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St. Louis IMC ~ PROFILE (March '07)

Mission
The St. Louis Independent Media Center is dedicated to providing an open forum for the exploration and expansion of egalitarian expressions. Specifically, we aim to provide a grassroots and often under-reported perspective on local and regional artistic, environmental, political, activist and social justice issues. We aim to be as inclusive as possible. This site depends upon your active participation via open postings and commentary.

About Indymedia
The Independent Media Center is a network of collectively run media outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth. We work out of a love and inspiration for people who continue to work for a better world, despite corporate media's distortions and unwillingness to cover the efforts to free humanity.

History
The Independent Media Center (www.indymedia.org), was established by various independent and alternative media organizations and activists in 1999 for the purpose of providing grassroots coverage of the World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle. The center acted as a clearinghouse of information for journalists, and provided up-to-the-minute reports, photos, audio and video footage through its website. Using the collected footage, the Seattle Independent Media Center (seattle.indymedia.org) produced a series of five documentaries, uplinked every day to satellite and distributed throughout the United States to public access stations.

The center also produced its own newspaper, distributed throughout Seattle and to other cities via the internet, as well as hundreds of audio segments, transmitted through the web and Studio X, a 24-hour micro and internet radio station based in Seattle. The site, which uses a democratic open-publishing system, logged more than 2 million hits, and was featured on America Online, Yahoo, CNN, BBC Online, and numerous other sites. Through a decentralized and autonomous network, hundreds of media activists setup independent media centers in London, Canada, Mexico City, Prague, Belgium, France, and Italy over the next year. IMCs have since been established on every continent, with more to come.

For more information, see the IMC Frequently Asked Questions.

A Little Bit About Us

Other pages related to STLIMC Process, Organization, etc.

What is the St. Louis Indymedia Center?

Indymedia started in 1999 as an organizing tool for groups involved in the anti-globalization protests that found Seattle to be a battleground to expose the World Trade Organization. Protest groups were experienced enough to know that no matter what happened, the corporate media would sensationalize and limit focus to provide a very narrow and unrepresentative view of what was occurring. The reasons for the protest and any substantial analysis or criticism of the WTO would be neglected. The IMC created the open publishing Newswire so that people could exchange information quickly from anywhere in the city, and so that people across the world could immediately hear personal accounts of what was happening. The St. Louis IMC was born from the October 8th Coalition, which organized large protests to the presidential “debates” at Washington University in 2000.

The open publishing concept seemed radical and new. Dialogues could occur in this new type of public forum. Anonymity was key, because police harassment was sure to seek a way to break this mode of communication between revolutionary activists. The IMC also wanted to make sure that when they got subpoenaed, no information about individuals would be available for the courts to use.

The IMC movement is intended to highlight the stories and actions of underrepresented groups resisting oppression, and it seeks to expose the spin and hype that mainstream media puts on information. By giving everyone the tools to publish their own stories, the movement is a challenge to the ownership by a few people and corporations of “the news,” an institution that shapes so many peoples' daily conversations and perceptions of the world.

Saint Louis.
Home of the Gateway Arch and Monsanto
Home of some of the worst urban sprawl in the nation and a slowly-draining inner city that remains a mystery to many that call Saint Louis home, when they live 30 safe miles away.

We, Independent
We, Media
We, at the Center of this jewel on the Mississippi River.
As the old money and mores leach away,

We fill the cracks left behind with:
Youth - Active Art - Alternative Energy

Eyes - Ears - Hands
To reclaim

Streets - Parks - Wasteland
I thought you knew…..

Now You Do.

Media, Independent.
Tells the stories of those left behind to clean up the mess rebuild the infrastructure plant the seeds.

So many groups, struggling within a highly patriarchal, fractured environment work daily, fighting the good fight.

Who are we?
Step inside the Independent Media Center, where you can find the people you always knew existed, but never noticed on your street. Invite them over for a little tea and civil disobedience.

Get to know the revolutionary community you never knew existed.

What are we doing?
People building a community that builds a village, a network of villages, a town, a city of people that is THE city: building the infrastructure for a self-sufficient, permanently autonomous, sustainable society: feeding us, transporting us, housing us, caring for us, knowledge-sharing, fun-making, problem-solving: and media is the voice-canvas-public mural for us to tell us about us, and the things we want are the reasons we build.

We aim to catalyze these efforts, in turn presenting a serious (and fun) alternative to the status quo.

Meetings
All of our meetings are open to the public, so please come and join us in reclaiming our media. We hold general meetings monthly on Sundays. For more information check the calendar and/or drop us a note. We also have a public announcement email listserv: imc-stlouis (at) lists.indymedia.org.

You may also join the email list.

Monthly meetings have now resumed, to be held on the second (2nd) Sunday of every month at the Community Arts and Media Project, located at 3026 Cherokee St., St. Louis, MO 63118. Check the calendar and Announcements for ideas & details on upcoming meetings.