Central Valley Indymedia History

Central Valley Indymedia
By Mike Rhodes

There is a proposal to establish a Sacramento Indymedia (IMC)site. The meeting to discuss this issue is scheduled to take place Sunday, April 23 at the Infusion Café in Sacramento. Whatever the outcome of this discussion, it might be helpful to take a moment to look back on the development of the Central Valley site, how Sacramento has been a part of that development, and how an independent Sacramento site might affect the current Central Valley (CV) site.

I first became involved with the Central Valley Indymedia project in 2003 At that time, there was already a Sacramento listserv set up to discuss the idea of establishing a Sacramento Indymedia center. There was a group in Fresno that held several organizing meeting to talk about a Fresno Indymedia site. Those discussions, which were organized by young activists close to the local Food Not Bombs group, did not lead to the formation of a Fresno Indymedia project.

In August and September of 2003 there were emails sent out from activists in Modesto, who were talking about starting an Indymedia center there. After some email discussion it was agreed to meet in Modesto to further discuss the idea. That meeting took place in late September 2003. It was attended by representatives from Fresno and Modesto. Sacramento did not send a representative. After discussing the issue of establishing an IMC in the Central Valley, we decided that there was not enough resources to set up an IMC in any one Central Valley town, but that it might be possible to develop a valley wide site. For details about this meeting, see: http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/1648711.php . Also, see the follow up comments to that article here: http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/1648711_comment.php#1662827 . In the comment section is the proposal to start a CV IMC.

It was agreed to pursue the idea of a CV IMC and another meeting was organized and held in Sacramento. Over 50 people attended the Sacramento meeting in January 2004. See: http://www.indybay.org//news/2004/01/1668673.php . There were representatives Sacramento, Fresno, Modesto, and the IMC in the Bay Area at the Sacramento meeting. This meeting took place about the same time as the split between the San Francisco IMC and Indybay. The CV IMC did not have any role in the internal struggle between these two groups, but eventually the CV IMC ended up joining Indybay, after they offered us a space on their server and technical assistance.

At that time, the Central Valley IMC project was not strong enough to develop independently. But, there were several people who agreed to train to become editors and manage the Central Valley page. Initially there were a couple of people from Sacramento who were in the CV editorial group, but they never became very active. All of the work eventually became the responsibility for only two people - Doug (from Modesto) and myself.

One of the problems with bringing new people into the work is the vast distances in the Valley. Having an area that stretches from Sacramento to Bakersfield is a challenge. We had very few face to face meetings and without getting together to discuss day to day issues, the CV IMC just did not work as a collective.

One reason everyone agreed to the concept of the CV IMC was that we believed there was no single city able to maintain the site. In addition, it was believed that a Central Valley site would give everyone a better idea of what was happening throughout the valley. There are enough common issues in the CV that people working on single issues (environmental justice, anti-war, immigrant rights, etc) would be able to see what was going on in other cities nearby, and perhaps work more closely together. We also thought that we might develop individual city pages (Sacramento, Modesto, Merced, Fresno, etc), much like Indybay has theme buttons on the left hand side of their main page.

It was agreed that we would develop the CV IMC on the Indybay site. A meeting was held at the Indybay office in San Francisco, a number of people were trained as editors, and we were off and running. One part of the project that we agreed to do, but never followed up on, was to write a document that describes how the CV IMC would operate. This document is essential if a group is to become an independent IMC. The document was worked on but never completed. I believe that it was always the assumption by Indybay that the CV IMC was moving towards independence. They saw themselves as providing a space for the CV site, but that eventually we would affiliate with the national IMC network, have our own server, and operate independently. I never felt any pressure to do that, but I think that was their operating assumption – that they were providing a space for the CV IMC and that eventually we would become independent.

I left the CV IMC editorial group about a year ago. At that time, only Doug from Modesto and I were active. I assumed when I left that others would join Doug, but that did not happen. As far as I know Doug is the only person making editorial decisions (what goes on the center section, which articles get promoted, etc) on the CV site.

The CV IMC site has been modestly successful, but has not achieved the level of unity and participation that was hoped for in the beginning. I have been surprised by the limited role Sacramento activists have played in supporting the CV IMC site. But, perhaps if it was a Sacramento only site, more people from that area might work on providing content and editing the site.

One of the things the CV IMC did not have to do is the technical work to maintain the site. The Indybay folks do it all and that made it really easy for those of us who have limited technical expertise. If Sacramento does a site on their own, I would think they would eventually need to find someone to maintain the server and keep the system going.

One of the issues that we were responsible for was the content on the CV IMC site. I was impressed with how much time it took to remove comments from right wing nuts. There were times, before we got this problem under control, that we would get 10 or 20 comments a day that had to be removed. Some of these comments were just rude and obnoxious, but some were specific death threats made against progressive activists. These were postings (some with photos) that needed to be removed immediately and staying on top of that took a lot of time. After all, you don’t want to leave a tribute to Adolph Hitler, a death threat, or pornography on the CV IMC site. At least I didn’t think this junk had a place on our site. But, in order to spot it and have it removed, took constant attention.

It will be interesting to see how the IMC project develops in Sacramento. I hope my input can be of some help. If other people remember things that I have forgotten about or they saw things differently, I hope they will post their thoughts as comments to this article.

Here is the information I have seen about the upcoming Sacramento meeting:

> From: Monica Krauth
> Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 10:57 AM
> Subject: [FBCCOMMUNITY] starting Sacramento Indymedia
>
>
> Dear friends of democracy,
>
> I put out a call for writers on craigslist to start a
> Sacramento Indymedia chapter. So far I've gotten about
> 10 people interested, with five so far committed to
> meeting this Sunday at 11 a.m. at Infushion Cafe. If
> any of you might be interested in coming to my meeting
> your also welcome.
>
> My craigslist add is below. I also made a similar one
> for a webmaster.
>
> Lots of love,
>
> Monica
> monicakrauth [at] yahoo.com
>
> ps- feel free to spread this widely
>
>
> --------
>
>
>
> Starting Sacramento Indymedia
>
>
> Indymedia does not have a Sacramento chapter and I
> feel that it needs one. Do you feel the same way?
>
> I am looking for experienced journalists who have some> free time to contribute to an alternative news zine.
> If you're sick of a *certain* publication that
> considers itself as an alternative and you want to
> write for one that is truly nonprofit / non-corporate,
> this is for you.
>
> This is also a good opportunity for journalists who
> are looking to beef up their resume before applying to
> other publications that can actually pay you. It is
> also good for writers looking to pursue grad school.
>
> Feel free to call me or email me for more information.
>
> ViVa La MeDia ReVoluTioN,
> Monica
> monicakrauth [at] yahoo.com
>
>
> For more information please read the following:
> http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/NewIMCFormEn
>
> ---
> About Indymedia
> http://www.indymedia.org
>
> The Independent Media Center is a network of
> collectively run media outlets for the creation of
> radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the
> truth. We work out of a love and inspiration for
> people who continue to work for a better world,
> despite corporate media's distortions and
> unwillingness to cover the efforts to free humanity.
>
> History
>
> The Independent Media Center (http://www.indymedia.org), was
> established by various independent and alternative
> media organizations and activists in 1999 for the
> purpose of providing grassroots coverage of the World
> Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle. The
> center acted as a clearinghouse of information for
> journalists, and provided up-to-the-minute reports,
> photos, audio and video footage through its website.
> Using the collected footage, the Seattle Independent
> Media Center (seattle.indymedia.org) produced a series> of five documentaries, uplinked every day to satellite
> and distributed throughout the United States to public
> access stations.
>
> The center also produced its own newspaper,
> distributed throughout Seattle and to other cities via
> the internet, as well as hundreds of audio segments,
> transmitted through the web and Studio X, a 24-hour
> micro and internet radio station based in Seattle. The
> site, which uses a democratic open-publishing system,
> logged more than 2 million hits, and was featured on
> America Online, Yahoo, CNN, BBC Online, and numerous
> other sites. Through a decentralized and autonomous
> network, hundreds of media activists setup independent
> media centers in London, Canada, Mexico City, Prague,
> Belgium, France, and Italy over the next year. IMCs
> have since been established on every continent, with
> more to come.
>
> * Job location is Sacramento and Yolo Counties
> * Compensation: none - except free food on meeting
> / production days ;)
> * no -- Principals only. Recruiters, please don't
> contact this job poster.
> * yes -- Phone calls about this job are ok.
> * no -- Please do not contact job poster about
> other services, products or commercial interests.
> * no -- Reposting this message elsewhere is NOT
> OK.
>
>
>
>
> 151126891
>
> http://www.myspace.com/maunalai