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What's up with this?
The East Bay Express goes Indymedia-bashing. After giving the article a chance and comparing its claims with the reality of the two sites http://www.indybay.org and sf.indymedia.org, our response can only be: "Why?"
Check out http://www.eastbayexpress.com/issues/2004-01-14/cityofwarts.html/1/index.html ....
Then check out the two sites mentioned in the article, one of which you are already browsing: http://www.indybay.org and http://sf.indymedia.org .
Then ask yourself: "Why?"
Why would an otherwise [apparently] reasonable journalist write an article whose purpose is to undermine the very premise of the alternative media format championed by Indymedia?
OK, Indymedia has problems. Yeah, some of them are inherent to the format itself; they come because the constant influx of "open news" is not moderated, and everyone that bothers to connect to the site has the ability to post. But as I take a look around these two sites right now, as I write this, and honestly being open to the claims made in the article, I cannot find justification for such a definitive judgment as the one expressed in the article.
Why do I have to be patronized about how the traditional media is "a sieve between information and people, in which unelected, typically invisible folks such as editors and reporters separate news from data, conclusions from pabulum, truth from libel"?
Why all this criticism (and I do think there are grounds for criticism of Indymedia) must be so fucking destructive? Why do I have to feel like "The Real Media" is coming to give me a lesson about how all media should be, and how this alternative format is fundamentally wrong and misguided? What exactly is Mr Chris Thompson's stake in this matter?
I don't know about the schism between http://sf.indymedia.org and http://www.indybay.org and quite frankly I wouldn't be surprised if all the snarky exchanges mentioned in the article had happened pretty much exactly verbatim.
Fact is, I don't care.
Fact is, I look around and I see a lot of articles, many of which are interesting enough to read, and all of them posted by another guy or gal just like me, and not by a "syndicated columnist" or some other sort of media guy that has privileged access to our sound and video-waves.
Fact is, I am shaken and upset to find that an article which I had read and considered in good faith, comes from such a mean-spirited place of destructive criticism.
Why does almost all media, even the media that should be part of the big family of the People's Media (like the East Bay Express) feel the need to discredit, undermine and plain old put down the Indymedia experiment? I am honestly wondering this. It is hard to believe that they would be so childish and stupid to actually be afraid and it is too stunning to think that they would be so arrogant to actually believe it is their right (duty?) to have such a Final Judgment over the whole thing and broadcast it to everyone.
Does anybody have an original idea to explain why these people act the way they do? If you do, I'd like to hear it.
Thank you.
pj.
Then check out the two sites mentioned in the article, one of which you are already browsing: http://www.indybay.org and http://sf.indymedia.org .
Then ask yourself: "Why?"
Why would an otherwise [apparently] reasonable journalist write an article whose purpose is to undermine the very premise of the alternative media format championed by Indymedia?
OK, Indymedia has problems. Yeah, some of them are inherent to the format itself; they come because the constant influx of "open news" is not moderated, and everyone that bothers to connect to the site has the ability to post. But as I take a look around these two sites right now, as I write this, and honestly being open to the claims made in the article, I cannot find justification for such a definitive judgment as the one expressed in the article.
Why do I have to be patronized about how the traditional media is "a sieve between information and people, in which unelected, typically invisible folks such as editors and reporters separate news from data, conclusions from pabulum, truth from libel"?
Why all this criticism (and I do think there are grounds for criticism of Indymedia) must be so fucking destructive? Why do I have to feel like "The Real Media" is coming to give me a lesson about how all media should be, and how this alternative format is fundamentally wrong and misguided? What exactly is Mr Chris Thompson's stake in this matter?
I don't know about the schism between http://sf.indymedia.org and http://www.indybay.org and quite frankly I wouldn't be surprised if all the snarky exchanges mentioned in the article had happened pretty much exactly verbatim.
Fact is, I don't care.
Fact is, I look around and I see a lot of articles, many of which are interesting enough to read, and all of them posted by another guy or gal just like me, and not by a "syndicated columnist" or some other sort of media guy that has privileged access to our sound and video-waves.
Fact is, I am shaken and upset to find that an article which I had read and considered in good faith, comes from such a mean-spirited place of destructive criticism.
Why does almost all media, even the media that should be part of the big family of the People's Media (like the East Bay Express) feel the need to discredit, undermine and plain old put down the Indymedia experiment? I am honestly wondering this. It is hard to believe that they would be so childish and stupid to actually be afraid and it is too stunning to think that they would be so arrogant to actually believe it is their right (duty?) to have such a Final Judgment over the whole thing and broadcast it to everyone.
Does anybody have an original idea to explain why these people act the way they do? If you do, I'd like to hear it.
Thank you.
pj.
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"Last week, New York Times Russia correspondent Seth Mydans published an interesting story about the liabilities of "People Power" movements in Georgia, Serbia, and the Philippines. He noted that while the triumph of everyday citizens over entrenched power can be an inspiring thing -- at least in the short term -- such popular revolts also weaken the behavioral restraints that hold societies together in the long term."
So empowering people is now seen as the center of the moral breakdown of society. (Lets not talk about TV or consumer culture, that would question the advertisers)
Yes, in the bay area, the New Times sends constant attacks at media outlets that are not their own. Just ask the editors at the Guardian. The only difference between this attack and the attacks against the Guardian is that the New Times cannot use it's economic power to leverage cheap ad space to take advertisers away from smaller papers.
Instead of focusing on an inflamatory editorial trying to get us involved in the indymedia drama, I think we should ask ourselves why the East Bay Express sucks so much now. I remeber it being much better and a great resource when I first moved here 5 years ago. what happened?
-Janky
Or look at Craig's List's politics discussion section:
http://forums.craigslist.org/?forumID=20
Chris' story would have been much better if he had at leat made it more clear he was using the personal attacks on the Indymedia sites as an example to make a larger point. If you knew nothing about Indymedia and read his story I think it would come across as a lot less biased than if you did know Indymedia. His quotes in the story are personal attacks for those in Indymedia but are more an example of how far the level of discourse on the web can sink for those who are not associated with Indymedia.