IndyBlogs: Activism and Journalism

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Saturday October 02, 2004 18:35

by redjade

from http://misnomer.dru.ca

How does one resolve the goals of activism with those of journalism? Does not working for a certain outcome at some point come into conflict with telling the truth?

[....]

What, exactly, does one do to become (known as) an activist journalist? Does it suffice to agitate to make certain facts widely known? It involves, in any case, having specific political views.

But what kind of political views? There are clearly two seperate standards for what constitutes an activist journalist. If an individual pours the entirety of her journalistic efforts into maintaining the status quo, it is quite unlikely that she will become known as an activist.

It rather obvious, also, that if one posesses views that deviate significantly from "common sense" or conventional wisdom, then the situation is quite different.

The concept that this setup turns on is objectivity. The word "truth" is seldom used by journalists; objectivity, it seems, is far more highly valued, and much more often referred to as the ideal or standard of professional journalism.

But objectivity isn't truth. It refers, instead, to a kind of detachment or neutrality which implicitly leads to truth. The premise is that if one does not favour one particular interpretation of events, then one is more likely to render an impartial and balanced report, which takes all relvant facts into account.

While there is pressure on journalists to be detached, there is little to no pressure on them to take all relevant facts into account. (In newsrooms where journalists commonly write 2-4 stories a day, the opposite is indeed the case.)

So objectivity has come to mean that one states a few facts in a detached and neutral way, leaving the reader to impose values or particular in-depth interpretations. It's all very diplomatic. We report, you decide.

However: truth is how things actually are, or at least, how they are when given our full, unimpeded attention.

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Nodes of Conflict: Weaving a Web of Radical Communications

Wed Oct 06, 2004 15:15

Listening to Indymedia radio streaming live from the Republication National Convention protests in New York City, I hear people calling from outside the jailhouse as their fellow activists are released. The crowds cheer and chant, updates are given, stories are fed back into a massive communications web, bypassing the corporate media who are ignoring the 500,000 people protesting the Bush administration and the more than 2,000 people arrested.

On the other side of the planet I listen and tap my keyboard, adding a feature to Melbourne Indymedia about federal police harassing a local anarchist at the request of the FBI. “Our resistance is as global as capital” has been a popular slogan amongst the global justice movements; it’s also as nearly as well connected.

[....]

The domination of the mainstream media over our lives is continuing to increase. Despite the fact that more than 500,000 people protested at the Republican National convention -the biggest demonstrations ever against such an event - it hardly rated a mention in the corporate media. In many ways, more than the construction of consensus, media regimes occupy attention. Drawing people away is a challenge that is not just about the information they produce or the way they produce it, it is something that requires guerrilla tactics that can intervene, block, stop, derail, divert and detourne the media messages that flood our brains. Cracks are everywhere. How can a machine of networked organs be set in motion against this Empire that would condemn us all to work, consumption, ecological catastrophe and war?

Indymedia Code Visions....

Mon Oct 25, 2004 14:03

The fundamental problem, I think, with the IMC websites is that we treat our visitors like readers and not like users, like people. This was fine in 1999, when people would come online and essential ‘read’ the Internet. Highly static content, not a lot going on that couldn’t be done over morning coffee. But now people live online. Everything is dynamic, interactive. Which is not to say the IMC is far behind; every new CMS version has a more user-friendly approach, improved reliability, easier posting to the newswire. But what are we asking of our visitors? “Come to our site, drop off your story, check back later to see if anyone responded to it.” That’s not interactive. That’s fishing.

Yes, Indymedia websites are news websites, not an online community group. And yet whenever I hit a mass protest walking into the IMC space isn’t like going to work, it’s like hitting a party with everyone so into what they’re doing. When I get out on the streets I’m not some journalist observing it all, I’m a demonstrator who happens to have a camera. So there is this community imbued in everything we do. I think we need to respond to that.

Over the next year I’m going to be working on adding these features to the Boston IMC website, pending the agreement of the collective, of course:....

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