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

[Elly Robson]

"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."

wavy hands to this statement, Murray.

Jonathan, the only thing I worry about is that the media team has a
specific remit, agreed by a national gathering, which makes us fully
accountable to the camp. A lot of us have been to most national
gatherings in the run-up to camp and are up-to-date on what
information the camp wishes to have publicised when. While IndieMedia
are undoubtedly friendly and sympathetic to us and there is much cross
over between indiemedia journalists and the camp, the same
relationship does not exist between IndieMedia and the camp as 'the
media team of the climate camp' and the camp.

when you say - 'I think there is a danger of climate camp becoming too
controlling, and some people think this already.' - you need to
remember that there is a process by which the media team operates to
keep in line with the decisions of the camp, which IndieMedia and
others are not involved in in the same way. Part of our remit is to
get across the key climate change-related messages that the camp has
agreed on. (also please note the degree of control decided by campers
this year is a lot more relaxed than previous years).

I think a newsfeed, including a selection of IndieMedia articles, is
absolutely fine, but sourcing needs to be made clear (ie. this article
is from IndieMedia London), light-touch moderation is useful (if only
because not all articles will be as important/well-written/relevant as
others) and there needs to be space for news directly from the media
team, not just for press releases (as some things are not mainstream
newsworthy but will be of interest to campers and potential campers)
on either the same newsfeed or a seperate one.

A (lightly moderated) blog should be used to express the opinions of
different campers and provide the multi-faceted perspectives and
myriad politics of the camp.

Moderation of articles would be determined by our remit, agreed by
national gathering, not just arbitary 'control'.

Elly

ps. the website is looking crazy hot - really accessible and fantastic!


2009/8/17 Murray <muppet317 at hotmail.com>:
> 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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