In your emails, it is worth pointing out the fact that the police are expecting as many people to turn out as at Mayday, an event that filled the front pages a week before it even took place. Demand to know why this event is not getting any publicity whatsoever and suggest that campaigning against the arms trade does not allow anti-capitalists to get the kind of negative publicity associated with Mayday, smashing up of McDonalds etc....

Also, it might help to use a sensible email address, especially one that looks like that of a company or organisation rather than  commie_nutta@smash.net.

Don't forget to mention that the "Fiesta for Life Against Death" is at 12 noon, Tidal Basin Road, London E16, Tuesday 11 September 2001.

However, if you prefer to bypass the corporate media and go straight for the jugular, email these guys:

 enquiries@dsei.co.uk

...and checkout their website:

www.dsei.co.uk

)

 editor@thisislondon.co.uk
 newsdesk@thisislondon.com
 et.letters@telegraph.co.uk
 letters@thetimes.co.uk
 mail@ukmetro.co.uk
 news@channel4.com
 editor@itn.co.uk
 viewer.liaison@itn.co.uk
 radio@itn.co.uk
 today@bbc.co.uk
 http://www.mirror.co.uk/shtml/contact/e4.shtml

(maybe Indymedia should promote regular email/letter campaigns with a database of useful addresses like this ?)

...In fact, what we should have is a page where you write a message and select which media/government/etc email addresses to send it to and then click send.

I really feel that we should do this. Can someone who is able to implement it please do that because it would be such a good thing to have. It shouldn't be to difficult to set it up! :-)

I just I'd put it in clickable form to encourage people to write to them.

Go on, send them a message! A short one will do fine!
Click on the green link and send dsei an "enquiry".

Just say that you think what they are doing is really bad.

Or be creative and imaginative, - put it to them that they're in the wrong job, etc.

Whatever, think of some things to write. Or just a quick note will do :-)

I became an Indymedia Journalist precisely because the mainstream media wouldn't print my truthful articles, preferring contrived and concocted propaganda.
But, hey don't let that stop you.

Got any vacancies ? :)

Yeah but it's worth putting pressure on them. They do print SOME truthful stuff and surely putting pressure on them to do more so won't do any harm.

Sod the press. We don't do these actions for the benefit of the bloody Guardian. We do them because we want to rock the establishment (including 'trendy' hacks) and show we're powerful. One day we'll rock them so hard, they'll fall off.

Its a very rare sight to see anything accurate or positive in the press. Lets face it, at best they don't understand the protests and at worst they slander the people who take part in them. We're not going to get anything good out of the press and at mayday they persuaded several large organisations and hundreds if not thousands of demonstrators to stay away.

Don't you guys feel so cheap begging to be on the front pages again?

...because it means more people will know about it!

As for rocking the establishment, Well let me guess, you're a male under twenty five. Well so am I but I'm more in control.

Nothing wrong with "rocking the establishment" as such but from the way you say it it does rather sound like you just want to cause trouble, rather than enact positive change.

So save the testosterone for those football games or thrash metal concerts (or whatever you're into).

We don't need to cut ourselves off from society and we don't need a smash-everything-in-sight-because-we-get-a-kick-out-of-it-attitude
What we need is a revolution in consciousness. We need to get the masses on our side, not alienate them.

"The masses" doesn't mean just exclusively the working class, it just means the majority of the population, whoever they/we are.

We need to be more inclusive, if we want to change the world. Because if we have a revolution and build a regime that's not inclusive then that would be fascist wouldn't it. And that's the opposite of what we stand for.

We need news coverage. Otherwise no one will know about us.

And as for "rocking them so hard they'll fall off", well er.. good luck not ending up in prison mate

I e-mailed Polly Toynbee about why the mainstream media aren't reporting DSEI actions in advance - and got this reply:


I didn't know about it, so thanks for the info. (How come the organisers haven't
emailed the press and journalists like me?? Sounds more like cock-up than
conspiracy.)

Dear Editor,

Last month I was on a panel at the Edinburgh Tv festival debating news reporting of Globalisation with the heads of news from CNN,ITN, Channel4 and Sky. The debate surrounded news broadcasters being out of touch with the anti globalisation/pro-democracy movement. The general frustration from news gatherers was that activists refused to talk to them.I believed the reasons are more to do with a systemic case of lazy journalism.

The latest proof of this is next weeks Arms show in the Docklands, details on  http://www.dsei.co.uk. For months campaigners have been mobilising people for a "Fiesta for Life Against Death" at 12 noon, Tidal Basin Road, London E16, on Tuesday 11 September 2001. On Friday morning, police raided and evicted two information centres set up for the protests.

The response from the majority of the media has been silence, despite police beleiving that it could be as large as Mayday protests in recent years.
The same excuse could be trotted out that activists are still refusing to talk with news hounds. However it doesn't take much for a reporter to investigate who is attending the arms show and which repressive state Britian is selling weapons to now.

This kind of reporting will only gain the respect of activists and put the protests into context. Then perhaps reporters may find that activists will begin talking to them again.


Regards,

Paul O' Connor
Undercurrents alternative news
16 Cherwell st
Oxford Ox4 1 BG

 http://www.undercurrents.org

The problem is getting actual information, Paul. If we corportatists ring CAAT, for example, (and they are one of the more "mainstream" of the organisations behind this demo) they can only provide extremely sketchy information about who will be there, how many, what will happen and so on...

The Fiesta website is even more vague. Sure, it's great for links to weapons manufacturers and a nice section on police tactics, but as for making it clear what to expect on Tuesday, the phrase "something wonderful will happen" is not very specific is it?

And beyond exhortations to "come down with your mates and get wombled up" it's impossible to know what is gonna happen, who is gonna be there and who to talk to.

And I have tried to get in touch with people who know me and supposedly trust me and I am not having much success. What more can I do??

I can't go to my editor and say "let's run a bckground feature on the evils of the British arms trade pegged to an arms fair on Tuesday where, apparently, something wonderful will happen."

I'd be laughed at.

And big cheese editors are very wary of getting preditions wrong. On Mayday they were (rightly) slated for hyping the threat of violence and toeing the police line on "violent anarchists." Now DSEI is supposedly gonna be the biggest demo since Mayday -- but what if it fucking well rains and only 500 poeple turn out? They may be committed to a good cause but in terms of numbers almost 80 times that amount of people gather in any given football stadium on any given Saturday to watch sports, drik beer and shout a lot...

Another common problem with horizontal "dis-organisations": is that no-one will stand in front of a camera/reproter and make a statement or give an interview on behalf of the bigger group.

I think maybe there are a number of reasons for this:

1. Paranoia about future police retaliation.
2. a "We are all equal and have no leaders and don't want to create the impression of a heirarchy in our egalitarian movement as this might lead to internal rivalries/jealousies/tensions" attitude.
3. The "Swampy phenomenon," wherein one activist is somehow manipulated into being the "face" of the whole movement by a press pack eager to simplify the story for their not-very-engaged readers, thus personalising and to a certain extent trivialising the movement/issues. It also means that any character flaws/traits of the "swampy" character become reflected on the movement as a whole and this can be counterproductive.

BUT... sooner or later someone should look at this and work out how to address it. Maybe have a rotating pool of spokespeople, or maybe all use a collective moniker (like all the SchNews-ists calling themselves "Makepeace")...

I would like to point out that having an efective media policy for dealing with the aminstream doesn't mean that you are co-opted and selling your souls to The Man... it means your organisatiosn are able to USE the media to efefctively spread your message to the widest possible audience.

Let's look at Northern Ireland: Sinn Fein/IRA have a fantastically well organised and tightly run media relations division. Consequently the Republican message/myths/take-on-events is more often than not coherent, well publicised and widely known -- but no-one would accuse Sinn Fein/IRA of having "sold out" because they know how to deal with the mainstream media and have press officers.

Conversely, look at Ulster Unionism, which has a very much slacker and diffuse media policy. Unionist arguments are badly articulated, seem primitive, are in hock to the more extreme/violent showmen etc. etc.

Now I don't have a particular take on this conflict. It seems to me that there are geniune grievances, victims and criminally violent fuckers on both sides of the sectarian divide -- but what is clear is that the nationalists media machine is formidable, well organised and extremely efefctive and as a result they receive lots of coverage and much of it is favourable.

Perhaps a leaf should be taken from their book (No... put that AK-47 away!!) and give some serious thought as to how you can interact and deal with the mainstream press on YOUR terms.

Maybe it would be possible to organise some sort of workshop for interested independent and mainstream journalists so the two camps can learn a bit about how the other works, and the dynamics and pressures of contemprary newsgathering. I am sure if more activists knew how the mainsream is run, they could use it better and wouldn't be so suspicious. Likewise, the mainstream hacks would probably se how serious and credible independent journalism can be.

db

Here’s a story for the big cheeses:

The metropolitan Police Force has been targetting protestors and seizing or destroying their property in advance of a major peaceful demonstration. This is a clear breach of the police duty to be politically non-partisan. After Mayday’s fiasco and given that the target is an arms fair this time, trying to demonise protestors as violent in advance would ring too false so police are resorting to direct disruption of preparations for the event.

You have a press release from the organisers of peaceful protest, you have destructive and clearly politically motivated police raids. What more do you really need?

Mayday can’t be the excuse for not engaging in any conjecture at all – the media as we know it would probably not exist without conjecture.

Go on, Darius and others, work it out. Tell the story - it’s very serious already - and then maybe regain a smidgin of respect as a ‘free and independent media’. Then as Paul suggests, people might start talking again.

Remember the days when Gerry Adams’ voice could not be broadcast for political reasons? Are you really surprised that activists on this island too mistrust media organisations which so often distort their voices for political reasons while suppressing the truth about the security forces?

Well, I did know about the raids as they were happening. but one of the problems of working for TV as opposed to the papers or radio or internet forms of media si that we need pictures to tell the story.

I understand Undercurrents had soemone down there at Borough, but when I asked what the score was I was texted "3 arrests, building emptied, no dramatics" so i spoke to senior editors and to Undercurrents and we thought that if we were to use the pix it would be as background to a story on the day.

Same thing with a press release, we can't just film a piece of paper -- and if people are loathe to give on camera interviews it makes it hard for us.

I agree that this is an important story -- or rather that Britain's major role in the arms trade and the govt. use of tax dollars to underwrite export credit guarantees for waepons sales is an important story. And I agree that the police actions in Borough and Tooley St. seem out of order... but I have to convince a heirarchy of sceptical peopel that this story should be included in what are actually very short spaces (most news bulletins have less that 10 stories in them)...

On Friday there were some big issues knocking around which might be considered more significant than the raid and puppet btrashing: Holy Cross School, Oakington/Asylum, Stock Market Crash, a serious coach crash, Foot n Maff, Zimbabwe, a big Phillipinio volcano, The Tory leadership, overpriced trains.... and....

...OK, you win. We ran a 15 second story about a man who went to jail for having rare birds eggs.

He was the first person to be jailed under the new countryside legislation, though :))