“Our strategy is grassroots-based–media by the people,” says Jim Wrecks, cofounder of the Chicago CounterMedia project. “We want people to know that if they capture acts of dissent and resistance, we can get the message out to the larger community–and blast the images around the world.”
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CounterMedia may not be beaming its broadcast signal to the world, but during the next week the coalition of political and media groups is promising to offer an alternative to the canned news product sure to pour from the tube during the Democratic National Convention. Working in a variety of media–video, cable, radio, photography, the Internet, and press releases–the group will focus on protests and issues that won’t get covered in-depth, if at all, by the usual suspects. Volunteers will document events surrounding the convention as they happen and then disseminate the information to the mainstream media, the alternative press, and community activists.
Among the early volunteers were independent documentary video maker Kate Kirtz and Kartemquin staffer Jim Fetterley. The pair are organizing Off the Record, a public-access TV show combining live coverage, news footage, interviews, and call-ins that will air prior to and during the convention. “I expect things will be chaotic that week, but we’ll have the inside angle if there’s a happening story going down,” says Fetterley. “This is the place to turn if it’s not being covered anywhere else. The mainstream press and news will have their own stories to cover.”
