Jun 24, 2007

Melbourne Indymedia Suspends Publishing

The Indymedia network has had its problems of late --although Sydney Indymedia has rebooted its project, retooled and consolidated a new and activism oriented platform. But in Melbourne:
Open publishing has been suspended on Melbourne Indymedia as numbers in our editorial collective are insufficient to manage the site effectively and responsibly. We realise that MIM has played a vital role in reporting activist news from Melbourne, around Australia and internationally. To this end the present collective will be assessing options for how best to provide an activist news service in the future. If you wish to get involved, please contact us, or subscribe to our mailing list.

This is a setback for the alternative viewpoints being published on the web as the Indymedia sites do that very effectively. I've always utilized the excellent International Indymedia network -- especially Radio 4 All/A-infos Radio project -- in my audio work and when you get into multimedia blogging and podcasting you get to appreciate the logic of the Indymedia enterprise.

There was a thorough discussion on Sydney Indymedia in April last year about the future of left publishing on the web but unfortunately when Sydney Indymedia moved house, those pages seem not to have migrated.

Maybe at some stage we could address the question here. But the main handicap is that with the rise of free Web 2.0 platforms, Indymedia has lost its unique niche.While new sites have sprung up, like Engagemedia, none seem to share the collective focus and sharing offered by the Indymedia projects around the country.