Good work undercurrents...Everyoen should click onto that site above.

This magazine is read by everyone in the mainstream media and we can leave comments and thus talk directly to the hacks and shake them up!

I agree with Paul that there is a lot of lazy corporate journalism in the coverage of this movement....

BUT... there is also a lot of very shoddy journalism coming from the independent side. Many Indymedia sites are little more than places for activists to vent their spleens about issues that concern them. Well, that's fine as far as it goes, but I don't think you can hold up such frequently un-sourced, opinionated and occasionally inaccurate polemic/rumour as a model for the way journalism should go.

An example: I was at the Diaz School within half an hour of the cops going in. A number of activist journalists swore blind that the police had killed several people in the raid and that they "had seen bodies being taken out."

There is no denying that the raid was a shocking and disgusting act of police brutality -- but there is a big difference between beating people up (as the police did) and killing them (as the police didn't -- apart from Giulianni)... now what would have happened if I had reported a mass killing as some in Indymedia thought had occured?

Answer:

1. It would have played into the police hands as they would have been able to start do discredit EVERYTHING said against their raid. It may even be that the police were hoping for this reaction which is maybe why they used bodybags to carry some of their so-called "evidence" out of the building.
2. I would have made a serious professional fuck-up.

It is important to realise that there are good corporate journalists as well as bad -- and to acknowledge the shortcomings and areas for improvement among activist media. Because with the exception of a few people (like Undercurrents/Schnews) a lot of independent journalists still have a lot to learn about technique, news management, production values, accuracy, fact checking, sourcing and so on.

It's not good enough to say "well, these reports come from people who have a morally acceptable standpoint, so they must be being 100% accurate with everything they are saying."

Similarly, releasing tapes of police violence in Genoa almost seven weeks after the demonstrations and without a strong news peg just ain't gonna make: as far as some News Editors are concerned Genoa isn't news anymore, it's history.

Likewise, if more independents had a better understanding of the way the mainstream works they would be better able to exploit it and get their pictures/opinions aired.

I don't think there is a conspiricy against activists as such... but there is a lot of mutual incomprehension and a certain measure of arrogance -- from BOTH sides.