[Imc-uk-features] London and Glasgow: Brown's 'Bombs'?

[Ben]

Ok, like others, I wasn't around over the weekend to comment on the  
browns bombs feature during the 24 consultation period and I was  
suprised to see it on the site this morning. I can certainly see why  
guy was surprised and believed the choice of timing was rather cynical.

Chris has been asking what exactly the objections are. I personally  
believe that features like that have no place on indymedia for the  
same reasons raised by some people over the climate change piece a  
week or so ago. Here is my take on why such articles have no place on  
indymedia uk.

The feature brings together a bunch of posts that have appeared in  
response to the bombing attempts in London and scotland. It does not  
link to a single promoted post which I think is revealing. If the  
promoted wire represents those posts that most fit the ethos of the  
site it would seem logical that a feature which reflected the ethos  
of the site would be made up mostly of promoted articles.

The way I understand it, Indymedia is meant to be about original  
grassroots reporting. This feature is not.

The posts link to include those from mainstream professional  
journalists such as John Pilgers post from the New Internationalist,  
and also the Nafeez Ahmed post, again an article from a professional  
who's credits include the BBC, Channel 4, Sky News, C-SPAN and FOX  
News. These are not grassroots news and while such posts might  
occasionally be tolerated in newswire, I find it incredible that we  
would make a feature out of them. They might be good, we might agree  
with what is said, we might like the power in their writing or the  
political thrust but they do not represent grassroots reporting.

We've also got a link to a repost from Countercurrents and there are  
two links to articles reposted from The Register, both of which are  
commentaries on coverage in other media. Again, neither are original  
grassroots reporting, merely re-reporting and quoting what has been  
covered in the mainstream.

Most of these posts are copyrighted reposts, posted without copyright  
notices on indymedia. Another link takes us to a copyright  article  
written in 2003 and reposted on indymedia from the AxisofLogic website.

One 'article' linked to is nothing more than a single line quote from  
the Lancet!

Basically it boils down to this for me... indymedia was never  
intended to be a debating forum about current affairs nor an  
aggregation site for news reports and commentary published elsewhere  
that happen to fit a certain world view. There are thousands of sites  
that do that and do it better because they don't have conflicting  
guidelines over reposts and original reporting.

It's hard to see how the attempted terror attacks (or false flag  
operations) could ever be an indymedia feature unless the bombers  
themselves were posting an 'action report', or the somebody in the  
fire brigade posted about their experiences that day, or an  
eyewitness evacuated from local premises or taking pictures with  
their mobile at Glasgow airport. The 'A Taste Of Things To Come'  
feature suffered from these problems too as others pointed out and it  
was a while before the feature could be shoehorned into shape.

There has been a lot of stuff coming up recently which has  
demonstrated there is a clear divide in how different people perceive  
indymedia and it's mission.

I spend a lot of time and effort on indymedia stuff increasingly  
things like this feature and the arguments over hiding the  
speculative rants seen after the failed london car bombs leave me  
questioning why I bother. I don't think that indymedia UK really  
exists as a collective which shares the same goals reflected by the  
mission statement and this manifests itself not only in time  
consuming debates about the merits of non grassroots reporting on the  
site but also in the way in which we manage to make decisions about  
changes to improve the site and processes which manage the site. It  
feels like we are at an impasse.

I can easily understand how italy, melbourne and other indymedia  
collectives have simply closed down to assess what they are all  
about. Things have changed a lot since indymedia came into being and  
those changes have created challenges for indymedia which have not  
yet really been addressed.

ben