Many people who volunteer and work on the IMC projects are already NUJ. IMC has people who work on it from all sorts of areas, from artists and web designers to freelance reporters, some of whom publish work on IMC when they cannot find other publications to run it.

It's an interesting question re NUJ membership, some would no doubt say this would effect their status re corporate media as many protestors and campaigns are deeply suspicious of all 'official' media/reporters.

However Genoa showed so very clearly that sometimes reporters and the media are targeted by police, either as part of an indiscriminate strategy, or deliberatly. People acting as reporters trying to get the truth out are often easy soft targets as they tend to remain in areas of conflict witnessing and recording events while many others are leaving, so maybe for these people, if they haven't got it already, NUJ membership is a good idea.

Groups like the NUJ and IFJ have been working during and since Genoa to get the truth out and for this I respect them greatly. There is also a diference between what some corporate reporters file as their stories and what then gets printed in their respective publications (though many would say they should not then work for such publications if this is the case).

For me Genoa showed that even some corporate journalists who I had distrust of came good when things were really on the line. I hope this will lead to a much better understanding of the workings of corporate media and the difference between different types of journalists and reporters and editors etc. I also hope it will strengthen initiatives like Indymedia and other alternative media projects that seek to both report the truth and present a different side of the stories.

Greater understanding can only help it all move forward.