[Imc-communication] Corporate Watch article on the Knight grant fiasco

[Sofia JarrinT]

Well, for the record. I think you lack journalistic ethics by selecting certain issues and not others AND you are doing this to serve yourself, not Indymedia.

"Thanks!" for being fair on this issue.



----- Original Message ----
From: Shiar <shiar at riseup.net>
To: Sofia JarrinT <sofiajt at yahoo.com>
Cc: imc-communication at lists.indymedia.org
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 9:09:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Imc-communication] Corporate Watch article on the Knight      grant fiasco

Hi,

On Tue, November 18, 2008 3:28 pm, Sofia JarrinT wrote:
> Thanks for sending this draft *before* publishing it.

..in the spirit of openness bla bla.

> Many of the facts on it are wrong and should be corrected, as follows:

Hope we can distinguish between facts and opinions.

> - "It has transpired that a small group of Indymedia volunteers, mainly
> from IMC Boston, USA"  That is incorrect. Here you can find the list of
> all the Indymedias who were on the list, although UK Indymedia has since
> then corrected the fact that they had a consensus to participate:
> http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Devel/NewsChallenge2009.

I'm sure you've seen the emails from some of those IMCs saying they were
not aware of the proposal, did not perceive themselves as participants
and, therefore, should not have been on that list as such. It has also
been pointed out that some of those IMC's don't really exist.

Anyway, i've changed to:
"It has transpired that a small group of Indymedia volunteers from various
IMCs, but mainly from IMC Boston, USA..."
and
"Volunteers from 13 IMCs across the globe, including IMC UK, were listed
as 'participants'..."

> I DON'T think it's fair to single out Boston IMC just because I've been
> more outspoken than others.

I think it is fairly accurate to say applicants were mainly from IMC
Boston. I have not seen anyone from any other IMC defending the proposal.

> That would terribly hurt our Boston Imc
> community.

That's certainly not my intention and sorry it has played out this way.

> But you COULD say, volunteers from 13 Indymedias (although it
> was 15... a couple unofficially).

That wouldn't be accurate though (see above).

> - "although the CMS is said to 'not scale' for high-traffic sites and is
> not capable of providing the decentralisation
> necessary for sites like Indymedia to protect them against repressive
> state measures such as seizing their servers." This I disagree with and is
> debatable. Drupal is a CMS that is in development and is currently being
> used for Radio Indymedia...

Many techies whose opinions I trust have said that, including on this
list, so i don't think i'm making that up.

> - "The applicants say there has been a 'miscommunication' and that they
> did not fully understand how the 'complicated' IMC structure worked."  I
> would remove those quotes and replace with a more accurate statement..

Here's the emails where you yourself said that:
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-communication/2008-November/1116-1b.html
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-communication/2008-November/1112-v3.html
I don't think i'm misrepresenting you.

> such
> as: "The proposal application was done too fast, which created a break in
> communication. Moreover, IMC volunteers who applied for the grant lacked
> all the information about IMC processes which goes shows the challenges of
> internet communication for a network that has grown exponentially at the
> global level."

I don't think that's good enough tbh. However, I have added the word
'hastily' in the 2nd para:
It has transpired that a small group of Indymedia volunteers from various
IMCs, but mainly from IMC Boston, USA, had hastily applied to the Knight
Foundation's News Challenge contest...

> - "IMC Boston has been struggling for the past three years to find
> committed techies who can help them build a new site." That's also
> inaccurate.

See your email here:
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-communication/2008-November/1113-sn.html
"And we've been struggling for the past 3 years to find a committed
developer (worked with 3 different ones) who can help us build a new
site!"

> - last but not least, I think it would be interesting to point out that
> the Knight Foundation has also a whole funding program for press freedom
> and freedom of information, including the National Security Archive. Was
> does that mean in regards to "manufacturing consent"? What is their
> contradiction in supporting "open source" media and a large corporation
> such as Knight Rider? How do you feel about that one of their programs is
> supporting CPJ which launched a campaign for Brad Will (and there's no
> mention of Indymedia)?

But isn't that exactly the point? Boud explains is well in the rest of his
email here
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-communication/2008-November/1106-kz.html
"How can DEpendent media evolve to allow the new freedoms which thanks
to Indymedia/Wikipedia/other wikis/blogs have become accepted as a
minimum standard of openness by vast numbers of people in mostly rich or
middling-rich countries, while all the same retaining some sort of
filtering or management mechanisms in order not to let the capitalist,
hierarchical, militarist, colonialist order be threatened with fundamental
change?"

See, co-option is not always as simple as someone coming directly to you
and offering you money on the condition that you change your politics. It
is often a much more complex and subtle process.

Perhaps people campaigning for Brad Will shouldn't have gone for Knight
Foundation funding? I can see how this sort of things could be easily used
by such companies as a whitewash etc.

I'm afraid i don't have much time for long debates and emails, but i hope
i answered your questions...

---
Shiar