[Imc-uk-features] 9/11 protests feature

[Chris]

Hi

On Wed 13-Sep-2006 at 03:19:56PM +0100, Zak wrote:
> 
> Personally, I'm concerned about giving such prominence
> to this topic, as it makes it easy for our enemies to
> pigeonhole us into a "loony" category ...  I'm not sure
> this debate is important enough (in the context of our
> mission statement) that it's worth running that gauntlet
> -- irrespective of what the truth of 9/11 might be.

Raising concerns about global warming, peak oil and
countless other issues, which we carry, were, when they
were first raised, dismissed as "loony". The mainstream no
doubt considers us as loonie irrespective of us covering
the 9/11 Truth Movement or not.

However, the left (and I'm using the term in it's broadest
sense here) has not yet had many prominent people or
groups who have come out and said that the official story
cannot be true -- if we run this article it will be ground
breaking. I don't think this is something we should be
afraid of doing, I think this is the point (or at least a
point) of Indymedia.

With regard the mission statment, we have this:

  The focus of the Indymedia UK collective is on
  grassroots politics, actions and campaigns

This article is not being proposed in the absence of
grassroots politics, actions or campaigns -- the basis of
it is the protest in London on Monday, without that action
this article would not be proposed. There has never been a
feature article on the 9/11 Truth Movement before but
there has also never been a protest involving over 100
people in the UK about this issue before. There is a
section of the peace movement prepared to get out on the
streets to get their message across -- this fact and the
message they have, is a story suitable for Indymedia IMHO.

I'm not sure what gauntlet people will have to run, but
then I don't have a problem defending some of the
assertions of the 9/11 Truth Movement because I think they
have got a lot of things right (I'm also happy having a go
at the crazy, indefensible, fringes) -- I can see that
people who haven't looked into it are going to feel
uncomfortable if they are put on the spot to defend the
ideas of a movement that they haven't studied and don't
support.

But isn't this always the case with Indymedia? The meat
eating hunters amoungst us are never going to defend our
coverage of animal rights protests and nobody would expect
them to.

I don't think we can get away from the fact that not
everybody involved with Indymedia is going to be involved
with all the issues that are carried on the site -- I go
along with the consensus amoungst those people who have
studied GMO's about which articles have to be hidden --
GMO's is not a matter I have spent much time looking into.

> However, this does seem like a very detailed feature
> (more so that we get very often) and I'm *not* going to
> block it, although I feel my concerns are worth
> mentioning.

Thanks, I'm glad you took the time to write the email.

> There are a couple of more specific points that I think
> need attention:
> 

>   (1) The feature, as it stands, contains a short
>       discussion of IMC UK hiding policy. I'm rather
>       uneasy about discussing this in a centre-column
>       feature, given that we usually make a point of
>       keeping editorial discussion off the newswire.

I understand, I'll bear this in mind when editing it tonight.

>   (2) mish has proposed a reference to one of manos's
>       posts to this list. I think the sentiments
>       expressed in that email are highly relevant, but
>       at the same time I'm not keen on linking to our
>       mailing lists from a feature. They may be public,
>       but it doesn't mean we necessarily want to put up
>       a big "trolls this way" sign :) Perhaps a similar
>       text posted as an addition to the feature would be
>       a better option?  We can still link to the Schnews
>       article from the main feature, which raises
>       related concerns.

I agree.

Chris

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