[Imc-uk-features] No bias here [was: Feature prposal:]

[maqui]

Hello

catching up with emails ...

On Thursday, November 30, 2006, at 06:07  pm, Doug. wrote:

> I've just done a rough survey of UK features for 2006.
>
> 51 are internationally related, including immigration.
> 42 are UK related.
>
> The last SOCPA feature was 2-7-06 and the last Critical Mass feature 
> was
> 4-10-2005.
>
> There seems to be a definite bias here.

Doug, you are probably right in that there should be more features 
about SCOPA stuff, or about critical mass. There are a few of you 
(including yourself with your great video reports) that have been doing 
an amazing work over the last year or two on the scopa issue.

But then again, I don't think there isn't any bias here, nor any 
conscious decision abut promoting some issues over others that you (or 
anyone else) may find important. The fact is that features are not done 
by an official 'editorial collective'. Anyone can put one together, and 
the process of how to go about doing this is pretty clear, and in fact, 
it hasn't rally changed since imc-uk came on line 6 years ago.

Also, I think it is quite often the case that imc volunteers get into 
writing features about subjects they either are involved with, know 
about or are interested in. No one is a 'professional feature writer' 
here, and it is much easier to put one together about a subject one 
knows or has experience about, than doing it from the outside .. like 
journos normally do. Therefore I guess the best way to make sure that 
SCOPA, or critical mass, or any other 'local' issues are regularly 
featured in the middle column, would be for people that know and follow 
these issuse to put features together, and propose them in this list .. 
which in fact it has been done in the past several times .. at least as 
far as SCOPA is concerned.

It's all about the diversity of personal interests of the people 
involved in imc. That's why indymedia often manages to have a variety 
of issues covered on the middle columns, and to me this is definitely a 
bonus. I, for one, love to have 'international' features on the front 
page, but i think i've already said that before, haven't i? :-)

Cheers
maqui

PD: I'm also not sure what you mean here: "51 are internationally 
related, including immigration."

i mean, immigration and the appalling treatment of 'illegal' migrant 
people in the uk is a very local issue, is it not? I mean how much more 
local can you  get than the riot in Harmondsworth Immigration Prison 
story?