AGENDA Distribution Content --Syndicate --Getting it Money Advertising Coordination Editorial Policy Recruitment Involvement Outreach Structure Coordination Structure Internal Collective Intended audience - Readership National Paper

PAPERS

Issue Critical Moment Indypendent Faultlines DC Spark Clamor Apalachee Tortoise

Distribution Issue- 5,000 copies, people colunteer, take stacks around town, hand out on campus, 50,000 on campus, 1 mil. In city 16-20 pages Critical Moment 100,000 people, list of distro sites, volunteer basis, 5-7,000, 24-28 every 2 months Indypendent 10-20,000 papers, 8 million, various neighborhoods Faultlines- 5,000-7500, san.f , Oakland, Berkeley, sana cruz, newspaper racks for solid places, 8 racks, all newspaper boxes, public transportation distro in the early morning, online distro chart, code will be made public soon, ak press sends 12-16 pages DC Spark 15,000, soon 20000, one driver, one jumper, gov. building, churches, police station 32, not yet monthly Apalachee Tortoise- 6000/month, 150000pop. Locally owned progressive business, central distribution point, state workers sneak it to legislators offices. 24-28 monthly

Hard to get people to distro if not involved in process, some people focus solely on distro. Leave papers in a central location, oin a progressive center, get people to take bundles when they go to events, become established, regularity, most important, people can get involved consistently, sacrifice quality sometimes for regularity.

Indypendent considering paying for distro since hard to find a car

Fault Lines works with relevant organizations \x96 covering a possible transit strike, getting muni drivers to help with distro

Content

Criticial Moment Each issue on a theme (sex, Palestine, education). Print call for submissions in each issue, but only use a handful from open unsolicited. Some solicited. Some coming from other publications. Willing to republish stuff. Important thing is bringing authors to new audiences.

Indypendent Open editorial process for submissions. A couple people who work with the paper cover their specific issue. Some reprints in international section, but also take advantage of travelers. How to make a collective paper that respects all input but balances between veterans and newcomers?

Fault Lines No themes, but in each issue ad welcoming submissions. Don\x92t get that many. A lot directly solicited or coming from the collective. A lot of reprints. Currently some tension about more people writing within the collective or getting more involvement from the community.

Spark Column editors \x96 geographical \x96 Asia or Adams Morgan. Other sections, thematic \x96 health, music, etc. Editors are bottom liners, but are trying

Clamor Open submission, but some solicited. No reprinting. Section editors functioning autonomously. High premium placed on new writiers.

Tortoise No reprints. People write about what they\x92re connected to.

Issue Listserv \x96 send out a call for submissions. Pieces come from a lot of the same people. A lot of crap that we don\x92t print (and get shit for). Some pieces not fact checked or backed up. Generally no reprints.

Letters to the editor? Tortoise has had some good and bad experience. Get a lot letters, some people not used to using the internet. Indypendent usually uses the website for that, though a lot of letters have come in response to the Sex issue. Issue \x96 no letters. Fault Lines \x96 got one letter, but it\x92s faded. Spark doesn\x92t have a section, but would like to have one. Clamor \x96 loves letters, has a section; important to show vitality and openness to feedback.

Tweaking \x96 Critical Moment gives feedback for writers to edit, but might move otwards more active editing. Indypendent \x96 people need to understand that open submission doesn\x92t mean everything will be printed.

Indypendent has a story coordinator who keeps tabs on all the articles, stays in touch with the authors. Makes sure enough content comes in. Works with writers who need help.

Funding / Advertising

Indypendent \x96 American Apparel, called UNITE who said take the ad. 200 subscribers, $27. Working on institutional subs, getting libraries to buy back stock. API-listed (if you want to get indexed, contact Arun at Indypendent)

Issue \x96 just got a grant from the Campus Progrssive Network. (Critical Moment got rejected.) Issue - $3000, need to run half-page ad; they want an on-campus advisor \x93for continuity\x92s sake.\x94

Fault Lines \x96 one ad that offered discount, but no one took advantage of the discount so they discontinued. Some writers work with groups/biznesses that advertise. Tolf Fat Wreck they wouldn\x92t run a racist ad and Fat Wreck was cool and sent a new one. $750-950/month, always a struggle. Defend Fallujah shirts have raised $500. Thought about making posters (which Indypendent has done). Definitely going to apply for grants.

Spark \x96 wants to be big and sustainable, so ruled out foundation grants. Better advertising, but focused on groups with message. No one gets paid so they can keep the ad % low. No big corporate sponsors, a lot of little advertisers. Volunteer ad designers from local schools that want portfolios.

Critical Moment\x97Originally started by grad. Students and all funding from university, moved off-campus and less $$ from university. Does anyone pay their writers?

Clamor- Does Issue- Would like to.

Tortioise\x97Ad policy, only local businesses, no chains, etc. \x93Farm out\x94 ads to other media makers at the University.

Ali: Is it worth trying to et together a national ad network that can syndicate ads in different papers? Josh: problem\x97everyone has different ads and specs and deadlines. It needs to be done, it\x92s a nightmare. Janky: we would need to have a very solid decision making process in order to coordinate. Josh\x97try and develop \x932-way\x94 deals.

Add merchandising online\x97t-shirts, coffee cups. Can we trade merchandising links (ie, defend Falluja t-shirts on the indypendent.org website).

Outreach

Fault lines\x97Craigs list. Most of our outreach is the paper itself. Size of collective varies wildly. A lot of people have been coming in and want to help. Just had an explosion of designers. Just decided to have regular skill shares (maybe one a month). Editorial is a tougher thing to skill-share.

Spark\x97Coordinator for each department; photog., ad design, Craigs list, universities. Interns. Networking through activist groups. The flipside of new people is retention. How do you keep them? International reporters.

Tortoise\x97No outreach. They don\x92t turn people away but they don\x92t outwardly search people out. They DO solicit content.

Issue\x97Only two people work on the issue currently. Don\x92t have regular meetings, which is a huge problem. All the time is spent producing the paper. How do we do a better job making people feel like they need and want to stay.

Indypendent- Open house on a (monthly?) basis. Its one of the bigger projects in NYC IMC. Meet weekly. Long meetings. During times of production we meet for 4-5 days straight. Much harder to keep volunteers than to get them in the door.

Critical moment\x97 Hard time getting people involved. Was uncertain on how to get new people plugged in. In some ways don\x92t feel good about getting new people involved because the collective is a little dysfunctional.

Role of newspapers? More theoretical stuff?

Sharing content more effectively. \x95 involves extra work in posting stuff multiple times online. \x95 Josh Breitbart would suggest going with a straight blog format where one or two people pull content.

Janky: Why not syndicate everything? Leanne: Doesn\x92t like the idea of individuals blogging so much. JB: Print publications / technology divide. Cursor.org would be a good model to follow.

Mike: Do we even want to share content?

Mark: Are we talking about a public site or a wire that we could all pull content from.

\x93Indywire\x94\x97radio.indymedia.org would be a good model to follow.

Ali\x97This all needs to be discussed on the indymedia print list and further discussed. Editorial process is done on the wiki.

Possibly have certain \x95 Post rack information \x95 Get John Tarleton\x92s reporting workshop guidelines. \x95 Get information on joining the alternative press index. \x95 Restart the imc-print list? \x95 print.indymedia.org

-- TWikiGuest - 20 Feb 2005

-- TWikiGuest - 20 Feb 2005