[New-imc] IMC BELGRADE - new imc internal deadline - june 26th 2003

[Blicero]

summary : personal explanation of the two questions

> First off it seems like a good imc application. Blicero and the other 
> italian indymedia activists who you seem to be working with have a good 
> grasp about what is indymedia and media activism in general, even if in 
> my opinion they tend towards fundamentalism.
> 

oh my god
good to know
fundamentalism towards what ?
bah


> > Indymedia is an Internet news service where political parties and 
> > other hierarchically structured organisations will not be able to 
> > pursue their interests.
> 
> Does that mean that any posts by people who are from, involved with, or 
> advocate political parties or hierarchically structured organizations 
> will have their posts removed?
> 
> The Brazil imc has an editorial policy of removing posts which are 
> explictly party propaganda. They have a distinction between covering, 
> and even posting positive articles about parties and what they call 
> propaganda. The propaganda is official publications of the party. They 
> allow publications from NGO's which, almost all, are by definition, 
> hierarchically structured organizations.
> 

in italy we have the same policy 
explicit propaganda is off, opinions and discussions are ok
i suppose it is the same here
hope the imc will have the time and access to answer quickly clarifing 


> My point is, i've seen other places, such as indymedia peru before it's 
> recent restructuring, where the imc so strictly tied self to anarchist 
> movements that they didn't bother to mention or do any coverage of 
> national wide general strikes or other major actions because they were 
> not 'anarchist' things.
> 

well 
indymedia is not a newspaper 
we are not professional journalists who need to cover everything
we cover what we participate to and what we are interested into and hope other
people involved in indy cover the rest following their own interest and affinity


> I also am a little concerned about the definition of indymedia as an 
> internet news service, rather than a network of media activist networks 
> and collectives who use an open publishing website as one of many 
> tools, mediums, and tactics for building a media revolution. But that's 
> a secondary issue because we are talking about the editorial policy of 
> the website here.
> 

i agree
but i also think groups need to make experience to handle the subtleties of the
indymedia project

> > The members of the initial collective of IMC Belgrade come from 
> > various groups and backgrounds, which mean that we have been a diverse 
> > group that welcomes new activists as equals. The IMC Belgrade 
> > collective regularly holds open meetings in order to coordinate 
> > activities. The meetings are open to all people who comply with the 
> > principles of IMC collective.
> 
> Could you be a little more specific about what the background of the 
> participants are? Perhaps talk about your relationship with other media 
> activists. There's the infamous B92, who i assume you don't work with, 
> but who are you? You don't have to name specific groups if you don't 
> feel comfortable for security reasons. But are most of you from a 
> music/alternative culture background, ecological groups, the 
> pro-democracy student movement, anarcho-communist cadres, trotskist 
> parties, professional journalists, etc?
> 


i mean i never saw such a question posed in such a qeustioning way to a new imc
but i supposed that evan personal assumption about my "fundamentalism" affects
that

the people i know from belgrade imc present group work with anarchist and
libertarian collectives, fanzines, and sites in serbia as well as zmag and some
other magazines (some of them, or people who are supporting the birth of
belgrade imc)
hope they will have time to answer directly, but i have to say
they have done a great job in getting the group together and working on the site
despite access problems 
and they are doing a good job throughout the extreme difficult balnaces of the
post-communist eastern europe, where it is very difficult to do politics in a
independent way

in any case i see this two questions as curiosity more than as potential block
to the application, right ?
just to keep track of the situation

solidarity
ciao
blicero