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Parent Article: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly: "What's the Matter with Indymedia?" |
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Hidden with code "Duplicate post" |
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Re: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly: "What's the Matter with Indymedia?" |
by Brian Awehali (via Sascha Meinrath)
brian (nospam) lipmagazine.org (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
02 Aug 2005
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I'm the editor of LiP, and I asked Jen Whitney to write this piece for LIP's "Constructively Negative" Sacred Cows issue. I can tell you that she had serious concerns (which I shared) about how to do this piece in a way that would be constructive and that wouldn't undermine the ultimate goals of Indymedia.
I'd like to respond to salaud's response article as well as a few of the posts appended to this article here on the UCIMC site:
ON ALTERNET:
I was unhappy to see this piece appear on Alternet, and I'm actually happy to see people (here and elsewhere) being critical of that. (Also: Alternet gave the piece an unbalanced, excessively negative title that was not fair to the actual focus of the piece).
An editor at Alternet contacted me, asking to reprint the piece, about two weeks ago. I declined to give them my permission, and said I was concerned about how a piece with this focus would be perceived were it to appear on Alternet. I cc'd Jennifer Whitney on this email and she, as was her right as the author, decided to allow Alternet to reprint the piece.
As I think any savvy member of the alt-media community should know, Alternet is a deeply flawed enterprise, warped by the ego, liberalism and unfortunate preponderance of its executive director, Don Hazen. Let me be clear: Alternet is liberalism, in sometimes unintentionally humorous "radical" wrapping paper. They're consistent apologists for the Democratic Party, which LiP has no use for whatsoever.
>From a radical political standpoint, Alternet has no real credibility. But we've chosen, as a strategic matter, to occasionally syndicate and reprint material with them, because it's our belief that, in spite of their aforementioned flaws, they are still providing a visible and influential platform to some of the ideas and goals that LiP seeks to advance. If they help promote the work of our writers, and if they serve to bring what I consider to be LIP's vastly more coherent radical critique to a wider audience, then I'm willing to work with them.
Moving on to salaud's actual article... I first want to say that I'm very pleased by the number of people who've chosen to participate in what I consider to be a very important strategic debate. This is truly a testament to the value of Indymedia and independent community journalism in general.
As you might expect, I think Whitney did a very good and thorough job with a difficult, politically-volatile topic. There's no way she could have written an honest critical piece and not have sparked a lot of criticism and debate.
ON THE REFORM OF CORPORATE MEDIA
- the frame of salaud's response piece is, in its title and argument, manipulative and just plain wrong. Nowhere in the piece does Jen argue that ANYONE should take ANYTHING in the "direction" of corporate media. This is a sloppy charge that sets up a false (and to my mind, stupid) binary that gets no one anywhere. This is simply a dumb and inexact point. And salaud made it part of the title of hir response.
"COMMERCIAL," and "INDEPENDENT vs NON-INDEPENDENT"
--or--THE OH-SO-DARK SIDE OF MIXING MEDIA AND MONEY
- Media isn't independent or "non-independent" (or, almost as vaguely, "commercial") because people have to pay for it. That actually has no bearing on political or intellectual "integrity" whatsoever. Having to charge for something doesn't mean its de facto "profit driven." It means it costs money to produce media. What makes it independent are the values that guide and inform it, as well as its internal structure. Making any assumptions about LiP, for example, without bothering to consider anything beyond whether we sell it or not, is just a laughable mental shortcut. (Note: Whitney was not paid anything for this piece, and our core editorial group works on an all-volunteer basis, often contributing our own scarce funds).
- Bowing to a definition of journalistic integrity or political credibility that REQUIRES taking no money for your work leaves out those who can't afford to spend countless hours of their lives writing for free rather than working to do pesky things like feed, clothe and house themselves and their possible families. It's dumb. It smacks of people too afraid, ignorant, convenient, or insecure in their own political analysis or conviction to engage the complex issues of our times with a semblance of intellectual honesty.
It's unfortunate that this debate about money and media essentially comes down to "be realistic and relevant" vs. "be right." I mean, OF COURSE money is a usually corrosive influence on media! And OF COURSE those of us who want a world not mediated in every way by capitalism and its attendant miserabilism would like a world where communication -- including media -- is not contingent on capital.
But we don't live in that world, and I'd argue that if we actually want to be more than a self-satisfied subculture -- that is, if we actually want to focus on eventually "winning," not just "belonging," or being ineffectually "right," there's simply no way around the fact that we'll have to engage capitalism. The real key is knowing our values and keeping them foremost in our minds as we live in what is, for now, largely the enemy's world.
RESPECTING AN AUDIENCE/RESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM:
- salaud wrote: "To have respect for our audience means to appreciate their intelligence and ability to sort out fact from fiction, truth from lies, passion from rhetoric. They do no need to be spoonfed (sic), told how to spell, or otherwise led like a horse to water as to what is the truth"
Expecting your audience to NOT rely on you to responsibly attempt to sort out fact from fiction is a complete abdication of your responsibilities as a journalist.
If I were someone intent on rendering Indymedia irrelevant and ineffective, I'd try really hard to inculcate in community participants the belief that fiction, speculation, facts and actual reportage are effectively the same thing, and that readers will just magically sort those out for themselves. This kind of tortured logic should be laughed at, not applauded.
ARGUING AGAINST "PROPER" SPELLING:
- As for spelling... well, regardless of where you fall in the language usage camp, it's hard to get around one of the best points Whitney makes in her piece, about communication and its definition. Our audience has to be kept in mind at all times. And attention *should* be paid to their likelihood of being able to understand what a journalist writes. Spellchecking and things of such nefarious ilk are merely tools for communication. Arguing that journalists (of any type, at any level of experience or ability) should disregard correct spelling, or that those who advocate the use of a spellchecker are somehow "elite" is just puritanical activist navelgazing drivel. No one's saying people have to KNOW how to spell "correctly" -- but what about hitting, oh, two buttons on even freeware word processing software, and spending, maybe, 5 minutes to correct misspellings? I think any argument against this can safely be set down, with a gentle pat on the head, in the "laziness" category.
REFORM OF CORPORATE MEDIA /
- salaud wrote, of Jen's (humorous) statement about the attractiveness of "counterrevolutionary" "restrictive site managers, editors, or word-count limits": "Those things are still counter-revolutionary. Of course, the author of the article finds them appealing. The article itself is counter revolutionary. The article is not really pro imperialist or anything like that, but simply comes from a reformist or status quo point of view. The point of view of the article and arguments leading from it can be best be summed up by saying, "indymedia should be a reform of the way corporate media does things, writing in the same style with the similar editorial criteria." This is not to say that some editorial policing of an indymedia site are not necessary for pragmatic reasons."
No, Jen was unequivocally NOT arguing that "Indymedia should be a reform of the way corporate media does things, writing in the same style with the (sic) similar editorial criteria." Not only was she not saying that, but salaud's phrasing here is so mushy it means almost nothing... "the way corporate media does things" is hopelessly broad; ditto "same style" and "similar editorial criteria."
Just because editing, spellchecking, and a set style are tools used by corporate media doesn't de facto mean those things should be avoided by indie media. And although a few of the following examples are not precisely analagous, they *are* examples of the same reductivist, simple thinking:
- You might as well say that since Intel and Mac are big corporations that make computers, and since the Internet is owned, pretty much entirely, by other shitty corporations, Indymedia shouldn't even exist, since community members are using the same tools.
- Or that they shouldn't take a plane or any transportation using internal combustion to a protest.
- Or that the New York Times prints on paper, so indie pubs shouldn't.
- Or that the English language is an imperial imposition and therefore any US indie media project with integrity should communicate only in Esperanto, or the language of their indigenous ancestors.
And, um, salaud, are you noting the internal contradiction of your charges against Jen's piece, as you articulate them in this paragraph, and your statement that ***some editorial policing of indymedia sites is necessary for pragmatic reasons?***
COPYRIGHT/COPYLEFT/CREATIVE COMMONS
- For the record, the copyright statement at the end of the UCIMC version of the piece was appended, I presume, by the UCIMC. Neither Jen W. or LiP had anything to do with that.
However, LiP *does* place copyright notices on the articles that appear on our site and in the magazine. But it's important to note that this is a matter of strategy, not capitulation to capitalist conceptions of intellectual property. We do it so people who want to reprint material from LiP are compelled to email us and ask! We want to know about it! I don't think we've ever turned down a fellow non-profit or grassroots media project when they've asked to use something from LiP. But automated corporate "content aggregators," as well as some who would seek to undermine or co-opt our efforts, are somewhat slowed by copyright notices. (For example, had Jen and I both declined to give Alternet permission to reproduce this article on their site, a simple copyright notice would surely have deterred them from just taking it anyway, against our wishes.)
LAST, and LEAST: JOSHUA BRIETBART, "ET TU BRUTUS" and THE INHERENT HUMOR OF SOME THINGS:
- "Et tu [blank]" is ALWAYS a maudlin, overwrought gagfest. What, did salaud suffer some fatal metaphorical stabbing at the hands of the murderous Joshua Brietbart? Is salaud actually taking on the figurative mantle of Julius Caesar (by way of Shakespeare)--which is deeply and humorously ironic no matter HOW you look at it--while calling Brietbart a traitor for saying, literally, that independent media needs to grow and diversify?
Um... OK.... At least I got quite a few really humorous visions in my head while parsing that image, mostly involving Joshua Brietbart (aka Brutus) and three other uncomfortable looking activists in Roman togas and sandals, stabbing salaud (aka Caesar, the emperor) who, in this absurd vision, looks to me more like Marvin the Martian. As he expires, a tyrant meeting his end at the treacherous hands of his closest advisors , Marvin staggers around in his reddening toga and Chuck Taylors, warbling things like "Being assassinated makes me very angry! Very angry, indeed!" before collapsing and uttering his famous (alleged) last line, "Et tu, Brutus?" ("you too, Brutus?").
--
Brian Awehali
Founder & Editor
LiP: Informed Revolt
POB 3478
Oakland, CA 94609
http://www.lipmagazine.org |
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