Counterpoint: On the Madison-IMC site

I agree with Wansktor’s overall analysis — I admit I didn’t think too hard about the article before. Mostly, I judged the article against the typical standars of the mainstream media, and on that plane it’s pretty fair to Indymedia, with the understanding that the mainstream approach is typcially pretty short on analysis (and effort — journalists prefer not to have to hunt too hard for quotes or data). Wankstor’s correct in pointing out that CNN is nevertheless not given the same level of scrutiny as Indymedia, and that the author’s approach demonstrates a certain ignorance of open publishing, evidenced by his attempts to get a “definitive” or “official” comment out of Indymedia. Of course, the author fails, because there is no “official” or “definitive” line — it’s a dialogue contributed to by folks from everywhere. It just goes to show that even those of us who consider ourselves to be very critical of the mainstream media still are taken in and assimilated to its norms. You gotta keep that critical apparatus up and running constantly.