IP: Independent Media Center of Philadelphia

[David Farber <dfarber () fast net>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Guilherme C Roschke" <groschke () luminousvoid net>
To: <farber () cis upenn edu>
Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2000 11:01 PM
Subject: Independent Media Center of Philadelphia


>  Dave,
>
> Me and a few others form the technical collective that provided
> the infrascture (LAN, web devel, sys admin) for the Independent Media
> Center (http://www.phillyimc.org).  This article pretty much summarizes
> our opinion of the impact we were hoping to have.  If any IP'ers would
> like to contact us, we can be reached at > like to contact us, we can be reached at tech () phillyimc org.
>
> regards,
>
> guilherme roschke
>
> groschke () luminousvoid net
>
> ######################################################
>
> http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,17356,00.html
>
> IMC's Arresting Coverage.
>
> The Independent Media Center is using the Web to cover the many protests
and
> arrests taking place outside the Republican convention.
>
> By Keith Perine
>
> PHILADELPHIA ­ By the third day of the Republican National Convention, the
> desultory crews manning the much hyped Internet Alley are as bored and
> shiftless as the rest of the thousands of reporters swarming over the
> convention site in an attempt to report news where there is none. Aside
from
> a mobbed appearance by WWF star The Rock, nothing new is happening on the
> Alley.
>
> That's because the real cutting edge of Internet political journalism is
> somewhere else.
>
> At the Independent Media Center, miles away in downtown Philadelphia, the
> joint is jumping. Dozens of independent, left-leaning journalists,
> photographers, videographers and technicians rush back and forth inside a
> crumbling old hotel ballroom just blocks from Philadelphia's historic City
> Hall, using the Internet to cover the dozens of street protests and
hundreds
> of arrests happening across the city this week.
>
> The Republican convention is mixing with this hard-core blue-collar city
> like oil with water. The result is being covered by the folks at the
> Independent Media Center, which is using the Web to do something that
16,000
> mainstream journalists herded into tents at the convention site seem
> powerless to do.
>
>
> "We've been able to pull in a lot of people from around the city to help
> us," says IMC organizer Inja Coates. "There aren't enough outlets and
> soapboxes for people to call attention to the issues."
> Some 4,100 delegates are in the City of Brotherly Love to cheer the
> coronation of George W. Bush, but there are untold thousands more people
> who, barred from the convention, are clashing with police in the streets
of
> Philadelphia. The protestors are fighting to oppose the rampant poverty,
> homelessness, lack of health care and oppression of minorities that exists
> in Philadelphia and every other U.S. city. The Wall Street Journal's army
of
> convention reporters doesn't much care. Neither does George W. Bush. But
the
> IMC does.
>
> Though a dozen IMCs are currently up and running across the country and
> around the world to cover progressive policy issues, Philadelphia's is the
> third American IMC to spring into existence specifically to cover unrest
in
> U.S. cities. The story of the three IMCs mirrors that of the newly
> revitalized left: The first was formed to cover November's "Battle in
> Seattle" at the WTO ministerial. The second, which transplanted many of
the
> Seattle folks, was formed in April in Washington for the World Bank/IMF
> protests. For the third, Philadelphia organizers started planning their
> effort in April 1999, shortly after the Republicans announced their
> convention plans. After witnessing the success of Seattle's IMC, the
> Philadelphia group decided to adopt the model.
>
> The Philadelphia IMC headquarters is sweaty, chaotic and exponentially
more
> exhilarating than the convention's florescent, air-conditioned "media
> pavilions." Inside, volunteers bang out stories on donated computers,
> scramble to upload audio and video feeds for radio and Web broadcasts, and
> shout protest updates to one another. A "breaking news" wire on the site
> provides an up-to-the-minute chronicle of raids, run-ins and arrests
around
> town. A volunteer editorial collective scattered around the world rates
each
> story's value electronically, but none are spiked.
>
> In one corner, two daily news shows are produced and uploaded via a
> satellite donated by Free Speech TV. Local firms have donated Web-hosting
> and video-streaming services. A "dispatch" desk coordinates coverage of a
> dozen or more simultaneous protests. Near the door, a blown-up map of
> downtown Philadelphia is decorated with an ever-changing array of pink
slips
> that document events by time and location, such as "2:55 p.m. ­ police
> surrounding puppet bus." All told, there's a lot more democracy happening
at
> the IMC than there is within five miles of the Republican convention site.
> Most of the IMC crew is wary of outsiders. They've been burned before by
> mainstream media stories that focus on their body piercings and their
> unorthodox tactics but ignore their political causes. They're so used to
> being unfairly judged that they reflexively make their own assumptions
about
> the mainstream press, disdaining the regular news outlets ­ including the
> Internet ones ­ as nothing more than hollow, corporate shills. But the IMC
> organizers are sufficiently media-savvy that they have designated handlers
> for the mainstream press that troops through.
>
> The Republican convention is little more than a series of foregone
> conclusions, and by next week, Internet Alley will be a footnote in
> political journalism. But the Philadelphia IMC will still be around, using
> the Internet to make its voice heard. Who knows? Maybe there will be
another
> new Internet media skybox worth talking about at the 2004 Republican
> convention.