[Cc-webedit] [mediateam] News during camp & website

Mon Aug 17 10:59:22 BST 2009

hi all,

i see jody's point about losing control over 'news' and the potential for major issues that could arise from just promoting any 'climate camp' indymedia content on our website however it does also highlight an inherent conflict between the media team's work to control and manage our messaging and the desire to promote campers producing news themselves (thus avoiding the spin, sensationalisation and misrepresentation of the mainstream media).

having said that i think we can find a way to do both, and hopefully without too much effort! one option could simply be to rename the 'news' section something like 'Climate Camp on Indymedia' and having a separate section of the page for either a climate camp blog or 'news' from the media team. this could help to promote campers own reporting while retaining the difference between 'the camp's messaging' and 'the views of all the people at camp' which are definitely distinct.

alternatively some 'light touch' moderation / selective promotion of content could be one way of ensuring that way off message content does not appear in climate camps name. while this could be perceived as controlling, the media working grop remit does include promoting the politics and actions of camp through mainstream and independent media (not just promoting anyone's views). but - does anyone actually have capacity to take on promoting / moderating content for this during the week?

i hope this can help us to find a way to resolve this issue before camp as i think its vital that the new website can promote campers own stories, allowing us to show a different side of camp to the one that is normally portrayed in mainstream media, while also ensuring that the political views that appear on our website aren't massively off the messages and politics the movement as a whole has agreed.

cheers,

murray

Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:23:18 +0100
From: jody at eco-labs.org
To: j at jonathanleighton.com
CC: mediateam at lists.riseup.net; cc-webedit at lists.aktivix.org
Subject: Re: [mediateam] News during camp & website

hi Jonathan, - I forgot to say thanks for all the work you are doing and hope not stress you out at the last moment. Sorry if this conflicts with earlier discussions that I missed - hope you can find a easy way to resolve this???
Jody

www.eco-labs.org
www.teach-in.co.uk

2009/8/17 Jody Boehnert <jody at eco-labs.org>

HI Jonathan & all,

Yes, if I understand this correctly I have to say I do have a major objection to it as I think it could easily undermine the work the media team is doing in developing messaging. We should not publish opinions from individual campers on our website as 'news' - This could potentially be disasterous given the wide range of opinions within CC - it could be very off-topic, ill-considered or even a little crazy. 

I would not like to just pull articles from Indemedia either - although they do have a bit of moderation set up it is not fast enough and their standards are not the same as CC media policy.

'News' on our website needs to come from the media team, there is not way of opening this up without causing chaos.  Blogs are different - but need to be moderated, not presented as news, and not have as high a priority on the site.

Jody

www.eco-labs.org
www.teach-in.co.uk

2009/8/16 Jonathan Leighton <j at jonathanleighton.com>

Hi all,

[This is quite important to read if you care about the provisions for
open publishing during camp.]

So far, our plan has been to set up a news.climatecamp.org.uk website
for people to post to. Some important concerns have been raised about
this approach, and discussed informally between various individuals:

* We don't have a process set up for moderating / promoting articles.
Any process we do set up could be seen as an attempt by climate camp to
control what people are saying.

* Having a climate camp specific news site could be seen as distancing
ourselves from Indymedia and therefore "the movement", which could
amplify bad feeling

* Setting up a specific news site would be more work for the website
group to build and maintain. We are already short on time with the new
website launching within 2 days.

So there's a proposal for a change of plan.

PROPOSAL: We use London Indymedia and pull promoted articles tagged with
"climatecamp" from there. We put a link from our website which takes
people directly to a publish page for this tag. This makes sense
because:

* We don't have to do any setup/maintenance
* The camp is in London
* It's part of Indymedia and therefore the "movement"
* It won't leave people confused about what the difference is between
Indymedia and "our" news site

This is both pragmatic and probably better politically.

We have basically no time for long discussions on this. If people have
MAJOR objections, please voice them by NOON TOMORROW (that's Monday 16th
August).

Thanks,
Jon

-----------------------------
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