Press Action Hero of the Week

[Also, the current issue, "RESISTANCE: In The Eye Of The American
Hegemon", of Swans<www.swans.com> looks really good.]

February 07, 2004
Press Action Hero of the Week: GILLES D'AYMERY
http://www.pressaction.com/pablog/archives/001288.html
Mark Hand

"Are you about yourself or are you about an idea?" That's the question
Gilles d'Aymery asks people who want to contribute articles to Swans, the
online magazine that he founded and edits. He may not ask it to their face
or in email correspondence. But it's a question he's determined to answer
as he reads the essays people send him. If he notices a contributor is
straying from the magazine's commitment to ideas, d'Aymery isn't afraid to
cut that person loose from the Swans family.

If he could get away with it, d'Aymery would address the dilemma by
publishing Swans without any bylines. It's a policy that would quickly
suppress all egos. As an egalitarian, d'Aymery would also erase his name
as editor from the masthead, stripping any semblance of lineage from the
ideas presented in the publication.

The idea--the thoughtful presentation of an argument--is paramount, not
the person behind it. As someone who grew up immersed in France's social
democratic tradition, d'Aymery, who now lives in the San Francisco Bay
area, casts an outsider's eye on the individualistic spirit in the United
States.

It's a clich but still true. Rugged individualism, not necessarily the
type of individualism hyped in U.S. history books and Hollywood movies, is
still alive in America and d'Aymery wants it extinguished. Get rid of the
ego. The Economist, the London-based newsweekly, doesn't give its writers
bylines. And it's viewed by many as the best news magazine in the world,
in a snarky sort of way. Why should d'Aymery throw his principles out the
window? Swans is his magazine and he should be able to do what he wants
with it.

But he's not clueless. D'Aymery understands he couldn't publish his online
magazine if he instituted the no-name policy. People want credit for their
ideas, especially when they're not getting paid for them, as is the case
at Swans.

If he did adopt the no-name approach, d'Aymery would lose his
contributors, turning Swans into a little blog. And what is more "me" than
our current age of blogging? Our opinions are vitally important, or so
many of us think they are as evidenced in the hundreds of thousands of
people keeping an online diary of their opinions and observations for the
entire world to read--if only the world could find their address in the
blogosphere.

And so d'Aymery compromises, giving us an opportunity to read original
material by a diverse mix of writers, from the celebrated--Edward Herman,
Michael Parenti--to the rest of us. "I'm not looking for the guy with a
pedigree,"  d'Aymery tells Press Action. "I promote people from all walks
of life."

The Artful Compromise

If d'Aymery hadn't compromised on the no-name policy, he couldn't have
delivered on a commitment to himself and others to put together a special
issue of Swans, with bylines and all, on post-invasion Iraq.

A few years ago, Anthony Arnove's Iraq Under Siege, a collection of
articles on the effects of U.S. and U.N. policies against Iraq, set the
standard for analysis of sanctions-era Iraq. With the release this week of
Swans' special issue on post-invasion Iraq, d'Aymery has set a new
standard for a new era that will prove difficult to match.

The special issue, titled Resistance: In the Eye of the American Hegemon,
contains 19 essays, including pieces by Herman and Parenti as well as
Denis Halliday and Thomas Nagy. A contributor's name doesn't necessarily
impress D'Aymery. He prefers to highlight the diversity of opinion in the
special issue. "It is rather exceptional," he says. "It has a hell of a
lot of different views and not just big names."

To highlight how his writers come from all walks of life, d'Aymery points
to Michael Stowell, whose essay on the children of Iraq appears in the
special issue and who is a regular contributor to Swans. Stowell is
currently living homeless in California, taking care of his word
processing and electronic communications at Internet cafes and libraries.

Iraq Under Siege, a book that was updated by South End Press in late 2002
as the Bush administration was making its final invasion plans, contains a
slightly smaller number of essays than Resistance--15 or so--by such
notables as Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn.

The fact that Swans, a small online magazine of political and social
opinion, succeeded in pulling together a larger number of top-notch essays
on post-invasion Iraq than its progenitor, Iraq Under Siege, didn't escape
the notice of d'Aymery, who relishes competing in the marketplace of
ideas. For d'Aymery, though, it's not about his ability to recruit
celebrated authors. It's all about the quality of the content.

Providing online readers with premium analysis and writing has been
d'Aymery's raison d'etre since he launched Swans in December 1996. Since
the beginning, Swans has evolved into a destination for readers who crave
well crafted and carefully edited essays on important issues of the day.

The cerebral style of Swans--its tagline is The Companion of Thinking
People--turned economist and writer Tanweer Akram into an admirer and a
contributor. And it was Akram who approached d'Aymery about Swans trying
to build a collection of essays about post-invasion Iraq modeled on
Arnoves Iraq Under Siege. "He made things happen," d'Aymery says.

In the introduction to Resistance, d'Aymery acknowledges Akrams work as
coordinator of the project. Late October 2003, Tanweer Akram, an economic
consultant to a major international institution, contacted me and inquired
whether I would be willing to work on a follow-up to Arnove's collection
that would cover the occupation of Iraq and the growing resistance to
American hegemonic policies.

After consulting with his partner, Jan Baughman, who serves as co-editor
of Swans, d'Aymery agreed to move forward with the project. For more than
three months, the Swans collective contacted potential authors in search
of commitments, edited copy and wrote their own pieces that would appear
in the collection. After all the long hours and nonstop communication with
contributors, the final product was unveiled on Feb. 2. On the day of the
special issue's release, Swans received 20,000 unique visitors to its
site.

All of the articles in the Iraq special, like the content in every issue
of Swans, are exclusives. Even though he doesnt pay contributors, d'Aymery
enforces a strict exclusivity rule. A couple years ago, d'Aymery convinced
Herman, who had wanted to submit the same material to Z Magazine, of the
merits of keeping Swans unique by not letting it get cluttered with
articles that appear elsewhere on the Web. Contributors are given their
own individual section on the Swans site another case of d'Aymery
compromising his ideal of anonymity--where readers can easily locate their
work.

D'Aymery doesnt understand the attraction of sites such as Common Dreams
and Truthout.org--even CounterPunch and Press Action, to a certain
extent--that scavenge material from other sites. Before the Internet, the
syndication and simultaneous publishing of an article or op-ed in a daily
newspaper made sense because readers in one city may not have had quick
and easy access to content published in another city's paper. But today,
an article doesnt need to appear in multiple publications in order to
reach readers. Online news and opinion sites have an address on the
Internet that can be visited by anyone in the world.

As one of the more aggressive copyright cops in the online community,
d'Aymery enforces a strict policy against letting other online publishers
post entire articles that have appeared in Swans. At the bottom of each
article on Swans, d'Aymery announces in bold: All rights reserved. Please
DO NOT steal, scavenge or repost this work on the Web.

"I've been taken for a ride so many times that I'm on the defensive," he
says.

The Early Bird

The rise of the Internet gave us all the opportunity to become writers,
editors and publishers, with the interconnected world as our potential
audience. All we needed was access to a computer and a limited knowledge
of Web publishing software.

In the mid-1990s, a select group of people with superior knowledge of
computer software got a head start on the rest of us and became the first
wave of online publishers. It was this group of online sophisticates that
ushered out the era of the clunky bulletin board systems that had
dominated computer interaction the previous 10 years.

Among this first wave of online-only publishers was d'Aymery, who at the
time of the launch of Swans owned his own computer consulting business.
Having the technical expertise made it easier for d'Aymery, who craved an
outlet for his opinions on society and politics, to start his own online
publication.  Before Swans, he would submit opinion pieces to The
Washington Post and articles to The New Yorker without any luck. Instead
of continuing to fight that losing battle, d'Aymery, like so many others,
chose to take matters into his own hands by turning to pulp-free
publishing.

"I was an early bird" to the online magazine scene, he says.

D'Aymery had never worked as a professional journalist or writer prior to
leaping into the role of publisher. After getting an education at the
Universities of Economics & Law of Toulouse and Paris and the Institut
d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, he entered the world of business in the late
1970s, working for an oil company in his native France. After a brief
stint in Bermuda, d'Aymery moved to New York City in 1982 where he worked
for a subsidiary of London-based Hunting Petroleum Services. In 1992, he
decided to go out on his own and started a computer consultancy that
catered to small businesses.

D'Aymery had always had a passion for writing. In 1996, he was involved in
a terrible motorcycle accident that ultimately produced, aside from the
physical pain, new perspectives on life. In the wake of the accident, he
realized that life was ephemeral and that setting aside ones dreams
probably wasn't a smart strategy. Later that year d'Aymery, with the full
support of Baughman, launched Swans.

In 2001, with his mortgage and all other debt paid off, d'Aymery decided
to shut down his consulting business and dedicate his time to Swans.
Baughman, who works as a researcher for a biotech company in the Bay Area,
is now the sole breadwinner in the family. Given what he calls his
"European frugality," they are able to live comfortably on her salary.
"Jan pays the bills," he says with appreciation.

The 53-year-old d'Aymery has seen Swans grow in quality and stature since
his decision to dedicate his time to the magazine. But he deflects
attention from himself. Instead, he's relentless in giving credit for
Swans' success to co-editor Baughman. For the special issue on Iraq, he
cites her work along with project coordinator Tanweer Akram and all of the
writers who contributed articles.

The Engine

"I am only the engine" for Swans, he says. And an engine needs other parts
around it in order to serve any purpose. "Swans is a collective work."

D'Aymery also provides his fair share of the fuel that fires Swans'
engine. His political essays are always incisive, rarely boring. Last
fall, for instance, he wrote an essay that chastised members of the Left
for their stubborn allegiance to the Democrats. "The Cruise Missile Left
(or should we call them the 'Cruise Line Left?') has been in bed with the
democrats for so long that they've already jumped on the bandwagon of the
Anyone-But-Bush (ABB) coalition," he wrote.  "Nothing's new here, but the
surprise comes from unexpected quarters where apparently ABB resonates
loudly. Norman Solomon, the executive director of the Institute for Public
Accuracy (www.accuracy.org), writes, 'I'm a green. But these days, in the
battle for the presidency, I'm not a Green.' Michael Albert of ZNet says
that 'one post election result we want is Bush retired.'"

As for U.S. policy in the Middle East, d'Aymery tells Press Action he's
ashamed of what the United States has been doing in Iraq, "with the wink
of the international community." At the same time, he says everyone needs
to "get away from demonizing others," from U.S. leaders who use propaganda
to attack foreign leaders currently out of favor in Washington to antiwar
activists who casually compare Bush administration policies to those of
Hitler's Germany.

"There are too many self-destructive policies in America and Europe too,"
he says.

But it's d'Aymery's conviction to continue documenting these policies in
the pages of Swans, in a highly literate and thoughtful fashion, that
prevents any potential frustration with the current state of the world
from distracting him.

On its site, Swans explains why it exists: "In a time of revisionism,
faux-semblant, spinning news and skewed information, Swans is about
thinking, questioning, observing and providing a forum for ideas that is
lacking in the mainstream media."

Once again, it's the idea, not the personality, that d'Aymery seeks to
emphasize in Swans.

And d'Aymery resists with similar conviction anyone seeking to direct the
limelight on him. "I'm not a hero," he counters, when told of Press
Action's plans to name him Hero of the Week. "I think that the word and
concept should be retired."
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