Another Media is Possible
Ballvé, Teo
The global Indymedia collective is at the forefront of a new media paradigm that is challenging existing media models and practices. We're not a freakin' wire service! We're not about being the...
...they are creating an alternative-something critics of the so-called "anti-globalization" movement rarely recognize...
...The IMC in Canciin is only one example of how diverse groups of people with a multitude of skills can create spaces across the globe for excluded voices amid the globalized consolidation of corporate media...
...Just to move around the building one had to negotiate the sleeping bodies of exhausted participants...
...Alternative media projects and outlets such as the Canc6n IMC are taking root with surprising facility and at astonishing rates across the globe...
...These media outlets not only cover topics neglected by the mainstream, they are also challenging and creating alternatives to existing media models and practices...
...More importantly, the system allows for a decentralized network of contributors to voice diverse perspectives and information...
...More importantly, their diversity of skills and expertise gave the IMC its edge...
...Individuals from Indymedia Chiapas put forth the idea for the Convergence following the Our Media Forum in Barranquilla, Colombia, in May 2003...
...One of the most recent additions is Al-Muajaha <www.almuajaha.com> in Baghdad...
...But we wanted to minimize the organizational structure so that an autonomous media project could be realized in the most organic way...
...The idea was to create a space with enough infrastructure like wiring, computers and equipment," explained one organizer...
...Workshops ranged from the construction of radio transmitters and antennae for pirate broadcasting to the history of Indymedia and video editing...
...Since 1999, Indymedia has expanded into a global network of over 100 Indymedia collectives with several affiliates like the Cancin IMC and many others still in the process of officially becoming part of Indymedia...
...With daybreak came a much calmer scene, since most people were at the protests or inside the WTO press center...
...The first phase provided for an exchange of ideas and skills through workshops and information sessions...
...Hurakan, a Mayan deity, simultaneously brought destruction and rebirth to ancient Mesoamerica...
...A few participants were NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 30REPORT ON MEDIA from Canciin, a city starved of alternative media and with little history of activism or organizing...
...The Convergence's goal was to equip interested participants-namely civil society groups, journalists and activists-with the tools and skills to create effective media strategies...
...indeed, it was hoped for...
...Don't hate the media," the Convergence's motto advised, "become the media...
...The Convergence symbolized "destruction" through the rejection of media models based on hierarchies, elitism, exclusion and profit...
...Organizers knew that if interested people from the popular movements attained the skills to create effective communication strategies, then autonomous media groups and projects would result...
...But they are not just resisting the corporatization of media...
...residents-but also included many Europeans and other Latin Americans...
...certainly no single organization matched the comprehensive and multilingual coverage of the IMC...
...Under this model, the editorial collective works as a steward of the Web site to ensure that editorial content is newsworthy, credible and consistent with the mission of the IMC...
...The supposed phases melded into a weeklong ad hoc exchange of skills and knowledge while the IMC became fully operational...
...The late afternoon and evening were peak work hours at the IMC: writing articles, uploading photos, broadcasting radio pieces and solving a slew of tech problems...
...three phases...
...Organizationally, the IMC subdivided into different collectives that worked specifically, although not exclusively, on a part of the IMC project (radio collective, video collective, tech specialists, etc...
...This was not only accomplished through workshops, but also through the experiential learning involved in creating a sophisticated, working media space from the roots up, replete with computers, print material and broadcasting equipment...
...they realize that any media-open or not-should be read with a critical eye...
...As part of a counter-information campaign, the IMC also produced flyers and fact sheets to distribute among the local population, who in the months prior to the meetings had been bombarded with propaganda and misinformation that demonized activists as violent "globalif6bicos" and exalted the "virtues" of the WTO...
...But organizers expected this anarchy...
...Debate became heated as independent journalists and activists at the Independent Media Center (IMC) in Cancrn, Mexico, argued about how to cover the protest-suicide of a Korean farmer at the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization (WTO) last September...
...By the end of the WTO meetings, the number of registered participants reached over 300...
...Forums and assemblies held during the final phase would explore threats, challenges and proposals for independent media...
...Bleary-eyed activists worked until the early morning hours to get out the news of the day's events...
...We're not about being the first to get the news out," said one participant...
...The anarchic structure of the Convergence engendered both frustration and opportunity...
...a 24-hour radio stream, links to other press and comments...
...The decentralized group of IMC "reporters" probably out-numbered any other media organization covering the meetings...
...The Web site's content included original feature articles, an open newswire, up to the minute dispatches from the field, photos, video files, audio files (interviews, speeches, etc...
...They were mostly North Americans-Mexican and U.S...
...The same model applies to photos, video files and audio files...
...The Hurakan Alternative Media and Tech Convergence, held the week before, formed the IMC by pooling the resources and skills of activists and independent journalists arriving in Cancdn...
...However, readers accustomed to this model understand the disadvantages of open publishing...
...Media activists and organizers clearly had the Mayan cosmic dialectic between destruction and creation in mind when they named the Convergence "Hurakan...
...The decision about whether to broadcast the video footage illustrates, at least in part, the way many alternative media outlets differ from the mainstream press: From start to finish the productive media process strives to maintain openness, inclusion, consensus, transparency, sensitivity and integrity...
...Indymedia is a democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate and passionate tellings of the truth...
...The global Indymedia collective <www.ind ymedia.org>, started in Seattle to provide coverage of the 1999 WTO meetings and protests, is at the forefront of this new media paradigm...
...Ultimately, the diversity of participants made the Convergence and the IMC a success...
...After a lengthy discussion, the editorial collective reached consensus and decided not to load the video onto the IMC Web site...
...A technological and conceptual innovation largely pioneered by Indymedia, open publishing allows for anyone to post articles, photos and just about any other media to the newswire and media gallery...
...If we go ahead with this, it makes us no different from the AP or Reuters...
...Skeptics argue that this openness diminishes the quality and accuracy of the reporting, and for this reason it could never be a widely practiced model...
...Indymedia, like many other alternative media organizations and projects, is a child of the global movement for social justice and alternative globalization...
...The Convergence provided important instruction for campesino and indigenous participants from the surrounding Mexican states of Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca...
...Formal workshops did take place, but for many, the most fruitful experiences were the exchanges between individuals teaching each other their respective media forteslayout and design, editing, HTML, tech support or radio broadcasting...
...grassroots, non-corporate coverage...
...This edge became apparent in the holistic nature of the coverage and the various mediums employed once the meetings and protests began...
...Central to this challenge is the principle of media as a commons, not a commodity...
...Creation" consisted of making an autonomous, democratic, participatory and cooperative space for progressive voices regardless of the bottom-line...
...This is media that crosses borders and issues like no communication network we have ever seen before...
...The backbone of the IMC-and Indymedia more generally-is the open publishing model achieved IMC depiction of a Mayan god crushing the Spanish acronym for the WTO...
...through the Web site...
...The IMC managed the bulk of what it produced through its Web site <www.cancun.mediosindependientes.org...
...The IMC was an around-the-clock operation...
...The Korean Farmers' Federation requested that an IMC video account of the suicide remain unreleased...
...Indymedia describes itself as "a collective of independent media organizations and hundreds of journalists offering Vol XXXVII, No 4 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2004 Teo Ballv6 is NACLA's associate editor and a contributing news editor for the Resource Center of the America's Connection to the Americas <www.americas.org...
...but the IMC also housed independent media projects with their own modes of distribution...
...Other IMC ventures included the daily newspaper Boca del Hurakan and a pirate radio station...
...Not coincidentally, it incorporates structures and processes that make it, as Naomi Klein has noted, "uniquely equipped to mirror the international and diverse nature of this protest movement...
...Following in the tradition of the original Indymedia collective, the Cancin IMC was created for that city's September 10-14, 2003, WTO Ministerial...
...A group of campesinos, proudly wearing their IMC-issued media badges, learned important layout and design skills with the purpose of going back to their community to start a biweekly newspaper or newsletter...
...He wrought havoc with his favored weapons-wind, storm and flood-to rid the Earth of the first humans, so as to spawn a human kind better suited to appease the Gods...
...u i z Y 9 29REPORT ON MEDIA Independent journalists and activists working at the CancOn IMC...
...The frenzy of events-workshops, assemblies and forums-did not fit neatly into phases, much less an organized schedule...
...A degree of editorial control over the wire and the general content of the Web site does exist...
...one driven by the vision and needs of the participants themselves...
...A rotating group of participants was permanently stationed at the IMC to receive field dispatches from individual protestors or the designated bands of roving dispatchers armed with cell phones and bicycles...
...The second phase consisted of a preparatory period where participants would use their newly acquired skills to get the IMC ready for the blitz of coverage during the WTO meetings and protests the following week...
...However, the reality of the Convergence unfolded quite differently...
Vol. 37 • January 2004 • No. 4
