LOCAL News :: Media
To The Baltimore IMC Editors.
Bringing attention to the
mission of the Independant
Media Center.
Report from Washington, D.C.
On Auguust 18th, 2005, I penned the
article, "Stealing As Violence".
This story covered an incident that
involved a claim of missing petitions
as reported by Chris Otten, who was
a campaign staffer with the committee,
Save Our City. The campaign was
an effort to recall D.C. Mayor
Anthony Williams from that office,
began in January 2004, and
intentionally failed in mid July of
that same year. Otten's voiced a
strong accusation of this incident,
yet no grievance was filed before
the D.C. Board of Elections and
Ethics. Regardless of that, I
still had confidence in Chris
Otten's claim of those
missing petitions from the
campaign headquarters. Pretty
much, what transpired in early
July 2004 warranted no
intervention by the D.C.
Board Of Election because,
as one can tell by the facts
of the case, it is a deep one.
No one in the campaign committee
cared enough to follow up with
bringing this matter to that
agency's attention, nor even
the public. Though we can take it,
fear was a factor.
At any rate, while campaign
officials disclosed that they
did seek more time from the Board,
it fell on deaf ears. However, even
before Chris Otten's claim, it
was already reported in the
Washington Afro American
newspaper of June 2004 that
reporter Valencia Mohammed
penned, "Recall Campaign
Scrambling". This story
reported the co-chairwoman
of the campaign, Barbara Lett
Simmons, who made it known
that the committee was having
trouble "getting completed
petitions returned" to the
headquarters.
In my continued quest to make
public of missing petitions in the
recall campaign of 2004, both in
the D.C. and Baltimore
Independant Centers, they were
both shot down---deleted, due
to the fact that editors
of both outlets viewed my
report as a policy violation.
Was it a threat to kill a
high ranking official, which
some posted on a Philly IMC
a few months back? Hell no.
It was the policy violation,
which editors claim was a
personal attack against
campaign staffers of that
recall effort: Chris Otten
and Adam Eidinger.
Editors at the Baltimore
and D.C. IMC's, but not excluding
others, have a responcibility to
it's said mission: "An alternative
to corporate media".
On many occassion I have seen
violations of the mission, yet
editors have the audacity to
throw out claims that news
reports to the news outlets
are in violation of
oganizational policy.
Maybe the public needs to start
withdrawing their support for
IMC's throughtout the world
because they are not in concert
with it's own basic mission.