[CIMC-work] Letter to US-IMC, take 3

[Chris Kaihatsu]

CIMC,

I continue to agree with these collective reservations about the
us.indymedia.org site.


Chris




___

US media, government scramble to obscure criminal dealings with Hussein
wsws.org/articles/2003/dec2003/huss-d24.shtml


Howard Dean rejects Washington Post charge that he is "beyond the
 mainstream"
wsws.org/articles/2003/dec2003/dean-d24.shtml


Remind Us: Why Did The U.S. Invade Iraq? :
www.kaicurry.com/gwbush/remindus.swf





----- Original Message -----
From: "Mitchell Szczepanczyk" <msszczep at midway.uchicago.edu>
To: <imc-chicago-working at lists.indymedia.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 4:01 PM
Subject: [CIMC-work] Letter to US-IMC, take 3


> I was supposed to do this sooner, but that whole holiday and time crunch
> prevented me from doing this.
>
> As promised, here's a third draft of the letter regarding US-IMC,
> in terms of the discussion had at the mid-December CIMC meeting.  Garth,
> et al.--take a look and let me know what you think.
>
> ----------
> _ 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
> trajectory of the 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.  We are concerned that the global south was not
> consulted as to their opinion would be on this matter--either in the
> specific sense (if this was a good or effective idea) or more generally
> (what should be done to increase global south activity in Indymedia?),
> and that this may be both an effect *and* contributing cause of a downward
> trajectory in terms of adequate representation.
>
> Point two: Accountability.  Who decides what would be center paneled on
> US-IMC?  What criteria would be used?  Would all of the IMCs in the
> United States have a potential say in the matter?  Can any IMC in the
> U.S. block a decision on US-IMC?  How much time should be sufficient for a
> decision on US-IMC to be made?
>
> 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 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
> reverberations, positive and negative, across the global indymedia
> movement.  Perhaps the politics involved with a US-IMC should be brought
> before the entire indymedia network--simply because of the possible global
> reverberations.
>
> 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.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Imc-chicago-working mailing list
> Imc-chicago-working at lists.indymedia.org
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-chicago-working
>