[CIMC-work] (regarding editorial policy)

[Ian Bicking]

Chris Kaihatsu wrote:
>     *From: *nessie at sfbg.com
>     I did that. I do a lot of the moderating around here. I should have
>     thrown him out long ago. He's a racist. He spams. He lies about it.
>     He abused our newswire. He is not welcome.
> 
>     I can't for the life of me understand why *any* IMC welcomes someone
>     who has abused any IMC. Is not an injury to one an injury to all?
>     Why is this man permitted to post at UC-IMC? If someone abused
>     UC-IMC, and was banned, SF-IMC would not permit him to post. For
>     Indymedia to hold together as a global network, solidarity is
>     essential. No one who abuses any IMC should be permitted to post on
>     any IMC.
> 
>     Anyone who abuses our newswire by spamming is banned. Period. End of
>     story. No appeal. We also forbid any form of enemy propaganda, be it
>     sexist, racist, homophobic, pro-war, pro-exploitation, pro-nuclear,
>     anti-environmental, anti-labor, or anything like it. Trolls are not
>     welcome on SF-IMC. Our site exists for the benefit of our friends,
>     our allies and our potential friends and allies. [...]

This is the part that bothered me most in his description.  While I can 
appreciate the general sentiment behind his editorial policy, this 
starts to hint at the policy being essentially a personal policy, not a 
collective policy.  That there isn't any formal SF IMC editorial policy 
adds to that impression.  Instead it feels like a partisan policy -- 
which seems okay at first when you consider yourself aligned with 
justice movements etc., but also seems like something that may have 
exacerbated the division between sf/sfbay.  The site becomes personal -- 
and I think we can all agree that some of the people in the SF area have 
shown very bad stewardship of their Indymedia local, perhaps because 
they don't appreciate that they have a stewardship role.  You don't have 
to provide stewardship for something you possess.

I think there's some of the same issues in our collective.  I don't 
think they've caused problems so far, but they could have, and maybe 
drawing parallels will help us continue in that spirit and avoid 
problems.  As we all know, some of the people in our collective have 
contentious relationships with people who are also inside what would be 
considered within CIMC's general progressive community (I use 
"progressive" because I think it's the most appropriately inclusive). 
Recently what's-her-name (starts with an L) from the what's-its-name 
media group, though it certainly could have happened with some of the 
M20 planning or other contentious issues in the community.  Since 
Chicago seems to have too many problems with cooperation issues in the 
community, it's an important issue in our local even if it hasn't caused 
internal conflict.

And it's certainly fine that an individual have a problem with some 
other person or group, but it's important that we not confuse our 
individuals with our collective.  Certainly it's up to individuals to 
decide, say, that they don't want to participate in a panel discussion 
with someone they dislike -- we're all volunteers.  But that's an 
individual decision, and if that's a motivation for the individual and 
no one else wants to speak, it's still not the collective who dislikes 
anyone.  Or, if some people don't like UC-IMC, CIMC does not dislike 
UC-IMC.  (We could consense to dislike them, but I doubt we'd reach 
consensus on that)

To generalize, I'd say that the collective should never become partisan 
within the progressive community, for a very inclusive definition of 
"progressive community".  No member -- as a volunteer -- ever has a duty 
to cover something they are disinterested in, or some group they 
dislike, but when it comes to editorial decisions like hiding articles 
we should be very careful, and when it comes to things like what to 
center panel, we should be aware that we are acting on behalf of the 
collective -- and at its most expansive, the collective includes not 
just our regular meeting attendees, but also all of our posters, 
commenters, and even our readers.

Because of our loose editorial policy (loose compared to other news 
sources), I think CIMC can be neutral on issues without being watered 
down, because we (*as a collective*, not as individuals) host ideas 
rather than synthesizing them.  As individuals we can do and say 
whatever the hell we want.  It's a free country, right? ;)

   Ian