Richmond Indymedia takes a break

The lefty-to-the-point-of-irrelevance Richmond Indymedia has announced a hiatus “until we can fix the tech problems that have plagued us”. Having posted only 8 articles in the first 5 months of the year, of which only 4 were actually about something in Richmond, they weren’t really doing much anyway. I’ve always liked the idea behind the […]

June 16, 2008; 5:22 PM • by John Murden

The lefty-to-the-point-of-irrelevance Richmond Indymedia has announced a hiatus “until we can fix the tech problems that have plagued us”. Having posted only 8 articles in the first 5 months of the year, of which only 4 were actually about something in Richmond, they weren’t really doing much anyway.

I’ve always liked the idea behind the Indymedia sites, as I understand it: remove the filter and report your own news. I’m thinking that the combination of just how easy it has become to publish online and the emergence of local aggregators that make it easier to find local writing have taken away many potential Indymedia writers, whether they know it or not. Back in 1999, they were ahead of the game. Now with YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, and everything else letting folks really self-publish at the click of a button, I’m not sure what Indymedia offers anyone except a built-in echo chamber.