by Sari Krosinsky
Daily Lobo
This summer, an independent media outlet moved in next door to UNM.
The Independent Media Center - also known as IMC or Indymedia - provides an opportunity for people to produce and distribute work in virtually all kinds of media.
"Our motto comes from Jello Biafra - 'Don't hate the media, become the media,'" said Jerome Chavez, one of IMC's Web site editors and a former UNM student.
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Chavez said that the first IMC was founded in Seattle in the fall of 1999 during mass protests against the World Trade Organization. The New Mexico IMC was founded two years later.
The New Mexico IMC is one of many local media collectives and works "to report stories with truth and passion and to have our reporting be action focused," Chavez said.
A recent addition to IMC is the new Infoshop, housed at the Peace and Justice Center at 202 Harvard Drive, one block from campus. The Infoshop has a variety of materials available for check out - books about U.S. foreign policy, Iraq and other issues, alternative magazines, local publications and a collection of independently produced audio tapes and videos. A list of the Infoshop's books is available on IMC's Web site.
This summer, IMC received grant funding to install a Free Speech TV satellite dish at the Peace and Justice Center. On Sept. 4 at 6 p.m., IMC will be using the satellite dish to show "Indymedia Newsreal," a monthly show that airs on satellite channel Free Speech TV and local Community Cable channel 27.
"We're really lucky as far as generous donations, like the satellite dish," said Cindy Hong, an IMC Web site editor and volunteer for the KUNM show "Voces Feminista." She added that IMC is always looking for donations of alternative media videos, tapes, books and magazines as well as computer, recording and video equipment.
IMC volunteers are also planning to open an office in the Peace and Justice Center in October. The office will provide public access to computers for video-editing and posting to IMC's Web site.
The Web site, newmexico.indymedia.org, was the New Mexico IMC's first project.
"It's a self-publishing Web site," Hong said. "People can post articles, photos, videos and audio clips."
Another IMC project is a television show on Community Cable channel 27 that airs every other Thursday at 8 p.m. The show features interviews with local activists and independently produced films. The show provides several opportunities for people to get involved with independent media - by being a guest, host or even producer of a show.
An early project of IMC that has been picking up steam lately is the quarterly World Voices newspaper.
"We decided to name it World Voices because that's what this independent media is about, to have an ability to hear voices that don't normally get out into the regular corporate media," said Martha Dominguez, one of the editors of World Voices.
The newspaper attempts to provide direct information from different viewpoints. The current issue features the text of a speech by Attorney General John Ashcroft in support of extensions of the Patriot Act, as well as several articles by organizations written in opposition to the Patriot Act.
"That's what it means to be a person that learns," Dominguez said. "It's not to look at one thing but to have a diversity of voices so that you can reach your own way of deciding what you're going to do about that, if anything."
If you can't find what you're looking for in IMC's existing projects, it's open to new ideas.
"It's a very open, cooperative, community-based, grassroots project," said Steve Mills, an IMC volunteer. "If somebody has an idea for an independent media project that they'd like to do that's not being done already, have at it."
In addition to writers, photographers and videographers, IMC also welcomes volunteers interested in the production side of media, like maintaining the Web site, fixing donated computers, producing a television show and designing the newspaper.
"We encourage people to use their materials, to use their knowledge to try to create media, so that there's balanced coverage," said Brooke Fair, UNM alumna and KOAT employee.
Fair also said that IMC can help people to produce and promote their own independent media projects.
IMC volunteers hope to fill an information gap by "educating the community and making public things that are ignored in mainstream media," Hong said.
The next IMC meeting will be Aug. 19 at 6 p.m. at the Peace and Justice Center.
