IMC Scotland draft mission statement

Here's a draft of the imc docs for new-imc-process. A new version is being prepared based on response so far. Everyone who has a stake in imc should try to read it, or at least the first part, 'Reasons for an IMC-SCOTLAND', and post response on imc scotland disscussion list see link at end to subscribe.

What is Scotland Indymedia Center / IMC-SCOTLAND?

The Scotland Independent Media Center (IMC-SCOTLAND) is an non-corporate, anti- authoritarian network of independent Scottish media makers and media outlets, and serves as the local organizing unit of the global Indymedia network. Long live independent media!

IMC-SCOTLAND Reasons for Having its own IMC:

IMC-Scotland is an official IMC in all but name only. It has regular meetings with good attendance in multiple cities, currently Glasgow and Edinburgh. It has put on workshops on tech and media activism, throws on regular movies (including showing the European IMC Newsreel), and has regularly updated the sub-page it was given on indymedia.org.uk. However, IMC- SCOTLAND, while grateful to the rest of indymedia.uk, has had its growth significantly hampered by not being a fully independent IMC. First, the current web-page allows posting of features with only the utmost of technical difficulty by manually hacking together HTML. This is a skill IMC-SCOTLAND has tried and is trying to spread, however this process excludes non-technical people from posting features to the IMC-Scotland subject. More importantly, people in Scotland identify more as Scottish than as citizens of the United Kingdom, and so would be more apt to visit a IMC-SCOTLAND than an IMC-UK. This process can be qualitatively grasped quite easily by looking at the content of the newswire on indymedia.uk. Lastly, the name IMC-SCOTLAND has been in use for almost a year now, and is becoming known among the local activism and media community, and the inevitable question is: 'Where's the web-page?' or 'Where is scotland.indymedia.org.uk. We have recently convinced the server www.ibiblio.org to host us and our streaming media for free, and with the aid of members of NC-IMC and the ibiblio staff have already commenced setting up versions of both Mir and DadaIMC and hope to have one or the other fully running by the end of February. On March 8-11th Indymedia Scotland is hosting a 3-day Guerilla Camcorder weekend in Glasgow, with workshops on media activism and video editing. We expect this to be a large and well-attended event, and would highly appreciate it if we were approved by new-process by then. Indymedia Scotland also intends to remain fully active in the Indymedia UK network, and will only be strengthened by the changes it is suggested, much as Lancaster IMC has been. We are sending multiple representatives to the Lancaster IMC network meeting in February. Also, these documents have been edited together from various other IMCs documents and discussions IMC-SCOTLAND has had over its listserv and its meetings, and this document is fully concensed upon at this time as a good starting point, although of course it is still open to modification.

IMC-SCOTLAND Mission Statement

The Scotland Independent Media Center is a network of activists that are committed to using media and journalism as a tool for promoting egalitarian change. As a network, we will make all decisions through a consensus process and do our best at representing the diversity of our local communities. Though currently based in Edinburgh and Glasgow, the IMC-SCOTLAND will cover all related issues within Scotland that are not being given adequate coverage by any other media. The Scotland Independent Media Center will also work to network with existing independent media and publications that are committed to social and economic change throughout Scotland. The IMC-SCOTLAND will continually oppose hierarchy within its structure and the structure of the surrounding community. The Scotland Indymedia Center advocates and promotes media democracy through video showings, skill-share workshops and teach-ins, which are to be open for the benefit of all. Along with web publishing, we also produce print resources and videos to spread media democracy amongst those who may not have access to on-line resources. The Scotland Independent Media Center will actively oppose racism, homophobia, classism, sexism, and nationalism within our framework and within the framework of society. Since we are a regional media center, we will serve other parts of Scotland by allowing them to have as much autonomy as they wish, including full access to all features of the sites within their local category and moving man IMC-SCOTLAND meetings from city to city so one city does not centralize undue influence on IMC- SCOTLAND. This process has already admirably worked with the two IMC working- groups set up in Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland UK.

IMC-SCOTLAND How to Join

IMC-SCOTLAND is a regional IMC network, with a single web-site ( scotland.indymedia.org ) serving the whole country of Scotland and the many groupings of independent media activists in Scotland. This is a network that maximizes autonomy through decentralization.

Other IMC-SCOTLAND working-groups or liasons may and hopefully do form in other parts of Scotland. These working groups or liasons must abide by the IMC- SCOTLAND editorial\newswire policy and Principles of Unity\Mission Statement. If they do, they are an official IMC-SCOTLAND working group or liason. They will be subscribed to the imc-scotland-discussion@lists.indymedia.org listserv to which all meeting minutes and proposals will be sent and we will try to meet with all other groups, if they form, face-to-face biannually to discuss IMC- SCOTLAND. Announcements for this meeting will be sent out over the imc-scotland-discussion listserv. Proposals which effect the entire IMC should be approved over the internet with a one week wait for discussion. All other decisions should be made locally. Working groups and liasons have the ability to autonomously commuicate using the listservs, newswire policy, and editorial policy to help create front-page IMC features and regulate IMC-SCOTLAND.

IMC-SCOTLAND Principles of Unity
The Scotland Indymedia Center:
Agrees in spirit to the IMC Mission Statement and Principles of Unity

has a committed membership substantial enough to sustain a functional IMC.
has open and public meetings (no one group can have exclusionary "ownership" of IMC-SCOTLAND). Currently such meetings are held nearly bi-weekly, although that is subject to change given circumstances.
has a local Mission Statement and a Statement of Purpose.
has established and published an editorial policy which is developed and functions through democratic process, and with full transparency.
agrees to the use of open publishing as described in the IMC Editorial Policy, with the understanding that clarification of the terms and practice of open publishing is constantly evolving and is subject locally to the approval of IMC-SCOTLAND. If there is a conflict between IMC-SCOTLAND and any global decision-making process, IMC-SCOTLAND will exercise full right of autonomy. IMC-SCOTLAND is also currently investigating options like GNU licenses and Creative Common licenses as a way to take open content publishing to the next level of evolution.
has adopted a decision-making policy that is in alignment with consensus principles which include open, transparent and egalitarian processes.
has a spokesperson(s) willing and capable of participating in the global decision-making process and meetings as a rotating liason/ representative, with a clear understanding of the responsibilities that come with this role,
will participate in the key IMC Network Communication Methods that pertain to the health and vitality of the Network and that contribute to the work of the IMC. At least one person from the Scotland IMC will participate at any given time on the IMC-Communications list.
has no official affiliation with any political party, state or candidate for office, although individual producers have freedom to do whatever they like and local IMCs can "feature" stories about various political parties and initiatives.
shall in no way engage in commercial for-profit enterprises and is committed to the decommercialization and decolonization of information and so will disassociate from any other IMC that decides to become a for profit media corporation.
will display a local version of the IMC logo on our website and literature.
will include the IMC Network current Cities List on our site, preferably on the front page.

Scotland IMC Editorial Policy

The process for making changes/additions/deletions to featured content on the website is:

A request is presented at the weekly meetings detailing the requested changes. Anyone may request changes to the website. For the changes to be made a consensus must be reached by the IMC-SCOTLAND network if the change effects the whole website.

If a IMC-SCOTLAND network request receives two rejections it will not be acted upon, rejections must be sent to the imc-scotland-discussion list within one week of the initial proposal. One week after the initial consensus if two rejections have not been registered the website will be updated at its earliest convenience. The feature request originator may make further updates to the feature without further consensus.

Suggestions for helping the editorial process run smoothly:

An editorial request should be made at the meeting of the working group or through the imc-scotland-discussion listserv. Always feel free to contact the IMC-SCOTLAND network at
scotland@indymedia.org.

A consensus process will approve or reject the request. Make requests as specific as possible, i.e. include all wording, url's, etc. Having a specific, well-formed request will allow the website to be updated more quickly . In most cases, post it to the imc-scotland-discussion listserv first, then make the request. Write a short introductory paragraph summarizing the content of the posting. The introductory paragraph will appear on the front page with a link to the actual posting.

Scotland IMC Newswire Policy

The Scotland Independent Media Center is a grassroots collective committed to using media production and distribution as tools for promoting social and economic justice. Through this work, we seek to promote diversity and unity in the progressive community throughout Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, further the self-determination of people under-represented in the media, and to illuminate and analyze local and global issues that impact ecosystems, communities and individuals. We are dedicated to generating alternatives to the corporate media and to identifying and creating positive models for a sustainable and equitable society, particulary in Scotland since it is our local community.

In accordance with the Scotland IMC's overall mission, the online newswire is designed to empower individuals to become independent and civic journalists by providing a direct, unmoderated forum for presenting media, including text articles, audio and video recordings, and photographs, to the public via the internet.

IMC-Scotland has the following three maxims it would like to apply to news:

It shoud be news, in any form!
News is the contemporary reporting events with some regard for what is usually called the facts. It inevitably has some opinion in it, but that forms a subsidiary part of the news.
It should have some link to Scotland. This includes a writer who currently lives in or is from Scotland, or an issue pertaining to Scotland. We don't appreciate spam.

The Indymedia Scotland website operates on a system of 'open publishing' i.e. anyone can upload a written report, image or audio clip directly to the site through an openly accessible web interface.

Indymedia Scotland encourages:

Grassroots coverage of important social and political issues which are ignored or inadequately covered by the mainstream media.
A focus on events and issues local to Scotland.
Announcements of any forthcoming actions or campaigns (in the Calendar section).
Comments added to any news report on the site. Also, please remember Indymedia Scotland discourages:
- Language or imagery whichis racist, sexist or homophobic.
- Commercial advertising.
- Infactual or misleading reports.
- Repeated posting of any text, image or audio clip.
- Party political propaganda.
After stories have been published, they can be edited, linked or even deleted by the IMC-SCOTLAND network running this site. We like to link related stories, so that they appear grouped together on the summary pages. For instance, this can be used to display together:

sound bites from the same event; a picture with text about the same thing; a lower quality realaudio or quicktime file with a higher quality (but slower to transfer) MP3 audio clip for radio stations to re-broadcast; a video in realvideo or quicktime with a freeze frame picture; a group of stories about the same issues;

The newswire is an open-publishing resource, with no prior restraint on publication. The newswire is not intended for promotion of commercial enterprises, advertisements, religious diatribes, or as forum for sociopaths to abuse the community. To serve this end, the network is empowered to delete posts that are sexist, racist, homophobic, pornographic, fascist, defamatory or libelous of individuals, or repetitive (spam). The decisions to make newswires center-column features on the main page will also take place through a IMC-SCOTLAND network consensus process. The decision for making a city\region feature newswire a city\region center column Consensus must be taken through the entire IMC-SCOTLAND network through the imc- scotland-discussion listserv, with a one-week discussion time. All non-votes will be assumed to be approval. If contact information is provided for the publisher of a hidden post, the publisher will be contacted with the reason for the editorial action.

http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-scotland-discussion

2nd draft

Final

imc