[Boston-editorial] Bryan Pfeifer

[Sofia JarrinT]

hi there,
I met Bryan at the protest and he seemed nice enough.
He also said that he was more interested in getting
involved with Indymedia and wanted to attend some of
our meetings. 

I don't think we should judge a writer for the group
he/she is involved in (of course, unless it's fascist)
if her/his reports are accurate and it's good writing.
I have not really seen a bias towards that group in
past articles.

In regards to the Phelps protest, I also was there and
I think the confrontation with the police happened
towards the end and Bryan might have not even seen it.
Most people didn't, actually, since even when we were
hanging out with sharpie's friends for lunch, they had
no idea it had occurred.  

Moreover, I just re-read Bryan's article and the last
paragraph is careful to mention everyone present at
the protest: "Many local youth and students
participated in the anti-Phelps Brookline protest as
well as members of the AFL-CIO Pride at Work,
Anarchist Black Cross, the Communist Party USA, Gay
and Lesbian Labor Activist Network, the International
Action Center, the International Socialist
Organization, Fight Imperialism Stand Together (FIST),
SEIU Local 509, Stonewall Warriors, UNITE HERE Local
26, USWA Local 8751, the Women’s Fightback Network and
Workers World Party."

I think he was very careful mentioning everyone there
instead of excluding some groups because of conflicts
with their ideology. That is good writing to me.

peace,
sofia






--- Pete Stidman <pstidman at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I don't think it would be fair to ban anyone from
> the
> possibility of getting a centered article without
> first coaching them on improving the quality of the
> article.  
> 
> We know Bryan writes from a certain perspective, but
> we don't know that he is tied to limiting his scope
> to
> that perspective.  Maybe he would cover these other
> major things if someone like sharpie emailed him
> about
> the oversight.  
> 
> We could see how he reacts to this sort of thing.  
> 
> We may not like his politics but his coverage is
> fairly good, especially his choices of what to
> cover. 
> And people have been known to change.  No one in our
> group has ever had a real conversation with this guy
> or even met him in person, am I right?
> 
> -Pete
> 
> --- Matthew Williams <mw21 at mindspring.com> wrote:
> 
> > Sharpie, you raise interesting issues vis-a-vis
> > Pfeifer. We've had 
> > issues with him before. He once did a report on a
> > protest and really 
> > played up the involvement of WWP and its front
> > groups, listing a whole 
> > bunch of them and very few other groups (if
> > any)--Pete e-mailed him 
> > about this and apparently Pfeifer got really
> upset,
> > although in future 
> > articles he didn't play the same game--not until
> > recently with this 
> > Phelps article anyway. And there was a question of
> > factual accuracy 
> > with a previous article of his as well, where he
> > blew something totally 
> > out of proportion--somebody being shoved into
> > somebody being punched or 
> > something like that.
> > 
> > On the other side of the coin, he is one of our
> more
> > prolific writers 
> > and I fear we wouldn't have any coverage of some
> > important events if it 
> > weren't for him.
> > 
> > We are thus left in the odd position of relying on
> a
> > group--Workers 
> > World Party/International Action
> > Center/ANSWER/insert front group 
> > here--that many of us don't like or trust (and
> > although Pfeifer seems 
> > to be their main writer, other WWP people have
> > contributed articles as 
> > well) for much of our coverage. I have often found
> > myself wishing a 
> > member of some local group I actually trust took
> as
> > much time as 
> > Pfeifer to report on events. But I suppose WWP can
> > assign people to 
> > certain tasks in a way more democratic groups
> can't.
> > 
> > So, we could just stop featuring his articles out
> of
> > concern for their 
> > accuracy--but then we'd not have coverage of
> > important events. I'm 
> > frankly ambivalent, although if most people felt
> > like we shouldn't 
> > feature anything by Pfeifer or other WWP members
> in
> > the future, I 
> > wouldn't argue.
> > 
> > -- Matt
> > 
> > On Jun 16, 2005, at 1:03 PM, sharpie at riseup.net
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > I'll be attending. I'll also write up a report
> and
> > work with the 
> > > author of
> > > the previous article in order to make it more
> > fitting. I think it is a
> > > really important event and should be featured,
> if
> > a stronger article is
> > > written about it.
> > >
> > > Also, thanks whoever hid red herring's idiocy.
> > >
> > > Lastly, I have some questions for the group
> > regarding features. The
> > > initial feature that caused me to think abotu
> this
> > is Bryan Pfeifer's
> > > article re: the Phelps event.
> > >
> > > I was also at this event, in fact I was
> assaulted
> > by officer 58700, 
> > > along
> > > with a number of other individuals. My issue is
> > that, while the story
> > > itself doesn't appear to have any real profound
> > factual errors, it 
> > > really
> > > is just a reportback by an IAC operative, and
> > totally fails to mention 
> > > a
> > > number of the most notable events of that day,
> for
> > example the fact 
> > > that
> > > no less than 3 individuals were assaulted in no
> > less than 5 incidents 
> > > by a
> > > plainclothes officer.
> > >
> > > At least one of the socialist/authoritarian
> group
> > members assaulted
> > > members of the Phelps crew and grabbed their
> signs
> > away.
> > >
> > > White Revolution's relatively new, but
> burgeoning,
> > New England chapter 
> > > was
> > > also present.
> > >
> > > All of these major details, much more
> interesting
> > than the plain "some
> > > people showed up, they yelled at some
> > bigots/fascists, and we won!" 
> > > format
> > > of this piece.
> > >
> > > anyway, i just wanted to get folks thoughts
> about
> > this, as we are 
> > > trying
> > > to revitalize and rethink the editorial process.
> > >
> > > peace
> > > sharpie
> > >
> > >> I have to agree that this is more of an event
> > announcement than a news
> > >> story or a commentary or anything like that.
> Once
> > the meeting happens,
> > >> it would be cool to have a report on it though.
> > Is anyone planning to
> > >> go anyway? -- Matt
> > >>
> > >> On Jun 16, 2005, at 11:10 AM, Sofia JarrinT
> > wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> I agree with Jon.  It reads more of an
> > invitation to
> > >>> people to participate in their next meeting
> and
> > >>> survey, which I think it's great.  But it
> really
> > >>> doesn't qualify as an article.  I would love
> to
> > see,
> > >>> like Jon said, something about concrete goals
> > reached.
> > >>>
> > >>> peace,
> > >>> sofia
> > >>>
> > >>> --- "Jonathan D. Proulx" <jon at csail.mit.edu>
> > wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>> I'm ambivalent about hte article as it
> stands. 
> > It's
> > >>>> more than an
> > >>>> event anouncement but not much, I think it
> > would be
> > >>>> stronger if it was
> > >>>> more specific about what whas accomplished
> 
=== message truncated ===


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