[CIMC-work] Letter draft re: US-IMC

[Mitchell Szczepanczyk]

Draft is below.  Feel free to comment/amend/revise/whatever.

Thanks.
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_ Z  Mitchell Szczepanczyk
  /  http://home.uchicago.edu/~msszczep http://www.chicagomediaaction.org
     http://www.geocities.com/szczepanczyk http://chicago.indymedia.org

Chicago Indymedia would like to express some reservations about the
proposed US-IMC project.  These can be summarized in the following points.

Point one: Improving diverse representation.  Ostensibly, one motivation
of US-IMC was and is to reduce American emphasis and increase global 
south participation in such things as the global center panel and the
syndicated feed of center panels on the right-hand column of 
Indymedia Global.  If so, was the global south consulted as 
to what in their opinion would be on the matter?  Were they asked if this
was a good or effective idea, or consulted as to what should be done 
to increase global south activity in Indymedia?  

Point two: Accountability.  Who decides what would be center paneled on
US-IMC?  What criteria would be used?  More to the point, was the
decision to work on creating a US-IMC was not brought before every IMC in
the United States and agreed upon by all US-IMCs?  After all, the syndicated
features on the right-hand column of global IMC; why can't a similar
deliberation/consensus take place for US-IMC?  

Point three: Redundancy.  Based on the traffic to date, US-IMC sounds like
it would replicate the global site, but include only US 
contributions.  What new content or contributions, if any, would the
US-IMC bring to the network?  If there aren't any, how then is US-IMC
this an improvement to the network?  

Point Four: Global impacts.  The issue of US-IMC isn't just a matter for
the United States.  A significant portion of the global movement is 
in the United States and any effort involving the US could have massive
reverber ations, positive and , across the global indymedia 
movement.  Perhaps the debate of a US-IMC should be brought before the
entire indymedia network--simply because of the possible global
reverberations.

We understand that it may be too late to halt the process of assembling
US-IMC, but it would appear that a number of considerations that were 
not brought or considered to the attention of the US-IMC organizers.  We
therefore ask that these issues be satisfactorily addressed, 
or the US-IMC organizing process be delayed until such time as these
issues can be addressed.