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News :: Miscellaneous |
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IMC Regional Gathering Notes--AM |
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by Brian
Email: bhagy (nospam) urbana.indymedia.org (unverified!) |
03 Nov 2001
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Sorry these are so late. Been rather busy. These are from the IMC Gathering on October 19-21 |
UC-IMC Gathering Saturday Oct 20, 2001
10:00 AM Group Discussion on Developing Local IMCs (20 people present)
This session included a Problem Jostling exercise to identifying items for discussion or problems within local IMCs. Each attendee given three post-it notes and asked to write on each: a problem or need in their IMC or a false statement about their IMC to generate discussion of solutions. During the 20 min. alloted for the exercise, the post-it notes were placed on a wall accessible to everyone. The attendees organized the notes into logical groups of issue. The facilitator, with the help of participants, gave each group or issue a title which was recorded on a large dry-erase board. The issues listed:
1) Community Center (0)
2) Web site (4)
3) Vim / Energy (2)
4) Publishing policy (3)
5) Distribution (2)
6) Process / Internal operation (6)
7) Mission of news gathering (6)
8) Financial sustainability (3)
9) Outreach (5)
10) Publicity (0)
11) Other (2)
12) Diversity (6)
13) Insularity / Cliques (0)
14) Affiliation / Unionization (4)
Each attendee was then asked to vote by raising his or her hand for two of the issues. The numbers in parenthesis following each issue refers to the votes each issue received in order to prioritize and select discussion items. There was a proposal to cover Process / internal operation, Mission of news gathering, Diversity and Outreach. The proposal passed by consensus.
Process / Internal operation discussion
Post-it notes generating the following discussion were:
· Ending confusion about exactly how decisions are made.
· Problem personalities
· Poor coordination of working groups.
· Taking individual & collective responsibility for actions/evaluations
· Not enough internal communication
· Decision-making and delegation of responsibilities
Everyone has trouble converging skills to other media.
St. Louis IMC - Production plan allows people to select their interest. Also prevents writing meetings from turning into production meetings.
http://todo.indymedia.org is a To-Do List used by IMC Techs
UC-IMC - Working groups are empowered to work autonomously and report back to steering committee (SC). The 'Spokes' model is used.
Publishing a printed piece requires a production timeline, whereas web isn't on a schedule.
Posting decisions made in working group meetings to web ring - allow a week for anyone to block decisions made. Allows people to not have to be at meetings.
Publicizing meetings - email, newswire, calendar, web page.
Lack of communication between working groups.
Expelling a toxic member & policies coming out of that. List characteristics of what is damaging to the collective. The book "Antagonists in the Church" is on dealing with toxic members of an organization.
Mission of news gathering
Post-it notes generating the following discussion were:
· How impartial can we be in our reporting?
· How impartial do we want to be in our reporting?
· IMCs only function is not to counter the dominant media; IMCs need to make proposals for change.
· "Proper" use and advocacy
· Covering rural issues from urban-based IMCs
· Activism is reported fairly (false statement)
· Lack of reporting and news
· IMCs embrace all forms of communication (false statement)
Rural reporting. Illinois is experiencing dairy expansion of the evil kind, awareness of hemp as agricultural industry. IMC is a conduit for sustainability. Develop relationships that can last over time.
The mission is to serve those who are under-represented yet IMC has arisen in communities where the are abundant resources. Make a commitment to cover those under-represented.
St. Louis - Co- or Cross-publishing with existing alternative media. Statewide outlets has helped broaden our scope.
Communes, farm unions, intentional uses.
Internships at agricultural or other organizations.
Institutions that aren't necessarily media outlets can be used to report stories.
Cover rural issues by being on press release lists.
We are not impartial - the important thing is to get a lot of the under-represented voices heard.
Bias of activist reporting
We have been trained in our society that there is a 'correct' way to report news.
Fair and accurate vs. impartiality -- "Impartiality is bullshit."
Media coverage/analysis provided by IMC
Objectivity is a myth created by corporate warlords.
Personal relationships/fallouts cannot be allowed to interfere with reporting.
Bylines: Author's name vs. IMC. No bylines in Madison IMC.
Objectivity may be a myth but it is a great rhetorical style.
Being involved in an event/action and reporting on it from that perspective, vs. simply reporting.
Present to and get support from local collective for 'feature', when it is not a collaborative story, individuals should be listed in the byline or state "an IMC reporter."
Diversity
Post-it notes generating the following discussion were:
· How do we attract a diverse IMC without 'recruiting?'
· IMC membership is diverse (false statement)
· Gender dynamics
· Getting more women involved
· How do we get more people involved who are not younger, single folks with a lot of spare time?
· People of color not only feel welcome at IMCs, but are part of the organization (false statement)
· How do we (local IMCs) engage and involved oppressed communities
Time and money / middle class IMCistas
More women - how?
Not enuf womyn techs.
Workshops/training/skillshares led by women, smaller groups
Women do work, produce news, etc. There are fewer women doing formal decision making. This is a problem.
Facilitators have a responsibility to encourage participation.
Embracing other peoples' communication styles.
Youth are used to getting information from parents and teachers without forming own ideas.
Developing strong working relationships.
Accepting leadership from minority organizations. The Organization of Black Struggle (OBS) recommends noticing the race and gender of speakers. "If you're a white male, discourage or defer yourself from speaking."
Covering diverse issues is often covering corporations run by white men. Need to balance with positive which is not covered.
If you have something to say, say it!
THe following notes come from the brainstorming session. We only had a half-hour left for the morning session. So, instead of having a discussion about the topics, we limited ourselves to presenting possible solutions to the topics. All solutions (plausible, improbable, idealistic, fantastic) were to be considered legitimate. The object of this part of the session wasn't to come up with the perfect solution, but to create a list, a repertory, so that people could choose (or be motivated to come up with more). The brainstorming session was given this stipulation: when you speak, make a proposal which would be no more than two sentences (to help with the time factor). For the most part, the stipulation worked and allowed people to be brief and precise!
Outreach
Post-it notes generating the following discussion were:
· How do we attract a diverse IMC without 'recruiting?'
· IMC membership is diverse (false statement)
· Gender dynamics
· Getting more women involved
· How do we get more people involved who are not younger, single folks with a lot of spare time?
· People of color not only feel welcome at IMCs, but are part of the organization (false statement)
· How do we (local IMCs) engage and involved oppressed communities
Recognize that you need to dedicate time to outreach instead of reporting
More than English
Produce a calendar (promotional item) or print community calendar
Uncover investigation
Cover what mainstream misses (i.e. labor)
Cross-media blitz (TV, radio, print)
Go to groups and present our stuff. Ask for feedback.
Personal responsibility for distribution network.
Consign publication at established retail outlets
Define open publishing
Commit equal resources to publicity as to production
Assign a reporter as a corporate media watchdog.
Have a short rap on where corporate media derives 'reliability'
Allies and community resources
Don't prejudge peoples' interest
Develop evaluation criteria, and use!
Diversity of cultural events, contacts. Keep a rolodex of community leaders.
Map of community to evaluate coverage/distribution/communication
If you don't have an Outreach group - keep doing Outreach in other working groups
Go to groups, bill yourself as a resource
Networks map - brainstorm People Networks (6 degrees of separations)
Build skills through practice events, providing recording services for community theater, etc.
Distribute and print newspaper for free - distribute in poor neighborhoods, Laundromats, transit stations, etc.
Web
Post-it notes generating the following discussion were:
· We have too many tech people (false statement)
· Develop an organizing structure of process
· How to deal with crazies who clog our newswire
· Lack of attention to website
· Indymedia.org website is the best it can be (false statement)
Radio/video groups post summaries to web
Share artwork &/or features among regional IMCs
Make print available online as PDF
Links to source material
Seperate pages with their own newswire
Discourage use of newswire for syndicated columns available elsewhere.
Help Global Tech Decentralize!! Looks for resourc$es to send their way.
Keep rants off newswire - put them somewhere else.
Sort stories by # of comments to maintain message threads.
Teach people to post pictures
Make features choice transparent
More frequent updates
Appreciate your tech (or have you hugged your tech today?)
Make it easier to upload streaming audio.
Auto-reply email to those who post & leave an email addy to encourage more participation & discourage spam.
Update your Contact Us and About Us pages.
Email newsletter
Keep it local
'Sell' IMC web site project to geeks
Bring food to meetings
Features.cgi - automated center column posting
Produce transcripts from audio/video
Writers create from audio/video
Summaries are very important
In your html code, use the 'alt' tag describing images for the visually impaired.
Here’s the topics and the post-it notes that we didn’t have the time to get to:
Outreach-publicity:
Everyone knows about the IMC
The community knows, respects, uses the IMC
Developing local IMC as a whole community resource (promotion)
Increasing community involvement & participation----ŕ diversity of perspectives, racial balance, etc.
Insularity:
Insular (sometimes)
Too much “insiders” or cliques
Affiliations/Unions:
IMC is united with the “Green Party”
IMC is unionized
Funding/Financial Sustainability:
1) Funding
2) Distribution (Access) to general public
3) More diverse participation from community (minorities, workers, etc.)
IMC sustains itself form income attained through a large % of retail sales of “green” products
Sustainable $
We don’t have an office L
No $
Getting money without selling out (maintaining indy-ness)
Publishing policy:
Developing an editorial process for features.
Defining a publishing policy
Distribution:
How do we distribute our newspaper? “Smashing the Silicon Tower”
VIM-energy:
Not enough involvement
Creating and maintaining enthusiasm
Sustaining energy
Community Center:
How do we get people to feel comfortable “dropping in” and “hanging out” at the IMC?
Equipment resources are shared with the community
There is plenty of free food at the IMC
Outreach:
Outreach
Outreach to a truly diverse community
How can we develop credibility in our own communities as reliable sources of information?
(techniques of organization?)
Outreach
-getting the larger community interested in IMC
-individuals: getting people interested (and keeping their interests) in working
on IMC
-group: getting the support of other groups
Other:
Urbana Sprawl
Itching
Pancreatic cancer
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