User:Jezhotwells/BIMC

Bristol Indymedia, also known as Bristol Independent Media Collective or BIMC, is an open access news web site run by volunteers in Bristol, [England]]. Established in 2001, the collective also organise film showings and other events.

About
In editorial guidelines as stated on their website: Bristol Indymedia is an open-publishing platform that brings to light stories of genuine local concern to the people of Bristol and the South West of England. The nature of the content of the site will be determined by the participation of people within this geographical area, and the interests and skills that they bring to the Bristol Indymedia project.

In August 2001, as an offshoot of the tech2 festival at the Cube Cinema Microplex and other venues around Bristol, a group of interested people met upstairs at the Hatchet pub, Bristol, and began to set out a role for a possible Indymedia website for Bristol. By September 2001, the site was up and running. Bristol Indymedia has organised regular Community Media Days, film showings at a local independent cinema and collective members participate in local and national media events and conferences, such as Visible Evidence in December 2003.

Server Seizure
On 27 June 2005 the Bristol Indymedia server was taken off line by British Transport Police due to a vandal using it to boast of his activities and inciting others to do likewise. but is now back online. (See the Indymedia entry for more on controversies surrounding Indymedia's open newswire policy, or The Register's coverage for more on the police raid.) The seizure of the server was carried out under a search warrant (police and criminal evidence act 1984, ss.8 and 15). The police also arrested a Bristol Indymedia volunteer for the common law offence of "incitement to criminal damage." The raid removed a computer that also hosted a number of other sites including Euskalinfo (a Basque news service) and Wildfire, the blog of a prominent Bristol peace activist Jo Wilding. Following the seizure the Bristol Indymedia collective released a statement saying, "We are outraged at the actions of the police. They have completely disabled the entire Bristol Indymedia news service...This situation has serious implications for anyone providing a news service on the Internet." On October 26 2005 the police had returned the seized equipment. By January 2006 the police had not charged the arrested volunteer with the offence they were arrested for and had decided that no further action is to be taken. On 24 September 2007 representatives of Bristol Indymedia met with British Transport Police to discuss the seizure and arrest further. At the meeting the police confirmed that they have not found anything on the computers seized that would have led to the vandal. On May 2008, in a news statement on the website, the Bristol Indymedia Collective announced that the police had agreed to pay £190 in compensation for a damage done to a computer during the raid as a 'ex-gratia' payment.

Bristol Indymedia Ongoing
Bristol based activists, using the name 'digital antifa', used the site to announce on the 14th April 2006 that the UK based Neo-Nazi group November 9 Society had been taken out. Following this, on the 15th May 2006 the then leader of the Neo Nazi group, Kevin Quinn posted on the site that he had been looking for the BIMC collective to, "Last night I visited Bristol to thank the people from Indimedia for closing my website down...I went in the two pubs you normally hold it [the BIMC meetings] but I did not see anyone that appeared to be holding any meeting of any importance at all. I will most definitely be coming again." The BIMC collective took this as a threat an issued a statement in response, "It is a common misconception that Indymedia writes the stories posted onto its newswire...Indymedia is not responsible for shutting down the N9S website...However given the nature of Quinn's 'politics' this 'visit' appears to be a thinly veiled attempt to intimidate a news site that carried stories he did not like...We will be meeting as normal.." Reports from the indymedia volunteers to attended the meeting say there was no sign of Quinn or N9S, though sporadic messages attributed to the group in question were still posted on the site for some time after.

In December 2006 the Bristol Indymedia Collective published an article on the site entitled 'Future Directions'. This article suggested a number of future directions that the site could progress in. These included BIMC Wiki Public Pages, a printed version of the site, an expanded calendar, adding blogs to the site and changing the site's name and focus to the wider 'West Country IMC'. At a public meeting to discuss these ideas a number of days later, the collective decided to enact the adding of a blogging system to the site that would allow people to create an ad-free blog and syndicate the posts directly to the Bristol Indymedia site.

In February 2008 Bristol Indymedia launched a new version of the site. Under the headline 'Bristol Indymedia's Radical Revamp' the sites administrators declared, "Today we unveil a fully upgraded website. The new site, which encourages readers to post their own local news stories, offers expanded facilities for posting news from all regions of the South West, an improved calendar, better facilities to upload images, video and audio content, a cleaner site design, easier access to the information and more scope for the site to expand." The pace of progress in 2008 continued with the launch of the web-based recycling system 'Indycycle' in May and a printed quarterly newsletter containing stories published to the site, Hard Copy.

Other Indymedia Centres
Bristol Indymedia is just one of many Independent Media Centers. They started with a vision for a global, open network of DIY journalists and alternative media activists. It was and remains closely associated with the anti-globalization movement, which criticizes neoliberalism, NAFTA and the World Trade Organization. The overall network is decentralized to the extent that the local IMC's operate independently once they are authenticated into the IMC network.