Friday, January 19, 2001

An article from the most recent Nation Magazine entitled "The Crackdown on Dissent" has been posted on the DC Indymedia site. While it primarily focuses on police surveillance and actions against protestors engaged in direct action, this chilling climate is also very significant to anyone doing or intending to do independent journalism. In the eyes of police agencies independent journalists, especially those affiliated with IMCs are not viewed as "legitimate" journalists and treated with the same prejudice and violence reserved for people they view as "only" activists. Without getting into a debate about whether or not independent journalists are actually activists (I'll let you decide that for yourself--I don't presume to tell anyone what they are or aren't), when police attack journalists in addition to citizens protesting station action and repression, then the last refuge for free information dissemination necessary for democratic redress of state repression breaks down.

Pardon me while I get off on a rant....
Indpendent journalists are one of the last conduits for unencumbered news and information about what really happens in the streets, on campuses and behind closed doors. The frequent lack of flash or polish simply reveals the rough and ugly nature of what really goes on outside the purview of the corporate media. When the corporate media self-censors to protect significant financial interests and indenendent journalists are attacked, maimed and arrested for expressing their First Amendment rights on issues and events the government and moneyed interests would prefer left uncovered, then the true totalitarian and fascistic aspects of our political-economic system become both more solidified and clearer.

The collusion between state police power and the interests of corporate capital have nothing to do with the free market and everything to do with controlling citizens by whatever means available. The mainstream media has become less of a market and more of a star chamber, where entry is closely controlled. When I cannot videotape and publish illegal police actions without fearing for my life, then there is no free market in media or speech. Any claim by corporate interests that there is such a free market is a bald faced lie.
posted 1/19/2001 06:23:24 PM