arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Interview on 2 year anniversary IMC with DeeDee Halleck
by Jakob Weingartner.

How would you describe the strategy of indymedia?
The Seattle Indymedia site was inaugurated as part of setting up an Independent Media Center so that all of the many movement media comng to Seattle could collaborate. There was a growing realization that radio, video, print and art groups could effectively work   together on specific issues. Before Seattle, there was the case of the impending execution of independent radio journalist Mumia Abu Jamal.
Although there was no physical center, nor a coordinating web site, a national meeting of alterntive media folk made a committment to try to collaborate a campaign. In the space of very few weeks many of us worked collaboratively to make a media blitz to counter the State of Pennsylvaniaís assigned date for execution: radio programs, videos, satellite broadcasts, special print inserts, posters and a CD Rom were made with, for the first time, a real sense of collaboration between different media. Throughout the country there were continual messages against the death penalty and in favor of a new trial for Mumia. For the moment, it worked, and the state postponed the execution. (Though Mumia is still in jail and may still be executed.)