| Submit your comments on this article |
| Fifth Column |
| ULULATION TIME! |
| 2003-12-04 |
| Hope it triggers a chain reaction. Hat tip LGF AFTER MONTHS OF rumored trouble, it’s official: Seattle’s Independent Media Center (IMC) is closing. The downtown If it failed in beauzeau central
The idea of independent media producers pooling their content in one place while covering a major protest was not new, of course. There was the temporary media site established to report on protests at the Chicago Democratic Party convention in 1996. But Seattle’s effort three years later was very much in the right place at the right time. Beyond the enormity of the World Trade Organization protests, the Internet was just coming into its own as a tool to convey breaking news inexpensively. And there was a growing audience aware that network news coverage of such protests was likely to tell markedly different stories than protesters themselves would tell. Moreover, Seattle had—and still has—a remarkably diverse and talented pool of alternative print, radio, cable TV, and Web media outlets. Live Web accounts of the mayhem in Seattle’s streets during WTO drew more than a million hits a day. At subsequent "summit" demonstrations in North America and Europe, the indymedia.org movement found its first niche, providing real-time coverage of the demonstrations and encouraging the establishment of new IMCs wherever the protests occurred—and in the hometowns of the protesters upon their return. "You can take the blue pill, the cerulean pill, or the azure pill." IN THE PAST two years, blogs came into their own, and post-9/11 American foreign policy raised interest in alternative sources for global news. Now, almost two-thirds of the IMCs, including some of the most active and well run, are outside the U.S. There’s still plenty of protest politics, but, especially in Third World countries, local IMCs have become a way for media activists to spread to the rest of the world news from points of view not reflected in Associated Press and Reuters dispatches. In October, for example, www.bolivia.indymedia.org was an invaluable multilingual source of accounts of the movement that forced Bolivia’s government into exile. Impoverished Bolivia has few Internet users; the audience was readers in other countries. Meanwhile, back in Seattle, the original IMC was crashing and burning. The storefront on Third Avenue near Union Street was chosen because it would be in the heart of the WTO protest action, and it was. But the need to continually raise money for rent for the expensive location has been a drain for four years. This month, the IMC defaulted on its lease; it will close by the end of the year. Hallelujah! MONEY HASN’T BEEN the only problem. The post-WTO decision to keep the expensive storefront was based on a dream of the IMC becoming an activist community center of sorts, where groups could hold events, use computer and video equipment, and collaborate on media projects. It rarely happened. Many of the city’s existing, left-leaning political media projects—newspapers like the Washington Free Press, Real Change, and Eat the State!, radio and cable producers, and Web projects—worked with the IMC sparingly or not at all. Efforts by the IMC to launch its own print publication fizzled. A number of media activists complained that the core group running the IMC was cliquish and inaccessible; at one point, nonwhite media activists discussed starting their own competing local IMC. In the end, core members were clashing over personalities, vision, and what to do about the debt. "Hey! I need that money for my pot and LSD!" FOR SOME readers and would-be supporters, content has also been a problem. The Seattle IMC Web site aspired to be a credible local news source, but in practice it was open publishing, meaning that anyone could send in a story and it would run untouched. The policy was, in theory, the ultimate in media democracy. But it also left readers to sort out for themselves the solid, well-researched, well-presented stories from the jargon-laden, factually incorrect anarco-leftist To 25 it did! Maybe existing or new IMC activists will try to save seattle.indymedia.org. In any event, the impact of the project has been phenomenal. Locally, the IMC trained a new generation of media makers, and there are more good alternative media projects in town than ever. More important, as the technology of media has changed, the idea that spread from Seattle has evolved to inspire writers, producers, and artists on six continents. To support Haman and call for Esther and Mordecai’s hanging. Globally, as in the U.S., control of much of the world’s major media is in a handful of conglomerates. The Internet has proven to be the most powerful medium we have for breaking that monopoly. So far, the world’s biggest grassroots effort to that end began in downtown Seattle, next door to Bruno’s Pizza. There are better news sources, such as LGF, Rantburg, InstaPundit, etc. |
| Posted by:Atrus |
| #7 When you have no answers to the questions you raise, when you don't even have any suggestions except "crouch down and stare at your navel", after awhile, people get tired of watching the dead lice fall off you, and walk away. The only way to keep people interested is give them something to chew on, and give them reason for hope. Rantburg allows all of us to spew, but unless it also contained some cogent points that educated, enlightened, or amused, we'd be gone faster than a link change. Indymedia died because it couldn't produce anything relevant to the world people live in. RIH. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-12-4 6:08:27 PM |
| #6 We got some cold bastards at Rantburg. Seattle Indy was Cave 1 of the Moonbats. It needs to be preserved (like Lenin)in all its moronic glory that our Grandchildren can look and say "Jeez granny this is soooooo '90s." |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-12-4 3:54:59 PM |
| #5 Reminds me of a far lefty post which, after spewing the same old anti-Bush, anti-America bile, asked, "why won't anyone discuss these issues anymore?" The answer is that reasonable people get tired of answering the same old pathetic questions, which aren't rooted in reality anyway. The left has whined itself into irrelevance. |
| Posted by: Hyper 2003-12-4 3:20:03 PM |
| #4 Is *that* what that was? I walk buy this storefront 'office' every day and always wondered what the heck it was. The office often looked dirty with scattered newspapers/newsprint on the floor and old moldy furnature. Dark and dank. What it remined me of was an Orc hole.... How approprate.... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2003-12-4 3:19:19 PM |
| #3 A number of media activists complained that the core group running the IMC was cliquish and inaccessible. Just like any respectable socialist party. in practice it was open publishing, meaning that anyone could send in a story and it would run untouched Except that we know that they filtered out content that was not considered "correct". And when you do that, you are shown to agree with what remains. They may be jargon-laden, factually incorrect anarco-leftist and anti-Semitic rants, but at least they weren't sympathetic to bushitler. The Internet has proven to be the most powerful medium we have for breaking that monopoly. And still you failed. Not because of the corporations, or censorship, or Ashcroft's evil minions. But because you couldn't support it. If your system can't even sustain a simple web page, please stay the f*ck out of politics. In the end, core members were clashing over personalities, vision, and what to do about the debt. Give credit where it's due: at least they didn't call for purges. |
| Posted by: BH 2003-12-4 2:38:47 PM |
| #2 Dammit, I see the title, I expected dead jihadis. |
| Posted by: Steve 2003-12-4 2:30:39 PM |
| #1 MONEY HASN’T BEEN the only problem. Yeah, the problem is nobody outside of the fringe wants to read your crap. Unlike places like Rantburg, Chicagoboyz, Belmont. And the leftist bigwigs want to buy 5 radio stations and start a Nation Whining Network? Reminds me, time to send some $ to FP. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-12-4 2:12:12 PM |