Centro de Medios Independientes de Puerto Rico

EDITORIAL POLICY – Centro de Medios Independiente – Puerto Rico (CMI-PR) I. Editorial Philosophy a. In correspondence with its points of unity, the CMI-PR will have a policy of open newswire policy on its Web page. This will serve as a decentralized forum for voices and points of views that are usually suppressed or distorted by the corporate and/or governmental press. b. The CMI-PR will serve to open access to technology so all groups can speak for themselves. c. The CMI-PR purports to create an alternative to corporate and/or governmental means of communication. II. Editorial Mission a. To provide an open newswire in accordance to our points of unity. b. To maintain the newswire and the Web page as a community space, that foments the participation, debate and exchange of information, especially among disposed and marginalized members of society. c. To create virtual and real networks that involve individual citizens and grassroots organizations and/or NGOs, so facilitating their involvement in social, environmental and political issues, which affect communities at a local, national and global scale. d. To create a mediated space that respects and foments the right of each person to establish an open and free discourse. e. To preserve the quality of the Web page as a useful and valuable resource. III. Editorial Collective a. In accordance with its points of unity, the CMI-PR will have a policy of open newswire on its Web page. In order to maintain the due purpose, the organization, an the relevance of the newswire, the CMI-PR will establish an Editorial Collective which will monitor the newswire as to promote articles to the center column and to other CMIs, and to hide any article or message outside the parameters established in the Editorial Policy. b. The Editorial Collective should have a minimum of three members. Anyone interested can join the Editorial Collective. It is suggested that the Collective be kept at a realistic and practical size. (It is expected that in the evaluation of this policy, after 6 months of its ratification, a maximum number of members of the Editorial Collective be established, if it is so deemed necessary.) c. The Editorial Collective will decide, autonomously, the distribution of its workload among the members, especially the responsibility of regularly monitoring the open source. d. The Editorial Collective will have the responsibility of informing the organization of its performance, achievements, problems and of any controversial decisions. At least one of its members should be present at the CMI-PR general meetings. e. The Editorial Collective has the responsibility of categorizing, hiding, or promoting articles to the center column. IV. Procedures and guidelines for categorizing and promoting open source articles a. The CMI-PR will determine relevant categories that will function as thematical subdivisions to the open source. b. Suggestions: I. War II. Vieques III. Local Politics IV. Education V. Ecology VI. Economy VII. International VIII. Community Groups IX. Culture c. The Editorial Collective will classify the articles according to these categories d. The Editorial Collective will have the responsibility of promoting, to the center column of the web page, well-written and relevant articles. The EC will promote to the center column investigate reports written by members of the CMI and/or, that offers alternative perspectives to those presented by the corporate press. e. The Editorial Collective should also share relevant articles with other CMIs and other independent media. f. Articles that should be fomented and promoted: I. Investigative articles, well sustained and relevant. II. First hand coverage of mobilizations and/or protests. III. Media analysis. IV. Stories that affect groups or places usually invisibilized by the corporate media. V. Reports of initiatives and/or projects in favor of change and social justice. VI. Articles that link the local reality with national and/or global dynamics. V. Procedures and guidelines to hide articles a. The person the Editorial Collective selects to be in charge of monitoring the open newswire should remove the following types of messages: I. Duplicated articles. II. Any commercial events, products or services. III. Illegible or blank postings. IV. Spam attacks. o The person monitoring the open source should hide the following types of messages and immediately notify the Editorial Collective list. The members of the Editorial Collective will have 48 hours to object to the decision of hiding an article, post or message: I. Messages of hate, racist, sexist, or in any way discriminatory. This includes texts that incite to violence against the disposed, oppressed or minority groups. II. Event announcements, that are not press releases or investigative reports, should go in the calendar section of the page. III. Messages seeking contact with or directed towards an individual or to the CMI-PR. The email contact for the CMI-PR is: cmi-pr@lists.indymedia.org IV. Defamatory, libelous or personalist messages that reveal private information or threaten an individual. V. Proselitist messages, be them political or religious. VI. Impostures, false facts, disinformation or personifications by a third party. VII. A request by an activist who wants his/her photo removed. b. If an unexpected problem occurs (not included in the list above) about an article or a posting, and the person monitoring the open newswire understands that such should be removed, the procedure will be: hide the message and notify the Editorial Collective list. The Editorial Collective will then have 48 hours to discuss and object to the removal of the article. (The CMI-PR can, following the consensus model, revise any decisions made by the Editorial Collective. It is recommended that after 6 months of the ratification of this policy, the existing collective should evaluate its applicability and functionality.)