Sound Of Sirens

Ok, this is about the media and its functions. Again: I do not claim to be an expert, call me a generalist, however, let’s see how far we get.

I’ll start with a quote of a beautiful essay by Donella Meadows, a professor, biophysicist, systems analyst, organic farmer, author, journalist and inspiration in the movement for sustainability. The essay is called ‘Dancing with Systems‘ and this particular part is about ‘Honouring and protecting information.’

A decision maker can’t respond to information he or she doesn’t have, can’t respond accurately to information that is inaccurate, can’t respond in a timely way to information that is late. I would guess that 99 percent of what goes wrong in systems goes wrong because of faulty or missing information.

If I could, I would add an Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not distort, delay, or sequester information. You can drive a system crazy by muddying its information streams. You can make a system work better with surprising ease if you can give it more timely, more accurate, more complete information.

For example, in 1986 new federal legislation required U.S. companies to report all chemical emissions from each of their plants. Through the Freedom of Information Act (from a systems point of view one of the most important laws in the nation), that information became a matter of public record. In July 1988 the first data on chemical emissions became available. The reported emissions were not illegal, but they didn’t look very good when they were published in local papers by enterprising reporters, who had a tendency to make lists of “the top ten local polluters.” That’s all that happened. There were no lawsuits, no required reductions, no fines, no penalties. But within two years chemical emissions nationwide (at least as reported, and presumably also in fact) had decreased by 40 percent. Some companies were launching policies to bring their emissions down by 90 percent, just because of the release of previously sequestered information.

Get my point? In the system that we are living in you could burn down the function of the media to ‘Manufacturing Consent’ (also a title of a great documentary with Noam Chomsky). Even if media decide to report news that are not mainstream or in the interest of the state / corporations that govern the system, they worry a lot about their sales rate or the clicks on their website. And accordingly this will influence what they report, what they consider important or what kind of news they think brings them enough readers. Thus this is dependent media, which in my book causes the ‘faulty and missing information‘ Meadows talks about, responsable for a lot disfunction in our system.

Or another example: What do you think would happen, if corporations would have to attach to their products the information of the impact and harm the process of production of their products cause to environment and people? Or just release this data to the public? Since, how was that: A decision maker can’t respond to information he or she doesn’t have…

So again for the wellbeing of the planet and of people it’s about people taking responsibility. It’s about creating possibilities and facilities for direct, tight feedback so the system knows what’s happening inside itself quickly and can respond.

These networks exist and (also depending on you and your willingness to share or participate) they are growing and developing. There are the weblogs, projects and (social)networks of the internet that potentially may support this development. Meaning: Talk about it, spread the news, share what you find and find your own appropriate responses!

The following sites will provide you with news gathered from different independent sources, thus: a lot of the stuff you find here you won’t find in the regular news…
zcommunications.org
‘ZCom not only provides information and analysis to already existing organizations, it helps launch new endeavors. Countless activists have joined struggles, started organizations, and brought vision and strategy into already existing efforts because of Z. No project more consistently provides accessible analysis of current events and systemic oppressions, making it possible to seriously address questions of vision and strategy.’ - dito!
indymedia.org
International network of media and activists for independent and non-commercial news
germany.indymedia.org
German indymedia version
globalwitness.org
Their objective is to highlight the link between the exploitation of natural resources and human rights abuses
hintergrund.de
Independent news and information portal (german)
democracynow.org
Independent news program, radio and TV, airing in North America and online
Noam Chomsky / chomsky.info
A lot of material by a brilliant thinker and activist. Get an insight into the political and social system we are living in. interviews, essays etc.
amnesty.org
‘Working to protect human rights worldwide’
amnesty.de
Amnesty International Germany
archive.org
‘Universal access to human knowledge.’ - Incredible online archive of all sorts of media