Feeling pretty good about having 300 shows under our belt we decided to air a little retrospective... PepperSpray editor Lambert Rochfort stirred up the pot and picked out the good bits and snatches that floated to the top, assembling them into a rollicking compilation of moments to remember from the last 299 shows. There was plenty of good material that should have been included in our 300th show retrospective, but you can only cram so much into 28 minutes! Indymedia was born in the swirling tear gas of the anti-WTO protests that occurred in Seattle in November 1999. The original Independent Media Center (IMC) was set up to host visiting independent journalists from around the world who were in Seattle to cover some aspect of the WTO ministerial meeting. The model worked, and in a world that had not yet seen YouTube or the online blogs and news sources that have sprung up since then, the IMC web site proved very effective in getting the info about the protests and the reasons behind the actions out to the world. Even if FOX news had wanted to cover the protests, they would have sent one crew who would have spent almost all their time interviewing bigwigs, and they would have covered the protests only as a sideline and meaningless spectacle, if they did that much. The IMC model relied on the things the movement has in abundance... passion, a sense of purpose, and people. First of all we actually asked demonstrators why they were in the streets, and then reported their/our story in a sympathetic way. And frankly we got the best shots, because while some corporate news team would have one camera "on the ground," we had hundreds. Every group of protesters had somebody with a camera in their pocket. The notion of citizen journalism was so fresh and so profound that it has spawned a whole lot of corporate efforts to profit from people's efforts to "become the media." Video sharing and news sites have appeared all over the internet like windsocks in spring, and blogs have become a respected part of the spectrum of journalism. Meanwhile the IMC movement spread world-wide like the latest steps at a teen dance and continues to be an important part of the movement. The PepperSpray video Collective formed as a sub-set of the Seattle Independent Media Center. At first we just made stand-alone videos which were screened in the IMC space. We quickly realized the need to build a variety of distribution channels and began our weekly access program, "Indymedia Presents" on Seattle's SCAN TV. Eventually we added one station after another, until we now appear on stations from coast to coast. Our material has appeared on Free Speech TV and on "Democracy Now!" and somehow we have kept it going year after year. We have never gotten a corporate grant. Our money comes from table sales, fundraisers, donations and video sales on our website. All our collective members, several of whom are award-winners in their own right, are volunteers. "Indymedia Presents" turns 300 this week with a look back at just a little of the wild, wacky, and wonderful coverage we have included on the show so far. Pubic Access producers, community screeners, and IMCs (Independent Media Centers) are encouraged to screen or air "Indymedia Presents". To obtain the show on a regular basis, please contact us, Pepperspray Productions, at pepperspray@riseup.net. "Indymedia Presents" is a 28 minute weekly cable public access program produced on behalf of the Seattle Independent Media Center (IMC) by PepperSpray Productions. In addition to SCAN Channel 77 in Seattle, "Indymedia Presents" also airs on channels in greater King County (Channel 23), Bainbridge Island (Channel 12), Port Townsend, WA (Channel 97 & 98), Olympia, WA (Channel 22), Vancouver, WA (Channel 11), Portland, OR (Channel 22 and a few others), Tucson, AZ (Channel 73), St Paul, MN (Channel 15), Minneapolis, MN (Channel 17), Fort Wayne, IN (Channel 57), Philadelphia, PA (Channels 54 & 62), Brooklyn, NY (BCAT Channels 34, & 67) and on New York City's Manhattan Neighborhood Network, (Channel 34). Related Free Speech Websites: Independent Media Center http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml Indymedia NewsReal http://www.newsreal.indymedia.org Free Speech TV: http://www.freespeech.org Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org
