Northwest Media Action

Aberdeen Port Protests

2007-05-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

Just as with the Port of Tacoma protests, we would like any and all information you have regarding the Port of Grays Harbor protest in Aberdeen.

We will be linking to all of that information at one of our member sites, The Tahoma Activist, where we are compiling updates from the news media as well as blogs and citizen reports.

Northwest Media Action wants your stories about the Port

2007-03-07T13:51:00.000-08:00

As you may already know, the Port of Tacoma is planning to ship hundreds of Stryker armored vehicles over to Iraq as part of the planned "surge" that Congress is debating. If you have any eywitness accounts or photos, please send them to us here at Northwest Media Action, and we will post them as soon as we can.

Public Access Working Group meeting

2006-12-28T17:39:00.000-08:00

This from Public Access Unit organizer Heather Carawan:

"The Public Access Working Group met last Friday, December 8th, to strategize about gathering information and approaching city council members about the growing desire for Public Access television in Tacoma / Pierce County. Please consider attending our next meeting, Friday, January 12th at 6:00 p.m. at King’s Books (218 Saint Helens Ave, Tacoma, 98402 - (253) 272-8801), where Melanie Cunningham will discuss previous efforts to bring Public Access to Tacoma."

New meeting for combined print/online efforts

2006-11-05T20:23:00.000-08:00

To everyone in the club who would like to help direct the course of our online and print efforts, please try to attend the next meeting. Here's the link with all the requisite information.

If you won't be able to attend, please send us any information about what you think should be done in these areas to northwestmediaaction@gmail.com - thanks for all you do!

Pictures from Thom Hartmann's appearance at King's Books

2006-10-30T22:21:00.000-08:00

Special thanks to our newest member, Rick Landry, for these pictures taken at Thom Hartmann's book signing at King's Books this last Saturday. To see more of Rick's work, check out his member page.

Categories: Member Artwork

Watch Mike Honey's latest video on Lt. Ehren Watada

2006-10-20T14:09:00.000-07:00

Tahoma Activist has set up a new You Tube Channel called Freedom Nation as a clearinghouse for all the stories the mainstream media doesn't want us to know about. First on our playlist: "A Soldier's Duty? The Ehren Watada Story", a 16-minute video just produced by Mike Honey and Paul Lovelady.

Come on by Freedom Nation and express your support for Lt. Watada and the Northwest's own Mike Honey, who was one of the first local figures to support our efforts to transform local media.

Categories: Independent Video, Member Artwork

Photos of October 5th rally in Olympia

2006-10-18T12:21:00.000-07:00

Our newest member, Rick Landry of University Place, took these great photos at the recent October 5th peace protest in Olympia.

Categories: Member Artwork

Tahoma Progressive Media Conference was a huge success!

2006-10-09T09:30:00.000-07:00

Congratulations, organizers! You did it! The Tahoma Progressive Media Conference surpassed all expectations. We had over sixty people in attendance, the speeches were great, we learned a lot and we made the magic happen in five different working groups. We really have a lot to be proud of!

I would encourage everyone who attended the conference to send your impressions of the event here to me at tahomaactivist@yahoo.com, so I can work them up into a post about it. You may also comment here at will, or write in about any number of subjects.

The most important bit of news I have for you all is that we now have a Northwest Media Action Internet Unit, who will be working on developing a top-flight website for Tacoma, as well as improving this site to highlight all your great new work in the field of media! Send everything you have, or links to anything larger than a megabyte (1000 K) to northwestmediaaction@gmail.com - there we can transform your raw material into something spiffy for web viewing, and link it right here to the main page.

Even better, we are building a next generation web portal to serve as the central hub for all of Tacoma and the Northwest Media landscape. Come to our temporary site, register and begin discussing your ideas for what this new site should look like.

Also, if anyone has any pictures of the event, send them to me at tahomaactivist@yahoo.com so I can add them to the site!

P.S. Thanks once again to dickeatsbush.com for making a video specifically for the conference - sorry we didn't have the tech set up to play it at the conference, but it sure looks great! I urge everyone who came to check out the video, "Waiting for the Fall", right here on Northwest Media Action!

Categories: Announcements

Michelle did a great job on "Equal Time"!

2006-10-06T21:13:00.000-07:00

Michelle Pizzo, moderator of the Progressive Roundtable and one of our Lead Organizers, performed admirably on Frank Blair and Audrey Chase's "Equal Time", the progressive talk radio show on KLAY 1180.

This show is probably the only show of its kind in the Northwest, a truly progressive talk show that is totally super-local. It's just one hour a week, Noon to 1 on Fridays, featuring local candidates like Darcy Burner, local issues like land use and zoning issues, and features ads from the Pierce County Democrats and other progressive organizations and small businesses, which means he's been doing for years exactly what we're planning to do.

The interview is great - check it out right here.

Categories: Announcements

Member Artwork

2006-10-01T14:20:00.000-07:00

Here you will find art by various members of our team.

Rick Landry's photos of the Olympia October 5th war protest

Mike Honey's tremendous documentary about Lt. Ehren Watada

Watch DickEatsBush.com's latest video on Iraq

2006-10-01T08:29:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to DickEatsBush.com for creating this stirring video of wartime in Iraq, set to David Rovics' "Waiting for the Fall", from his most latest album "Halliburton Boardroom Massacre".

Here's the link: http://www.dickeatsbush.com/wat4fall.htm

If you like what you see, feel free to leave a message for the creator in the comments section, and we'll be sure he gets it!

Don't forget, the Tahoma Progressive Media Conference is Saturday, October 7th, from 10 to 2 PM at the IBEW Hall - 3049 S. 36th, Tacoma, WA. Be there or be left out of the process of building a true citizens' media, committed to improving the lives of all Americans and building real, livable communities where real peoples' stories or highlighted. The slogan for this event: "Don't hate the media, become the media!"

Marilyn Kimmerling

2006-10-01T07:56:00.000-07:00

Marilyn Kimmerling is fifty-eight and a mother to two terrific grown sons she would like to pass a better world on to. She has worked as a counselor to children and families in the community mental health system for the past 21 years, was born and raised in the DC area, moved to San Francisco during the 60's (of course!) and came to the Tacoma area in 1971.

Her journeys in activism have led her down many paths, but all have the common thread of promoting a greener, more peaceful and more just local, national and world community. She has been involved in: the Counter-Inaugeral Bawl and march against the reelection of Nixon, planting sod in People's Park in Berkeley during the anti-Vietnam war movement, protesting the nuclear plant at Satsop, picketing the Ruston smelter for the very first Earth Day and generally protesting against violence whether domestic, national or international. Marilyn was also responsible for bringing the Liar-Liar-Pants-on-Fire-mobile to the Tacoma area for a fun-filled week of voter registration and levity on it's cross country tour in 2004.

In addition to her paid job as a counselor she is currently a member of United for Peace of Pierce County, America in Solidarity, Jobs with Justice, The Tacoma Raging Grannies, the Progressive Democrats. Marilyn is a founding member of the Progressive Roundtable and also a PCO for the mainstream Dems - she supported Kuchinich for President (of course). Although she has no expertise at all in TV or documentaries, she loves to write and she DOES bring enthusiasm and energy to what she is passionate about and is willing to do whatever it takes to bring true public access TV and real information about the community and the world to the Tacoma/Pierce County area.

In Marilyn's words:

"I am willing to do whatever it takes because I know that the current arrogant, destructive fascist administration must be held accountable and stopped, and this can only be done when enough people know the truth and get mad enough to do something about it. I believe that what it will take is an informed population that consists of each person realizing that they are not powerless, each refusing to have his or her voice silenced, reaching out to find others and standing up TOGETHER against the abuse of power that typifies our current administration."

More Bios

Rick Landry

2006-10-01T07:27:00.000-07:00

Rick Landry is an accomplished writer and photographer, as well as the co-owner of Affairs Bakery in University Place. He comes to us via a fairly circuitous route: the Thom Hartmann show chatroom! Rick has written several interesting pieces, including this one about nail polish and Madison Avenue's new obsession: exploiting the poor to sell high-end consumer products. Rick had a regular column with The Tacoma Reporter for a year and a half. Rick plans to use his skills as a photojournalist to help our fellow citizens' learn about what's happening in the community. If you have any ideas for stories or need Rick's expertise on a story, contact him directly at rlandry@wamail.net

Rick runs Affairs' Cafe with his wife, Gay, and his son, Jesse. Rick is particularly proud of his graduation from The Evergreen State College at age 48.

Other work:

Rick's website
Affairs' website

More Bios

Jeff Richardson

2006-10-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

Jeff Richardson, AKA The Tahoma Activist, is a radical left-wing moonbat with a thirst for truth.

He was a fairly bookish wallflower at Gig Harbor High and Tacoma Community College, came out of his shell at Fairhaven in Bellingham and became a full-on leftist at The Evergreen State College, followed by an 8 year stint with the United States Postal Service. His passions are organized labor, anti-war protest, blogging, and writing revolutionary screeds on a myriad of issues.

Jeff presently serves as Reading Clerk with the Pierce County Central Labor Council, where he gets to take part in the labor movement's efforts to improve our community and defend the rights of all working people.

He also volunteers with America in Solidarity as chair of the Education Committee and serves on Northwest Media Action's Internet Unit Editorial Board. Contact him if you have any questions about NMA or organized labor in Tacoma, or would like to get involved with Internet activism in the Tacoma area.

Links:

The Tahoma Activist - local news and views with a radical perspective
NMA Internet Unit's temporary news page - Come and help us plan our new central hub site
Northwest Media Action - you're swimming in it!
America in Solidarity - the Voice of the American Worker
IWW.org - the World's Best Union
National Association of Letter Carriers - Your Neighborhood Mailperson's Union

Geov Parrish on why we need independent media

2006-09-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

Here's a short speech by our keynote speaker, Geov Parrish, on why we need independent media. Contact him and let him know what you think of it - he'd love to hear from you!

Member Bios

2006-09-01T06:44:00.000-07:00

Heather Carawan
Jeff Richardson
Tom McCarthy
Marilyn Kimmerling
Dana Price
Louisa Beal
Bill Johnston
Ross Rieder

New Members:

Rick Landry

Heather Carawan

2006-09-01T06:39:00.000-07:00

Heather Carawan, co-anchor of the public access/documentary media mode, is a filmmaker, photographer and educator. Her half-hour documentary film, The Telling Takes Me Home, about music and activism, will be screening locally in the upcoming 1st Annual Tacoma Film Festival (October 6th-12th) and it will be making its television debut on East Tennessee Public Television in November. Since relocating to Tacoma from the San Francisco Bay Area about one year ago, Heather has been freelancing as an editor and videographer, most recently producing a short piece for TeamChild, a youth advocacy non-profit organization.

More Bios

Welcome to the home of independent media!

2006-08-22T23:39:00.000-07:00

You have come to the home of independent media for the Pacific Northwest. Check out our Links section to learn more about our community partners, and to find out how to get involved! This is the group for you if you've ever wanted to make new media and didn't know how to get it off the ground.

To learn all about the Tahoma Progressive Media Conference, taking place Saturday, October 7th from 10 to 2 PM in Tacoma, click here!

Welcome to the club!

Categories: Announcements

Sponsorship Contract

2006-08-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

Contract to support the Northwest Media Action Fund

By signing this contract, I am pledging my support for the Progressive Roundtable (PRT), the Northwest Media Action Fund (NMAF), and/or the Tahoma Progressive Media Conference, to be held on Saturday, October 7th of this year.

A representative of our company or organization will attend the event and operate a table, with the option of selling items to be determined in consultation with the event's organizing committee.

I have chosen to donate in accordance with one of the following funding options:

Option 1: Direct Contribution of _______________ amount, payable to the Progressive Roundtable, referencing the TPMC in the subject line of the check.

Option 2: Sponsoring a table at the event at a price of $50.00 ($25 for non-profit), also payable to the PRT.

Option 3: We choose to join the NMAF at a yearly price of $100, to be renewed annually as desired. (Community organizations may join the fund at the $100, $250, or $500/year level) This will give us free tabling at one NMAF-sponsored event per year, to be exercised at our discretion. This will also give us access to all the benefits of membership in the Fund, which are enumerated in the Fund's Official Constitution, and include, but are not limited to, listing in all official lists of sponsors and event programs, advertising and promotion, and networking assistance with our members.

In-kind donations (equipment, volunteers, art supplies, food, etc.) are also graciously accepted. List everything you're donating and we will give you a receipt, and our gratitude!

Sign _____________________________________
Print _____________________________________
Date _____________________________________

You may also donate individually, at a Sustaining Member price of $25/year. All of our individual and organizational members will be honored in a yearly event and their names listed on our website (unless they opt to be anonymous)

A $5/year membership is also available, which allows you access to our meetings and our newsletter, but won't give you access to certain advanced features for Sustaining Members.

Individual Donors may contribute up to $1000/year, but may not receive any quid pro quo benefits or special access to our strategic partners and member media. 10% of all individual donations (above the Sustaining Member contribution) will be donated to similar organizations in the developing world.

You may also choose to allocate your individual donations to specific parts of the Fund, such as the Progressive Roundtable, particular events, different media properties, etc.)

Northwest Media Action Fund
www.mediaaction.blogspot.com

Categories: Getting Sponsors

Michelle's August Update

2006-08-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

Hello, media activists.

Seems like we’ve all been taking a break from the list-serve – hopefully so that we can do the work at hand. The clock is ticking.

I’ll ask and propose a few things in this email. I am almost certainly missing something, but to get the ball rolling:

* Jeff had an idea for video/tv monitors in the lobby. That is a stellar idea – if it can be done for free. Who will organize that endeavor?
* Ross – are we confirmed that someone will be in the IBEW Labor Hall next Wednesday at 7:00 so that we can have our meeting there and take a look at the joint? Do you need to pass that phone call off?
* I haven’t heard from anyone with changes or modifications to Tom’s original statement regarding the Progressive Media conference idea. As you may or may not know, I’m on the Board of League of Women Voters, and they have responded favorably to my request to put a blurb about the event in their next two mass mailings: The Voter, September 1st and October 1st (ish). I’m attaching the article I wrote for The Voter, and I suggest we either “ratify” or immediately change the third paragraph of it and then use it as our tag-line. The article has to be submitted right away for print deadline, so no comments back by the early afternoon means it goes as is. That doesn’t mean we can’t modify it over the next few days as a group for group use, but this sucker has to get to the League. If we can agree to a “print-blurb” before the meeting, I’ll print a butt-load of them up and bring them.
* Pat nailed down the ACLU endorsement. Are there any others confirmed that I can include right now in The Voter article?
* Speaking of publishing: Jeff and Marilyn, do you have a draft on a flier that you can share with us yet?
* I’m also attaching an updated outreach plan, where the biggest change is I’ve inserted media submission deadlines. The thing is still woefully empty and I’m not going to accept any more responsibility for contacts. You can see I have assumed a lot already. Please take a hard look at it and call me or email with more contact commitment.
* I also propose that the anchors of the group send around a very brief outline of their portion of the conference. Then at meeting next week we can brainstorm to fill any holes if someone needs help or inspiration.
* PRESSING: We need to agree to or bag a “key-note” speaker.
* PRESSING: We need firm commitments from speakers per mode.
* PRESSING: We need to outline our event (more solidly than is in my notes, at any rate).
* PRESSING: We need fliers.
* PRESSING: We need a consistent message statement to start making our outreach with.
* PRESSING: We need to start our outreach.
* NEXT MONTH: We’ll need to plan and fund the event itself.
* NEXT MONTH: We’ll need to go CRAZY on the outreach. Buzz is what makes these things happen big.
* NEXT MONTH: We can clear up any lingering concerns about money/donations, etc.

I know we’re all particularly interested in hearing from the media anchors with their program plans and successes. And we’re here to help if you’re hitting a wall – sooner is better than later! Hoping to hear from folks, and in haste….Michelle

Our Official Constitution

2006-08-15T23:41:00.000-07:00

[This is a working rough draft of our Official Constitution. It may be amended at the recommendation of the Executive Committee of Northwest Media Action, in consultation with the Constitution Committee and ratified by the General Assembly.]

Official Constitution of the Northwest Media Action Fund (NMAF)

Mission Statement

The Northwest Media Action Fund (NMAF) exists to provide networking assistance and developmental support to producers of independent media. By partnering with community organizations, small businesses and individual donors, we will have the resources and the contacts necessary to support the creation and expansion of new, independent, community-centered media.

Organizational Structure

This is a consensus-driven organization, so much of the organization will be worked out between the Executive Committee and the General Assembly through Constitutional changes. The Fund will be administered by an Executive Committee (EC) of between three to nine members (odd numbers only). Any voting member may run for office in the EC as well as for leadership positions in other committees, including but not limited to:

Outreach - bringing in new sponsors

New Media - bringing in and developing new media properties

Constitution - proposing changes to the Constitution and advising the EC and General Assembly

Promotion - spreading the word about the group and our member media properties

Events - planning and executing special events, as well as assisting member organizations with their events

Judicial - settling disputes between members

Art - compiling member artwork, designing new features for websites and events

Leadership

There should be an even mix between men and women in leadership roles. The EC should begin with 3 members, and then add officers two at a time, one male and one female. Voting should take place every three months, in which two officers, one male and one female, should be up for re-election.

Terms should last for one year, with no term limits.

No one should hold a Chair position in more than one committee, except the Chair of the EC, who may retain leadership of one other committee. If, however, there aren't enough members to fill those seats, this rule can be amended temporarily.

Voting

Voting in any election, or to resolve disputes, should be resolved using instant-runoff voting with secret ballot. Hand counts may be taken if there are only two choices, if no members disagree.

The losing position in any vote should be given the opportunity to be recorded by a representative. In this way, the losing side in any argument can have his or her position recorded for the record. This will make things easier when the winning position is found to be unfeasible or in need of refinement.

Sovereignty

In this organization, sovereignty lies with the General Assembly, and not the Executive Committee. If the General Assembly feels that the EC has overstepped its authority, or is taking incorrect actions, they may call for a recall or a vote of No Confidence. In such an instance, a vote can be taken as to whether or not the EC should continue in its present course. If the vote fails, the EC must reverse course or be left open to a Mass Recall.

In the event of a Mass Recall, which requires a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly, members vote as to which officials they think should step down. If any official receives a two-thirds No Confidence vote, they must step down. They will be replaced officially at the next meeting. If only one official is ousted in this manner, a leader of one of the other committees will be appointed to take that person's place.

Meetings

Meetings will be conducted using Roberts' Rules of Order, with this exception. The leader of each meeting will not be a specific chairperson, or president, but rather the individual member of the EC that called and planned the meeting. If it is a regular meeting, the EC will decide ahead of time who will chair the next meeting. The group may discover that one person makes an excellent moderator and they should chair every time. This is not fixed, however, and must be decided on within two days of the meeting.

The same rule applies to Committee meetings, in which three members of that committee constitute the board of that committee. One of the three must be chosen to lead the committee meeting, depending on who is most interested that week.

Meetings must be held at least once every month, and must have at least 2 days notice, unless they are a regular meeting, in which any changes must be agreed upon in advance. Emergency changes can be made, but every effort must be made to alert all members of such a change.

Any officials, including Committee Chairpersons, must attend every monthly meeting and all meetings of Committees that they belong to. If they can't, they must call the moderator of the meeting at least two days in advance and explain their absence. This will be recorded in the minutes.

Minutes

The minutes should reflect who spoke in what order and the general subject of their speech. If any votes are cast, the winning position and the dissenting position should be recorded, unless the dissenting position chooses not to bother.

The minutes from previous meetings will be made available to all who come to monthly meetings. If there aren't enough copies, the members who have them should share.

That's all I've got - Constitution Committee, you better get to work!

Getting Sponsors

2006-08-15T23:23:00.000-07:00

Sample Contract

Our Community Partners

Community Organizations:

Small Businesses:

Tom Woods, Progressive Realtor
E: tomwoods@johnlscott.com

Individual Donors:

Upcoming Events

2006-08-15T13:11:00.001-07:00

All events can be viewed in more detail at the Tahoma Activist Calendar, available here:

We have no events scheduled at this time.

To add your event, contact us here:

Past Events

2006-08-15T06:52:00.000-07:00

Here's a list of all our completed events:

September

Monday, September 4th - America in Solidarity's Labor Day Festival 2006 - Wright Park, Tacoma, 1-5 PM

October

Saturday, October 7th - The Tahoma Progressive Media Conference - IBEW Hall, 3049 S 36th St, 10 to 2 PM

Media Conference Sponsors List

2006-08-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a list of all the groups who have sponsored or endorsed the Tahoma Progressive Media Conference:

Sponsoring:

Progressive Roundtable
Northwest Media Action
America in Solidarity

Endorsing:

ACLU of Tacoma
League of Women Voters

How Blogs Work

2006-08-15T00:22:00.000-07:00

Number one rule for blogging: Comment on posts!

Every blog (at least most reputable blogs) allow comments at the bottom of posts. Feel free to comment to your hearts' desire. This is how bloggers know they're making an impact. So comment freely and don't hesitate to speak your mind!

Number two: Start your own blog!

Check out blogger.com for a quick tutorial for how to get setup. There are free other blogging programs, and once you get good, you can even get more sophisticated programs and have your own domain name. For now, follow the steps and make a quick and dirty page - see you in the blogosphere!

By the way, when you get your page up, let us know and we'll add you to our blogroll!

Tahoma Progressive Media Conference

2006-07-26T21:51:00.000-07:00

We had a date (October 7th) and now we have a name!

The Tahoma Progressive Media Conference will be bringing together producers of independent media with those of us who want to create new media sources in Pierce County and the greater South Sound area.

What do we need from you?

We need you to RSVP, so we know roughly how many people we are going to have.

The Electricians have come through and given us the use of the IBEW 76 Hall in Tacoma - 3049 S. 36th St. See more details at The Tahoma Activist Calendar:

We also need sponsors, folks who can help us make the program, posters, flyers and help us with food, snacks, beverages and everything else. If you know any progressive small business owners or volunteer organizations in the area who would like to support this incredible effort, please tell them to email me here at tahomaactivist@yahoo.com

To see some of what we've been working on, check out The Tahoma Activist blog at tahomaactivist.blogspot.com - Your Pierce County source for progressive news and opinion, with an emphasis on labor and open democracy.

Categories: Announcements, The Tahoma Activist Calendar

We have a date for the conference!

2006-05-26T13:22:00.002-07:00

Attention, fans and producers of independent media:

The Progressive Roundtable's Conference on Independent Media will take place on October 7th of this year from 9:30 to 1 PM. That's the first Saturday of the month for those of you without calendars.

At that event, we will have short presentations by people who have successfully created new media properties in each of several classes of media. Those classes include, but are not limited to:

DIY (Stickers, graffiti, stencils, etc.)
Peer to Peer sharing - DVDs, MP3s, etc.
Alternative Radio - community radio, public radio, college radio, and for-
profit radio
Alternative Press - print publications
Web-based news sites - like this one
Public Access TV
Film Screenings
Documentary Filmmaking

After the presentations, we would break into working groups to discuss how to produce our own versions of this media or learn how we can help projects already in existence.

There was some talk about having some kind of show or concert after the conference to raise funds, but that was held over for some enterprising person to take command of it. So far, we're strictly focusing on getting producers of this stuff on board.

Also at this last meeting, we met Dick Mansfield, retired schoolteacher from Tacoma who has become adept at downloading and sharing of alternative media off the internet. He brought several discs to the meeting and talked about how with just an internet connection and a DVD burner, you can make a lot of media for not much money. If we also had a digital projector, film screenings would be a snap.

Bill Johnston had a cool idea that is probably much farther off - eventually getting together with a progressive business owner or unioon to buy a mixed-use building that we could actually use to create indy media but also have a coffeeshop and bookstore in the same building. That would sure be a great resource for organizers.

Those of you who plan to come to our next meeting should be thinking of three things: 1) come up with a cool name for our conference, 2) come up with innovative ideas for promoting the conference, to ensure that we get plenty of people to come, and 3) bring more people to the meeting!

Our meetings take place at Tom's house from 7-8:30 PM every second and fourth Wednesday. Be there or be square! Email me to get the address, or call at
(253)227-6884.

We can win, if we come together! Let's make the media work for us, and not the other way around!

Categories: Announcements

Independent Media Conference in South Africa

2006-05-16T19:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a great model for what we can accomplish here [PDF file]. These folks even had a Labor Film Festival going at the same time. What a great idea!

Categories: Media Around the World

Help build an Indymedia Center in Olympia!

2006-05-14T10:23:00.000-07:00

Looks like we're working on parallel tracks here! Let's do our part to support Olympia in this effort.

Here's the email, sent to us by Petra Boston:

Visit http://olympiaimc.org

There's a lot going on with the project to build an Olympia Independent Media Center (IMC)!

Its a great time to get involved! There will be an Olympia Indymedia meeting 6:00 pm Tuesday, May 16 at Media Island, 812 Adams St. (by the public library). Help build our new IMC website and media production space!

Finally, Olympia IMC has space to create media. Media Island is offering us a whole room for media production. Media Island also has a lot of equipment we can use like a copy machine, computers, printers, video equipment and more. Help make this space and equipment useful to local media activists.

Visit http://olympiaimc.org/

The Oly IMC website is live! There is still alot of work to be done on it, but the newswire is working and people are already posting to it. To post, click on "PUBLISH >>" on the left side of the page. You can be a part of creating a new open publishing news and media node for the Olympia, WA community!

We are excited about the prospect of having an open publishing media site and production space in Olympia and we would love for people to get involved by producing and posting news and media and by helping us with technical needs, fundraising, and outreach.

Olympia IMC has an email list that you can subscribe to in order to get involved with making media open and free in Olympia. Send an email to oly-imc-subscribe@riseup.net or go to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/oly-imc to subscribe.

For more information email oly-imc@riseup.net.

The mission of the Olympia Independent Media Center is to provide the Olympia area and south Puget Sound region with noncommercial and underreported daily news, and space for commentary and debate. We seek to gather, interpret, write, speak, and record news events as they occur. Our focus is to facilitate self-reporting and self-publishing in our community. We aim to inspire an independent media revolution that anyone can participate in.

Globally, the Independent Media Center is a network of collectively run media outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth. We work out of a love and inspiration for people who continue to work for a better world, despite corporate media's distortions and unwillingness to cover the efforts to free humanity and liberate the planet.

The first Independent Media Center (http://www.indymedia.org), was established in Seattle, WA by various independent and alternative media organizations and activists in 1999 for the purpose of providing grassroots coverage of the World Trade Organization (WTO) protests.

Through a decentralized and autonomous network, hundreds of media activists setup independent media centers in London, Canada, Mexico City, Prague, Belgium, France, and Italy over the next year. IMC's have since been established all over the world on every continent, with more to come.

Olympia Independent Media Center

- e-mail: oly-imc@riseup.net

Homepage: http://www.olympiaimc.org

Much thanks to our helpful allies at http://portland.indymedia.org !

Categories: Announcements

Our first meeting was a wonderful success

2006-05-10T22:32:00.000-07:00

We had our first ever meeting of independent media advocates at the home of one of our members. I think I can speak for all of us when I say it was better than we could have imagined. I've set up a listserv through riseup.net to benefit our activities, and thanks to google, we have this excellent resource to use as well.

Summary of tonight's meeting:

We met, had introductions, talked some about reclaimthemedia.org and their list of Northwest community radio stations. Then we made a list of which types of media were available to us, and discussed each in some detail. Among the media we selected were: public radio, public access TV, Agitprop (or guerilla art), low-power FM, blogs (like this one), web radio, and many more.

We each resolved to try to get one or more people to come with us to the next meeting, as well as to think about what sort of presentations should be given at the Independent Media Conference this September. I mentioned that I thought we should give thought to making the final piece a big show with some notables in the field, an idea that wasn't universally accepted. We shall soon see exactly what our efforts will produce. I am confident that we will achieve something great, exactly what, I'm not sure.

I will begin making categories for the blog that match the categories of media we discussed.

See you in two weeks!

Categories: Announcements

The Northwest Media Action Fund is on the web!

2006-05-10T12:34:00.000-07:00

Greetings, friends of independent media! If you're looking to change the world through changing the media, you've come to the right place. We are looking for producers of independent media, owners of quality equipment, friendly local businesses, and community activists of all kinds to join us in this effort.

What are we doing now? We are planning an Independent Media Conference scheduled tentatively for the first full week in September.

Can you help us? Do you know someone who wants to make independent media but has no connections? Send them our way? Maybe you know someone who's story isn't getting out because the big corporate media giants don't care, or aren't interested in threatening their cozy relationship with their advertisers. This Conference is the opportunity for folks to come from miles around to discuss why we need a robust and responsive alternative to corporate media, and what we're going to do to make it happen.

We are actively searching for individuals in the field of independent media who would like to run workshops or give speeches on the need for this important community resource. If you know anyone who would like to be involved, have them call me, Jeff Richardson, at 253-227-6884 or email me at tahomaactivist@yahoo.com

Also, if you belong to an organization that feels that the media hasn't adequately supported their efforts, perhaps they would like to help build an organization committed to changing the media to support we the people of the United States. We need contacts in the community who want to help build alternative media, and who are ready to roll up their sleeves and do the work it will take to get there.

Thank you for your interest and everything you do to help your community. Together, we can make a difference!

Categories: Announcements

Media Around the World

2006-05-01T19:47:00.000-07:00

Good websites:

Labourstart.org - great resource for working people and union activists

Past Postings:

Independent Media Conference in South Africa