If it speaks with one voice, it ain't the people

the Javelina vs. the Mediacracy

Three to five shots were fired at a queer women's coffeehouse last week. No-one was hurt. It wasn't in any of the papers, not even this one, nor was it announced on any of the surviving radio stations. But, people know about it. For my own part, I know because I was there. I picked up the shells.

It's a cliche that every radical newspaper claims to be the voice of the people. We live in a media market where even the most alienated among us realize that there is a wealth of information and opinion about our city, our friends, the dramas that motivate us that never sees print in the dominant papers- the Statesman, the Chronicle, the Morning News,etc. The gap between what matters deeply to us and our communities and what we are told is "relevant" by the power structure is one of the most frustrating lapses in our current system, a point at which virtually all people can agree that something better could be done. Some can see across this gap a new media, one that will "tell the real story" and be a"voice of the community."

This isn't it.

The problem is simply this- just because there is a universal sentiment that the voices of people are suppressed under the current mediacracy, it doesn't follow that there is a single, universal voice being suppressed. In fact viewing the human element missing from commercial culture as "The People" levels off all the different experiences, visions, and yes,internal conflicts that separate "The People" from the consumer monoculture in the first place. The idea that the thoughts of silent people can be determined by "activists" is as arrogant as the idea that they can be determined by advertisers and focus groups.

The Javelina isn't "the voice of the people"- it isn't even the voice of the community. At best, it is a collectively run newspaper that attempts to cover a few stories from the shared community autonomy viewpoint of the editors. This may seem to fly in the face of usual "progressive" ideals, which insist that nothing can happen until everybody puts aside their differences and gets united behind a single banner, but this, I think, says more about the limits of "unity" than anything else. We don't need a unified voice any more than we need a unified leadership- what we need is solidarity, for every community to support every other in their own, admittedly limited voice. Anyone looking for print media that presents the voices of people should definitely read the Javelina, but they should also read the Working Stiff Journal, Nokoa, The Villager, El Mundo, El Norte, Austin Daze, Green Tree, and perhaps most importantly, start their own newspaper,because what is missing from the mediacracy is the validation of the personal, the communitarian news and opinions.

Which brings me back to the gunshots at the queer coffeehouse.

The Javelina works hard, but each person's single best source of news and opinion in Austin, in terms of being relevant to "the people," is the lived experience of people and the communities they are close to. We're taught to discount this and instead rely on "expert accounts," from "respectable sources," but all journalists are equally storytellers. What a radical media project needs to do is not be the one voice of the movement but change the way people conceive of news.

Change the idea that only certain people are entitled to recount information, that only certain topics are approved as relevant, that only information that gets into a newspaper or on the Internet is actually getting out to people. Build more respect for the word of mouth networks that carry important information from friend to friend. Bring back the gossip and the griot, and some damn good zines. And support others who do so.