the confidence not only to begin to publish self-made photos, texts, audio- and video files, but also to experiment with new media technologies collaboratively, actively and politically.

Using the internet with all its accessories in a different way from what is being suggested to us should not be taken for granted. Writing private diaries, shopping and selling, consuming news, things and services is being encouraged. But to use all those tools, from database-driven newswires to wikis, from mailing lists to chatrooms and Voip, and a multitude of other applications like SMS-to-newswire, tools for archiving, dispatch and translation, is something that continuously needs to be practiced, learned and developed.

Indymedia is one of the spaces where the internet is being appropriated for the purposes of social movements. This includes the often annoying process to invent and practice ways of horizontal online decision-making within a global network. Whitney mentions the tediousness of this process, but from her perspective as a journalist who takes pride in well-written articles finds it difficult to acknowledge its zapatista-inspired purpose: "to buid a network of communication among all our struggles and resistances".

Indymedia websites as a result of a process of appropriating the internet for the purpose of social movments may be hard to navigate. They certainly require much patience, local knowledge and goodwill, no matter wether one wants to read the sites, maintain them or publish on them.

Full article: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/07/320046.html

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The author apparently limited her Indy interviews to high-profile figures from the nyc imc, not your typical imc by any means and while running an excellent site, still burdened with problems of exclusion, elitism, egotism and badwill among its "stars". These, as many of us know, are the same problems that plague most left-leaning or new paradigm, non-linear organizations. AlterNet itself is no exception. The article would be more informative if the author had gottten into the trenches with participants who have reported frequently from the streets and from isolated communities (where indy may be one of the few networking resourses available), even if that meant leaving her desk, going on the road and finding the faces behind some pen names.

Yes, indy is plagued by spam, poor communication skills and far-right/wing-nut posts, but so were the town commons and city parks where speakers once stood upon the proverbial soapbox expounding ideas often challenging the status quo and sometimes leading to revolutionary change. Amongst the trash and rants there are usually some jewels. Would you rather provide your own filter or rely on someone else? You decide. Thinking for yourself in this strange, sorry-ass world we live in is as important as hooking-up with others who value open dialogue and real democracy.

There are so many things to challenge in this article one could go on for hours. Thankfully AlterNet has provided the very tool that indymedia pioneered long ago: open reader response. Other readers will cover other flaws. For now, let this longtime indy reader and activist simply say that humans are a highly flawed species and their creations usually reflect that problem. Be that as it may, indymedia has given voice to the once voiceless. If we can sort through the garbage and overcome the filters of exclusion, elitism and egotism, we'll find the news we need to carry-on the struggle. However, if we rely on others to define the issues we surrender our freedom and integrity.

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