WG/Media/Minutes/11022015

As an FYI there is a Occupy Boston Flckr account now that is ours that we can hopefully get folks to crowd share photos

If you take photos of this march or any other Occupy Boston action and want to share them with us, please upload them to our new Flickr Group: Occupy Boston Media Photo Sharing

http://www.flickr.com/groups/occupybostonphoto/

Media meeting Notes 12/21/11

Wednesday

Gunner, Liam, Storm, Gabriel, Julie, Acacia, Ryan, Josh/ first work group meeting

Farhad, Will, Matt S, /Kendra, Debra, Nathan

Martin, Sarah

Need co-facilitation for media meetings - Acacia

During the camp the meetings were on the fly/

Facilitation/ maybe we should all be taking turns

Reviewing what needs to be done from last week

Strategy will be second

From last week's list of work

1/ Website cleanup

2/Research article on BPD

3/Status on the Greenway press releases

Julie

Starting to put changes through\

Some working groups need to put changes through

Arts groups also have some lists

Community forum to have a place for conversations that do not belong on the main list

Farhad

We need moderation on the community forum list

One of the working groups asked if we could get a contact list from the front page of the website for people to contact all working groups.google.com

Farhad

Another working groups called inreach/ transparency/ internal communications

People who want to get intouch with other working groups should do something else. It might be outloaded into inreach

Going to wiwk for dead links that do not exist anymore

inreacha@lists@occupyboston.org

What is the criteria for determining if something is important vs chatter

Research articles/ julie

articlew about the police depaertment and the ewxpenses for the one night of the world series

I sort of left whether you wanted to write that or not? You seem to know what the ity paid and all about it.

May be difficult to qualify how to figure it out.

There are ways to find out/ What the city spent ond OB vs the world series/ is it worth investigating

Could be an independent article that we may come back to

opposition research/ deploy when you need to

Debra/ foia letter/ review it and decide to draw attention and combat it or not.

Typically write a politie then do and foia letter.

I see pitfalls in this/ what ever data may be distorted/

There is an info graphic that show nationally the cost of Occupy vs different costs

how would we find tahta?

A website called occupydesign.com

Aggregated info graphics and has builded a community around design elements within occupy nationally/ contact them to see who submitted this and where they got their data from

Status on greenway press releases

board links/ press release to get ghandi in there

This is what we raised/ we plan to use the money for what ever we decide

may put ghandi in dewey sq

we do not want to put out an attacking press release for that reason

The greenway was a demasi pet project/ money was diverted to create the greenway/ I work at the state house and this was a couple of years ago/ a socer field in his neighborhood has remained a dirt patchand they cannot get the money to finish it/

ina move to occupy the issues and do this

debra has the statehouse news and an pull the archives of the debate on the issues

occupy the issues

The issues of ghandi going into dewey sq may ba a GA thing

cannot just plop it down there/ may be a long process/

What if occupy decided to give them money for trees/

executive director there make 25ok a year/ they have plenty of money

Something matt and phil were supposed to work on/ but it didn't happen

moving along to strategy and posting on all ob channels/ note 3

martin

Overall on our facebooks and twitters the things that come up are anybody's guesses/ one time a funny piture/ another time something left leaning/ against the banks, government, menino, the policie

No way to consolidate the thoughts and get a more concise feel for what we are doing

There are 25 admins on facebook and most are media

59 on blog

some do communicate/ some do not/ as a team there is not enough communication/ why should we post? What story are we trying to tell/ nothing will get sent on the first article on 4th hour many sent/ most articles have nothing to do with each other/

twitter has a different tone the same as facebook

great thing about ob is that ist is hjust whatever

There have been many times where I will wake up and certain things are going on and it has not been posted on the website

all for having a bunch of voices and opinions

would be good to have a general

sarah

many things are written ahead of time and scheduled in, things are put in and schedule through out the day that are more sensible

farhad

facebook and twitter and how effective these are by themselves

maybe more specific things on the blog and a way to have more detailed content categorized

we have discussed in the past the media ias trying to facilitate getting the workd out and having a strategy

we have given blog status to outreach events

there should be spaces for astrategy

infrastruture for other aspects

being more disciplined about getting importaqtn stories prioritized and other stuff that is less importatn

historically is putting together issues and things that we should cover/ folks have just said I am going to wrrite about something/ so do and some do not/ 25 have been able to complete the press release for example and sent them out

in part of tonights meeting is putting some structure together and occupying the issues piece

acacia

the posts that we have and we used to do a draft post and have a few people look at it before it goes out

and emergency

we should have someone at every ga determine what proposals have been passed

will

We need structure in regards to broadcast/ the front page of the blog/ the randomness and distributed nature within the media/ we want to err on the side of less structure to allow the info to flow/ we are tryiun gto stop the inappropriateness of some posts

the timeliness is something we an't influewnce

to make sure tha importatn timely information is posted in a timely manner

if the front page is too cluttered we could have an editor of the front page/ that happens on firedog lake where they have amny bloggers contributing to get the idea of what is a priority

the thread tha ti saw talka about the media going outward where we frame our own narrative/ count bankul and vidi amin/ a flash mob to get attention/

then keepingour own people informed about the things that affect freedom of speech, civil liberties and legal

are we both outward and inward media and I realized we don't know the answer

I am a little bit troubled by that distinction/ I post on my own blog/ the guy by the doo/ harvard law school server/

I have always assumed that I was talking to people both within the movement and outside

I try not to couch things too much in an inward way and preaching to the converted

I don't want to make assumptions about people who are supposedlyu my allies know about what isdifferent than mine/ someone in a different part of the camp an be remarkedly like someonw who has visited us/ in term s of outward I am always s trying to push the ledge/ I am not politically aligned but alwaays question the mainstream that just handing a press release does not do/ that is my philosophy

What deb is saying is not preaching to the choir/ when are we reporting to ourselves vs reporting to the world of large

I don't see the effect of that

Do we ewant to ome up with some system for one section

kewep this on and takle this going along

Farhad

to reply with in the social media would be how often do we want to tweet and what are we retweeting

we need to have the technical discussions

What are we trying to emphasize

doing a blog

The main tweeters who tweet on the acount are not here and talking about content and social media is not the best time for it.

How do we want to proceed with this.

A narrow perspective that if we need something posted timeley we facilitate getting it posted timely for the GA/

How an we do that in a simple way

Farhad

there are multiple members of facilitation who have blog access/ that channel should be out of the hands of the people in this room. Someone there live tweeting definitaely

blog posts for proposals/ we can see how that is going/ not necessary to put a person there to do the same thing

ga proposal is on the agend atonight

for livew stream we have an amazing ssytem of stexting

what we post on the we have/ if someone needs to be onsite for something we text and then we get a producer

someone posts this right now/ email is not whre it's at right now

23559 if you text ob media

the new sms system

Next item is creating a process for other groups to create blog posts, stories and other important news

tech group creating need media at occupy boston.org

not something we do well

we have mystery phone numbers

we are still searching for the twitter account password

not attached to any emails

go to the a list/ people reply and it goes back to the list/

if you get the email address created we will figure it out

today a press release requeest about the court case

folks processed about it but did not stwep up to write it

people seemed over scheduled and stressed

we do this to ourselves we overloaded

ourselves, it is not as easy

maybe we need to relook at what we are doing as individual and focus on that rather than driving yourself nuts

lookat what we can do and want to do as good as you can and make things run somoother

joshua eaton

there are some other things/ what are we kind of good at and what migh be priorities for us/

it would be great if we could write more investigative styles about issues

it is more of a priority to make sure tha we have phot and video actions online/ that sort of thing

sarah/ there are people that do in a timely manner/ research is better for me/ I don't have to be here and can be more focused

there are things that can take more time and are more pressing/ I can't get things done like this

we won't figure this all out tonight

on the list we have things I found on list serve as well as the claewndar/ press releases/ occupy the issues/ some that have been started and other topics that we have focused on

tother issues we can whip through quickly

acacia

fisrt night media tent/ would be bad ass/ monday night hosting at church and the list of articles we need to talk about

farhad/ a few things that can work

listo f articles/ blog posts/ move to last tgwo articles

one that is pressing is the court case/ the aclu put out an article/ picked up by the boston globe already

there are a couple of things before we get into this/

no way for media to contact this that I know of/ ob gmail acount/

for press inquiries/ we check it every day 50xs

the police took the phone

most of the reporters have their own OB media contact/ some call 5 xs a day

same people keep doing the same issues

some are media trained and want to be media trained and going forward that we are not in the dirt we can have other people in the media

nathan

we are gettting contacted 5 times a day/ press tv is the iranian media that contacts five times a day

they want to talk about the occupation and what is next

focus on actions and what we want to talk about

the media is still trying to pursue a story

an we talk about that

joshua

how much would it make sense to have less control for press inquiries to come to and not enough people doing press interviews/ how much would it do to have people who do not want to interview serve as a press field agent

I get those requests and think we should have that

I could not always get intouch with people on camp

would call people and ask people to talk to press and many had not been to camp in weeks

we need that/ because we do not have a central hub/ that group of people, if fox news calls I can hook up with a field person

if there was an ob phone taken by the police, we should get another

oin one of the last meetings media had was the same voices in the media again and again, a tool kit for people in the media, having media bullet points/ seems actionable and reasonable

I am wondering whether the conventional phone is the thing we want to have. We want a phone number tha is unique and that everyone knows/ skype? / google voice?

Coordinationg will require significant thought

sarah

we did have a media number with the google account/ I can get it back

If you have a second phone that is broken, for $20 YOU CAN HAVE THE NUMBER LOADED

Google voice will work for those who want to field/ they can listen to emails

attacjh to the media attached to list serve

anyhone with a smart phone can double up the phone.

If you use by phone/ you can schedule where the phone calls go/ change the shedule for different times of the list and day

Once we get our shit together

can we write down our name on a list?

Nope

stories we need to write

court ase

farhad/ know where the ball got dropped

need a press release/ volunteer myself and philosophy

matt was supposed to work with phil and he never contacted him

deb can work as a research assistatn because whene there are terms of art I know what they mean

ben is a lawyer who can write out a paragraph/ so we are all on the same page/call from the press release/ will put on the wikilinks

acacia

the press release will be done for tomorrow morning by 10am posted and sent

send to gunner and edited

first night and info tent

katherine will take this on

contact kevin, ask about a press release and first night details/ let us know if that is going to happen/ done by tuesday to send out

the occupoetry reading this friday/ merits a press release or a blog posting?

It merits a short press release/ if it goes to statehouse news it will be put into the list of the day for people who would not be there otherwiese

anything deserves a press release

whether people love or hate occupy it gets mad clicks

press release everything

toa sk someone if wee need it, they may be doing something on their own and we don't want to stoep on their toes

joshua

what is the line between what we do a press release for and a media advisory

we do not have a big name star and a week our

we may need to put things on the bucket list for the media advisory/ poetry list/ 5pm tomorrow

deb will be able to do this/ psot to list for edits within an hour or so/ before noon or ten will do it/

Gunner will not be checking email between 12-4 (before 12 after 4)

community gathering on Monday/Alert people that these are happening, every Monday/

Maybe get it out for Friday/ Get press on it for next week

matt will write this and soemone will copy edit it

Action of the occupy nativity scene/ noon at dewey

anyone talking to Diret action/ nothing occupy related until new year's everything

sarah has a meeting with someof the ga kids

how to get in touch with direct action?

Do not really rely a lot on electronic communication

matt hacker/ there was a resolution about houseless folks

there was some stuff about it/ the suggestion was made to write a press release and that we are filling a void from the current social system piece/ money to send people to providence and dc to speak to this issue

sarah dickerson will write this with matt

joshua eaton has a crew of four people who will take on the responsibility to post resolutions to the website, this is separat from the resolution

it hasn't been working as smoothly since camp got raided. Some one will bring an amendment at the next ga

let's leave this open and see what happens with amendments

we can tie stuff back together with the resources

interviewing people who are houseless

any other stuff this week?

Any other proess issues around assignments

suggestion that eli had that in additon to assigning things we have a person poke people with a sharp stick to remind people / matt has volunteered and martin/ wiill get the note s for the assignments

debra will take the rotation

monday hosting a speaker first night

what monday night community event gathering event

maybe the second week in january/ the second or the 16th/ we need to talk about snacks etc

can someone confirm that we can get the 16th

we ould approach someone and autonomously find someone form here or a press person/

maybe come up with a speech and bring it up

what is it we are looking for/ canwe address this tonight or can it wait

first night

top if agenda next week speaker and what to do jan 16

first night

media tent suggestions/ we don't really have anything to say about it/

Ifigured it was our all

did we have a media tent plan/ literal tent?

We can get the big red tent and set up a table and sleeping bag etc

we could have 2 tents a media tent and a n info tent

temp check aobut having one or two tents

how do we feel about how media participates in the OB tent rather than having two-Feathers

sarah

I don't know the details about what they are doing/ are we stepping on their toes?

We should supprot from a media role

also/ first night is a diffuse event and two tents in two locations is a win

it gives a certain amount that is less bustable at the same timeliness

julie and katherrine

it will rquire tow permits to set up 2 tents

info tent where people just pick up literature does not involve the public

media tent with livestream can allow people to get on camera and vent negative or positive

katie

basically it was decided that we may not have the tent

we still may not have a tent, may have canvassing, not decided/ will have details next week

wanted to say thatwe talked aobut other interactive things/ coordinating them and taking actionthere.

Ryan spoken to live strem psople will be running livestream and hoping to get more.

Rumors that tent will result in a central hub/ not decided/ heard rumors about the bat signal

actually heard about eh projector in an intera tive way

Media Working Group AGENDA 12/21/11 - tonight 7-9p

Names, pronouns, area of interest

Note taker and time keeper needed

·     Co-facilitator/shared facilitation for the media working group

·     Reviewing what was done or still needs to done from last week's list of work

Website clean up – see note #1

Research Article on cost to BPD and city of Boston re World Series night vs. their cost for 3 months of Occupy.

Status on Greenway Press Release

·     Create process for other working groups to send us requests for writing blog posts, press releases, or posting their own written piece

Idea: Having liaisons with each working group; email address all requests go to one email address that forward to our list

·     New - Occupy the Issues: Writing investigative/in depth articles on the issues/topics related to the Occupy Movement - some have been started

NDAA - Matt Wiki Leaks - W Greenway - 2 part article - Phil & Acacia, and Sarah B. Other topics?

Working with the Boston Occupier to share content

·     Blog Comment moderation process - see note #2

·     Strategy for Posting on all OB channels – see note #3

·     List of articles, blog posts, press releases needing to be written for this week; List of events video or photo is needed

1.    OB Court Case - Plaintiffs from Occupy Boston today filed a voluntary dismissal, ending their lawsuit against the City of Boston, Occupy Boston v. City of Boston, et al.see note #4

2.    Info Tent First Night - Occupy Boston's Info Tent is going to be at First Night on Dec 31st; welcoming people and talking to them about OB. contact: Kevin@OccupyBoston.org

3.    OccuPoetry reading this Friday Dec. 23 on the Mass. State House steps at noon -1. With permit and PA. Come and bring your Dewey-inspired verse! Hosted by Susie Davidson and Pedro Malave of SEIU

4.    "Community Gathering", Mon Dec 26th These community building events are presented in the spirit of "let's continue to tear down the walls which sometimes separate us," through the use of facilitated dialogue, presentations, workshops, teach-ins, etc. . email gsjmurphy@gmail.com with the subject of "Community Gathering", and in the email body list the Topic and the sponsoring working group. http://wiki.occupyboston.org/wiki/Community_Gatherings

·     Press Releases on Passed Resolutions see note #5

·     New SMS group for people who would like to receive more frequent OB updates. See note #6

·     Creating Photo archive/deposit – New Flickr account - see note #

·     Schedule separate one-time meeting Social Media - for things like Facebook, Twitter, and the WordPress site so that (a) folks who work on those things can meet each other separately and (b) so that they can come to some consensus on best practices.

·     What Monday night do we want to host at St Paul’s and can we get a speaker? Suggestions for speaker?

·     First Night Media Tent? Suggestions to interact with passersby. Livestream? Record stories? Hand out 99% tags. Sign up sheet.

·     Globe Ad – alternatives

·     DVD of “Billionaire’s Tea Party.” Documentary. Julie can screen it

Notes


 * 1) 1 From Gabe - Website: As part of the website cleanup, the music and events wg asked if we could create a contact list on the website that had all the groups' emails in one place. I said I would ask about it. I can see it being a really convenient thing but also vastly increasing the chances of people bombing all the lists. I don't even know whose decision it would be to make, but definitely not just mine and Matt from Tech's.


 * 1) 2 - From Joshua - Comment moderation on the blog in currently enabled, media was consulted a while back when the change was made. Only a user's first comment is moderated. (In other words, after someone has commented and had their comment approved once, their comments will be posted automatically from then on.) Unfortunately, only people with admin privileges have the ability to approve comments. As far as I know this is built into WordPress itself and cannot be changed. I originally implemented this rather modest moderation because we were getting so many downright abusive and obscene comments ("You f***ing f***ers, why don't you go f*** yourselves!"). The general opinion of the workgroup was that these shut down free speech more than they contributed to it.


 * 1) 3 – From Martin Strategy for Posting on OB channels - I would like to talk about having a strategy for what we post on all our channels. For there to be a well thought out message and not just random post everywhere all the time which equate to autonomous action. For there to be a media schedule and talking points each week with a specific topic and or theme for that week. So we can paint a story, build a narrative and create calls to action.


 * 1) 4 From Eli – COURT Case Filings our lawyers are filing to agree to voluntarily dismissal and not appeal later today. Press release that the ACLU will be sending out. Things to do:

1) We may want to craft our own PR. Can anyone take this on? They are filing this afternoon.

2) Ben said to expect media calls about it, so at the very least we should be ready to answer questions. Who can be available to answer questions?

3) Can someone jot out some talking points and reply all?

Some really quick thoughts:

- there were some elements of the judges ruling that we should draw attention to as being "wins" for us (e.g. occupation being a message)

- big message is that we haven't gone anywhere. we're still meeting constantly everyday. we're moving to phase 2

- this was never about dewey square, this was about _____ (our issues)

- going into a lengthy appeals process not a priority for us, we want to focus our energy on evicting wall street from congress

Posting Passed Resolutions on the website blog, and I've been intermittently fulfilling that responsibility. Some of the discussion around Cherie's proposal last night involved the point that it could be good for the public face of OB to characterize the resources the movement has now made available for its most vulnerable members as a noble experiment in filling the void left by the current broken social service systems. So I wanted to make sure the proposal gets posted (and I'm looking for the final text), but I also wanted to see if anyone wanted to do this up as more than just another passed resolution, since, in combination with the money that was spent on sending people to Providence and DC last week, it's a pretty significant statement of the movement's values. It didn't pass without significant dissent, but now that it has, seems like we should play up the movement's willingness to take responsibility for its community members in innovative ways as much as possible.
 * 1) 5 from Matt H. – Passed Resolutions


 * 1) 6 From Eli- I'd like to create a new SMS group for people who would like to receive more frequent OB updates. Right now, I can use the massive emergency text group because we don't have "emergencies" any more and that's not what they opted-in for. I do think a substantial percentage of people on that list (1800 total now) would be open to receiving more updates like where GA is, what flash mob is happening, ect.. We should have some guidelines around useage of that as well, but it will give us more flexability. I'd also like a temp check around sending the emergency list a text inviting them to join the new @obupdates group, if people think that's OK.


 * 1) 7– the flickr account labeled Occupy Boston is owned by Open Media, not Occupy Boston. We should have our own that we control.