[Boston-editorial] re: the William Rivers Pitt "article"

[Matthew Williams]

Well, actually, I asked folks on the list whether or not we should 
feature it and no one objected. Joe said yes and Pete was the one who 
actually put it up, so we did have consensus. Generally, we only check 
in about featuring something if we think it might be 
controversial--although we have had a couple times recently when one of 
us featured something and discovered only after the fact that it was 
controversial.

As for what happened that night, those things can get so subjective--a 
lot of what you think happened often depends on which side you were on.

But I think your idea sounds fine. It would actually be cool, because 
it would show that we (Boston Indy Media) tries to be a home for 
everyone on the left, even across some of the issues that divide us.

-- Matt

On May 9, 2005, at 8:42 PM, sharpie at riseup.net wrote:

> how about if i post all of the audio, or maybe video, from Pitt's 
> speech
> and deconstruct the things that he said there with what he claims 
> later he
> said, and show that essentially he used the podium to sell his 
> magazine,
> rather than talk about the important issues he was given the space for?
>
> I feel that while i can agree with you that the commentay may be well
> written, it's an inaccurate description of what happened that night 
> and is
> totally self-serving.
>
> also, i can agree that we shouldn't take one persons opinion as a 
> criteria
> for taking a story down, but i do believe that we should consider 
> adding
> to our editorial policy a statement about it taking a reasonable
> percentage of the editorial collective to approve an article for
> featuring. i thought we had a policy about this, but upon examining the
> editorial policy, it doesn't appear that we do.
>
> i.e. if one person thinks a feature should be up, and one person thinks
> that its propaganda, so innacurate as to verge on falsity, then by the
> consensus model, unless we've consensed on another process, then this
> feature shouldn't be up.
>
> and it definitely should take more than one yes if there is one no to 
> an
> article.
>
> and when's the next editorial meeting?
>
>> Uh, well, lots of people use the term "progressive" in an expansive 
>> way
>> to include everyone from left-liberals to radicals. It's how I usually
>> use the term.
>>
>> But to get to the substance of your point, if you want to write a
>> response to Pitt, I see no problem with that. I'd be uncomfortable
>> taking the feature down, just because one member of the collective
>> disagrees with it. I don't think our criteria for featuring a
>> commentary is whether we agree with it, but whether it's intelligent
>> and well written, coming from a progressive perspective, and have some
>> local connection. This fits all three of those criteria. I recall at
>> least one instance where I featured a commentary I completely 
>> disagreed
>> with because I thought it fit those three criteria.
>>
>> I'll admit I don't know the details of the debate, but from what he
>> says, he doesn't support the occupation so much as he doesn't think
>> pulling out without a plan is viable. I don't agree with that 
>> position,
>> but I know serious progressives, who adamantly oppose the occupation,
>> who do have that position. If people want to respectfully critique 
>> that
>> position, I think that's all to the good, but ostracizing progressives
>> with that view isn't going to get us very far. I don't particularly
>> want to debate the merits of the position here anyway, but the fact is
>> we have no party line and we should feature a range of progressive
>> views. Not that I would want to feature something by Christopher
>> Hitchens defending US imperialism in the name of socialism, but the
>> Pitt article doesn't do that. The commentary isn't even about his
>> opinions on the occupation, but the state of the left.
>>
>> Oh, and you should be getting an e-mail that you can respond to, to
>> join this list.
>>
>> -- Matt
>>
>> On May 9, 2005, at 11:52 AM, sharpie at riseup.net wrote:
>>
>>> hey folks... I think that what William Rivers Pitt says in this
>>> "article"
>>> is not exactly "accurate." there were no "progressives" heckling him.
>>> there were "radicals" heckling him. and they were heckling him 
>>> because
>>> he's an asshole, and was using the podium to sell magazines
>>> essentially.
>>> the number of times he made reference to the magazine that he is now
>>> working for disgusted me.
>>>
>>> He supports the continuance of the Occupation! I mean, what the 
>>> fuck?!
>>>
>>> anyway... I understand that maybe we need to be "fair" and so I would
>>> propose either taking this self-serving shit off the features column,
>>> or
>>> we take it off until I can look over the video of what actually
>>> happened,
>>> and write a response to him that is "fair" and based on the "facts" 
>>> and
>>> not on William Rivers Pitt defending himself.
>>>
>>> peace
>>> sharpie
>>>
>>> also, can i get added to the editorial list? thanks!
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Boston-editorial mailing list
>>> Boston-editorial at lists.indymedia.org
>>> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-editorial
>>>
>>
>>
>
>