Re: Journalists/media during Ecotopia

hey, dears ,

> If i remember right, during Ecotopia there used to be
> one day or a certain time only which is open for
> journalists to attend.
> I think it is very important to have some media
> coverage but we should also be aware of what it means
> to have media arround.
> We all know, that media can be used in a good way, but
> also it can cause a lot of problems

We have made an ugly experience on the Ecotopia 2000 in Finland:
A local camera team came to produce a report about concensus decision
making  on the Ecotopia Camp - so far so good - but suddenly an accident
happend - a woman from the kitchen crew became seriously burned - an red
cross helicopter  came immediatly - the cameraman jumped up to take some
"action pictures" even  if we urged him to stop that - later - the media
team apologised that and where breaking out into tears - they agreed that
we got the film tape to distroy the pictures -

but the report they made was this : "camera man attacked by crasy hippies
- camera and tape was stolen". The police came to search for the camera
but luckily we could clarify the facts with the police....

But the whole story was really nasty.

I am not against media on the camp - they could be very important to
spread out our ideas. But we should take care of them and may be a media
group from us could go with them especially when they are going to film us
/taking pictures.
The risk that they are writing bad stories about us is not avoidable - but
we could reduce it with a good attendance, media group and 1 or 2 special 
media days - as Sapi proposed.

bye
Ekki