Hi Aby,

I do not know how to get reality covered well in the establishment
media. At conferences like MGP2006 I get somewhat hopeful that it isn't
a total loss, but then the news streams on and people's most important
struggles for human decency and justice are ignored, marginalized, or
misrepresented.

I try to point people toward good independent news sources instead. In
the case of Oaxaca, it is hands-down:

The Narco News Bulletin, "Reporting on the Drug War and Democracy from
Latin America"
http://narconews.com/

(Disclosure: I take the checks and cash them for the Fund for Authentic
Journalism - http://www.authenticjournalism.org/ - which supports Narco
News.)

I think trying to get op-eds and letters-to-the-editor are important,
and can be done on a local level with some success.

I'm halfway through Robert Jensen's "Writing Dissent" which is
specifically about getting radical viewpoints into the mainstream press,
but it's a useful how-to for writing op-eds and getting them published
for anyone.

On Oaxaca, I can see if I can share some of the thanks Narco News has
received from, in particular, U.S. citizens living or who have spent
time in Oaxaca, and understand the situation there; maybe that would be
an avenue to communicating to editors and such.

Good luck and keep me posted; if you write an op-ed, sharing drafts is a
good way to improve one's writing, share ideas, and get others (like me)
moving!

- ben

p.s. What I really want to do is create a news distribution service that
is based on what people democratically choose is most important – to
take the gatekeeping role away from any group and give it to all of us.
Establishment and independent reports could live side by side here;
there would no longer be the vast advantage specific establishment
sources have in the ability to provide a full range of news, and so
decide what is or isn't news.

That's part of People Who Give a Damn - http://pwgd.org/

aby adams wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> As you may or may not know (bc the press hasn't reported it) there has
> been very violent repression of political protests in Oaxaca, MX these
> past 2 months and activists are "disappearing" on a regular basis.
> There has been some coverage of these events by independent news
> sources and citizen journalists but it remains largely absent from
> well circulated mainstream news sources. Can anyone offer suggestions
> on how to get these events covered in the mainstream press? Any
> advice would be largely appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Aby
>