Do-it-yourself media

Hanging out (for a fee) with the protest press. Plus, two Mass. congressmen visit Arianna-land to push their reform agenda.

by Dan Kennedy

LOS ANGELES - Hanging from a wall inside the Independent Media Center (IMC), home base for much of the protest movement this week, is a huge banner that reads CAPITALISM STOLE MY LIFE! There is more than a little truth to that sentiment if the scam they're running at the registration table is any indication.

I arrived shortly after noon on Wednesday, identified myself, and asked if I could wander through the cluttered space, located on the sixth floor of Patriotic Hall, a historic county-owned building several blocks south of the Staples Center. Only with an escort, I was told - unless I wanted to register on the spot as an IMC member, which would require forking over a $10 donation.

Not wanting a chaperone, I decided to sign up, the benefits of which included an IMC press pass and the right to work on the premises. These were two things I didn't need, but at least I could talk to the people inside unaccompanied.

It's easy to lampoon the protesters and their sympathizers. The dizzying array of causes they espouse opens them up to charges that they are rebels without a clue. At the IMC, though, I found people who were friendly, idealistic, and highly motivated, even if their precise aims remain hazy.

Take Pete St. Marie, who described himself as a federal employee (no kidding) from Colorado. St. Marie took a week's vacation time to help keep the equipment running for Free Speech TV, which broadcasts leftist documentaries on the Internet and on public-access cable channels.

"It's pretty obvious that in the mainstream press the message of the protesters isn't getting out," he told me. When I asked him to define that message, he replied, "There's lots of messages," calling the movement a collection of "diverse groups that don't necessarily agree on everything. I think the big thing is anti-corporatization of the world in general."

Right next to Free Speech TV is the temporary headquarters of Pacifica's Democracy Now! program, which has been covering many of the protests here, but which reports plenty of other news from a leftist perspective as well. This week's fare has focused on Joe Lieberman's dubious record on affirmative action; a Green Party candidate and a progressive Republican who are challenging moderate Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein, of California; and the continued US bombing of Iraq. Pratap Chatterjee, who runs Democracy Now!'s Web site put it through the paces for me, showing resources such as a guide to the corporations that sponsored the Republican and Democratic conventions and an online game called "Washington Monopoly 2000."

At the IMC, Free Speech TV and Democracy Now! are about as close as it gets to Big Media. Many of the people here are volunteers who write stories and take photos for the IMC's Web site (http://la.indymedia.org) or its newspaper, the Los Angeles Free Press.

Jennifer Joos, a volunteer at the center, theorized that the mainstream media accuse the protesters of espousing no coherent issues because the reporters themselves - scared of the protesters, the police, or both - refuse to get close enough to find out. I don't buy it. Go to any of the protests, and it's perfectly obvious what the agenda is: Mumia, the environment, globalization, Mumia, animal rights, Mumia, homelessness, gay and lesbian concerns, and Mumia. And, oh yeah, did I mention Mumia? It's not that there are no issues; it's that they're so diffuse and unfocused that they're more the basis for generalized disaffection than a genuine movement. Still, the work taking place at the Independent Media Center is evidence of a growing disconnect between young people (though not everyone I saw was young) and the increasingly corporate political culture. The lesson the mainstream media could learn here may not be exactly what Joos thinks, but it's an important one nevertheless.

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Downstairs from the IMC, in the first-floor auditorium, Arianna Huffington's Shadow Convention is into summer-rerun mode this week, holding pretty much the same events that took place during the Republican convention, in Philadelphia.

Wednesday's session on campaign-finance reform was notable, though, and not just because it featured David Crosby (with his not-to-be-missed imitation of Gandhi) and elderly protest walker Granny D (who referred to Crosby as "Bob Crosby" and who blasted Ed Rendell for police violence in Philadelphia, not realizing Rendell had stepped down as mayor several years ago).

What was truly interesting was that two Massachusetts congressmen with a strong record of pushing for reform showed up, blasting their own Democratic Party for taking part in a system in which large contributors have inordinate influence over legislation.

Representative Marty Meehan, of Lowell, co-author with Connecticut Republican Christopher Shays of a bill that would ban soft money and require the sponsors of independent attack ads to identify themselves, charged that corporate money has consistently sidetracked efforts to crack down on tobacco and guns - a situation, he said, that is "corrupting our democracy to its core." Representative John Tierney, of Salem, has proposed an even more far-reaching bill that would institute a comprehensive system of voluntary spending and fundraising limits, public financing, and free TV time.

Meehan and Tierney were both walking something of a tightrope by denouncing what was happening at the Staples Center. But afterwards, each insisted that his party's presidential nominee, Al Gore, is on his side. "He has told me and told the American people that it's the first bill he will send to Congress," Meehan told me. Tierney said much the same thing in an impromptu news conference, commenting, "I do take him at his word."

Given Gore's record with Buddhist nuns and "no controlling legal authority," it will be fascinating to see whether he delivers - and what the repercussions will be if he doesn't.

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