Building Indymedia
by Eric Galatas
from the book
Project Censored 2001
by Peter Phillips and Project
Censored
Seven Stories Press, 2001,
paper, p331
"By not having to answer to the monster
media monopolies, the independent media has a life's work, a political
project, and a purpose: to let the truth be known. This is increasingly
important in the globalization process. Truth becomes a knot of
resistance against the lie."
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos La Realidad,
Chiapas; January 31st, 1997 from Our Word is Our Weapon (Seven
Stories Press, 2000)
N30 stands for November 3O, 1999. This
was the day that thousands of activists from across the globe
planned to shut down the "crown jewel" of corporate
globalization, a Breton/Woods and GATT progeny known as the World
Trade Organization (WTO). Labor, indigenous rights groups, environmentalists,
organizations of faith, youth, anarchists, and more all made their
way to Seattle to proclaim in a very loud voice that so-called
free trade policies were costing the majority of people on the
planet more than they could, or would, pay.
And the activists were creative. Ready
to don turtle costumes, drop banners from high-rises and from
expansion bridges, this unprecedented coalition intended to pull
out every trick in the book to wow mainstream news outlets, to
spread their message by becoming that day's media darlings on
front pages the world over.
Independent media activists weren't convinced
that corporate media would provide a platform for anti-corporate
globalization critics. Conglomerate mergers had shrunk the number
of corporate owned outlets from 50 in 1986, to fewer than 10 at
the end of the millennium. PBS, NPR, and virtually every other
supposedly public interest media organization had been successfully
de-fanged by the time 85,000 activists put on costumes, carried
signs of protest, and locked down in front of the Paramount Theater
in the center of Seattle for the WTO opening ceremonies.
On N30, corporate coverage of the largest
protests seen on U.S. soil since the 1960s turned out to be pretty
much as the indy press had predicted. And from the point of view
of the powerful, it almost worked.
Reporters bypassed the arguments of WTO
critics, and instead gave focus to select images of mayhem and
disaster. CNN reported that police were not using rubber bullets
against window-smashing protestors-citing official police sources,
of course. Everyone watching a screen across the planet saw virtually
the same picture. Sure, the police in riot gear resembled Darth
Vader storm troopers; but, as the respectable pundits were quick
to point out, the troublemakers in the streets were the ones to
blame. The activists bringing on the violence were, according
to Milton Friedman's expansive arguments in the New York Times,
"global village idiots" who didn't understand progress,
and were standing in the way of the prosperity awaiting each and
every one of us under the rule of a corporate controlled global
economy.
But on November 30, 1999, something went
wrong. Not only did official sources fail to predict the resolve
and sheer number of people willing to put their bodies on the
line to stop the WTO meetings, they failed to predict the emergence
of a new media, a people's media, with just enough firepower to
effectively break through the corporate-owned media's information
blockade.
More than 400 independent print, radio,
photo, video, and Internet journalists worked nonstop during the
weeks leading up to N30 to organize a new model for event-based,
real-time news coverage. The experiment was called the Independent
Media Center (IMC). Stringing together scrap-heap bound computers
to high bandwidth internet connections (a revolutionary software
that enables instantaneous publishing via the World Wide Web),
along with overnight satellite television uplinks, a daily newspaper
and several microradio transmitters, an ad hoc news room was created
virtually overnight.
When CNN reported that no rubber bullets
were being aimed at mothers and children, these independent journalists
had an answer. The answer came in the form of a series of photos
and video stills, taken directly in the line of fire, of the very
same rubber bullets, concussion grenades, and chemical agents
unleashed upon peacefully assembled global citizens. These images
were posted on the Independent Media Center website, www.indymedia.org,
alongside in-depth articles explaining why so many had taken to
the streets to shut down the WTO. On N30, the IMC site registered
over a million hits. CNN decided to change its story.
Since N30, the growing movement to disable
corporate globalization has met the WTO and its ilk at every turn.
In Washington, D.C., activists did not manage to shut down the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings. Instead,
they shut down the entire U.S. federal government, as D.C. police
sealed off some 90 square blocks to keep concerned citizens from
disturbing anti-democratic and unaccountable globalization power
brokers.
During the U.S. Presidential conventions
in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, and the globalization resistance
demonstrations in Davos, Windsor, Melbourne, Prague, and The Hague,
the movement to challenge unbridled corporate power stalled what
was at one time considered to be a monolithic inevitability. A
crisis of confidence among elite global powers became visible.
In one example, Stephen Byers, Secretary of Trade and Industry
for the United Kingdom, announced, "The WTO will not be able
to continue in its present form. There has to be fundamental and
radical change in order for it to meet the needs and aspirations
of all 134 of its members."
And at every antiglobalization turn, Independent
Media Centers have formed to ensure that activist voices are not
silenced by a media system bought and paid for by the direct beneficiaries
of global corporate power.
Since Seattle, live satellite television
feeds reaching some 30 million households via Free Speech TV,
community radio, and cable access have been added to the IMC information
arsenal. Add to that multiple language publications, real-time
webcasts, improved server capacity, increased bandwidth and advanced
web-publishing software. The IMC experiment-one of purpose, collaboration,
and collective effort-is expanding. There are now some 43 IMCs,
spreading out from Seattle to international hubs in Quebec, Sydney,
Italy, Israel, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, the Congo, and more.
To get involved in, or help build, an
IMC near you, follow these links:
AUSTRALIA
Melbourne
melbourne.indymedia.org
Sydney
sydney.indymedia.org
EUROPE
Finland
kulma.net/vaikuttava
Belgium
belgium.indymedia.org
Czech Republic
prague.indymedia.org
United Kingdom
uk.indymedia.org
France
france.indymedia.org
Italy
italy.indymedia.org
Switzerland
switzerland.indymedia.org
CANADA
Calgary
calgary.indymedia.org
Hamilton
hamilton.indymedia.org
Montreal
montreal.indymedia.org
Ontario
ontario.indymedia.org
Quebec
cmaq.net
Vancouver
vancouver.indymedia.org
Windsor
windsor.indymedia.org
OTHER COUNTRIES
Brazil
brasil.indymedia.org
Colombia
columbia.indymedia.org
Congo
congo.indymedia.org
Israel
indymedia.org.il
Mexico
mexico.indymedia.org
UNITED STATES
Albany
nycap.indymedia.org
Arizona
arizona.indymedia.org
Atlanta
atlanta.indymedia.org
Austin
austin.indymedia.org
Boston
boston.indymedia.org
Buffalo
buffalo.indymedia.org
Chicago
chicago.indymedia.org
Cleveland
cleveland.indymedia.org
Los Angeles
la.indymedia.org
Madison
madison.indymedia.org
Minneapolis
minneapolis.indymedia.org
New York City
nyc.indymedia.org
Ohio Valley
ohiovalleyimc.org
Philadelphia
phillyimc.org
Portland
portland.indymedia.org
Richmond
richmond.indymedia.org
Rocky Mountains
rockymountain.indymedia.org
Salt Lake City
saltlake.indymedia.org
San Francisco/Bay Area
sf.indymedia.org
Seattle
seattle.indymedia.org
Urbana-Champaign
urbana.indymedia.org
Washington, D.C.
dc.indymedia.org
Eric Galatas helped organize IMCs in Seattle
and Washington, D.C., and was project coordinator for Free Speech
TV's live satellite broadcasts of collaborative IMC programming
from the Republican and Democratic Presidential Convention protests
in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Eric is Program Manager for Free
Speech TV, now available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on DISH
Network Channel 9415, on community cable stations across the U.S.
and on the net at www.freespeech.org.
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