Introduction
A
growing number of efforts, large and small, have been established
all around the United States to champion and promote a fair and just
solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. High on the agenda of
such efforts is a struggle against a mainstream US media that takes
it for granted that the Palestinians are the aggressors in their resistance
of the Israeli occupation, while Israel is merely engaged in self-defense:
from the framing of the daily stories and headlines that stress "retaliation"
and "preemptive strikes", to photographs that highlight
Israeli suffering and anxiety while seldom doing the same for Palestinians,
to a vocabulary that often lapses to repeating the language of the
Israeli Prime Minister's office, to editorials that ignore some very
basic moral principles, to cartoons that depict Palestinians as irrational,
violent, bloodthirsty, to granting more than 80% of column space to
staunch supporters of the extreme Israeli right-wing, many times allowing
them to engage in making outrageous proposals, such as calling for
ethnic cleansing and population transfers, assassination, unleashing
military, re-occupying territory, etc.
1.0
Mission Statement
The American Media Watch Groups Consortium (AMWGC) is a loose coaltion
of organizations struggling to promote a just solution to the Palestinian-Israel
conflict. At the forefront of such a struggle is the struggle to promote
objective, balanced and informative portrayal of the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict by the US media.
The AMWGC
was established to help member organizations act collectively and
coordinate efforts to press upon the media the need for balance and
journalistic integrity.
The motivation
of the establishment of the AMWGC was the realization that acting
separately, member organizations will never be able to have the effect
they would if they coordinated actions, shared resources, and exchanged
information and experiences.
The
AMWGC is a loose consortium of media activist groups established to
enable member organizations to:
(1)
Issue
joint statements
(2)
Coordinate
joint actions
(3)
Mass
mobilize respective memberships
(4)
Pool
resources
(5)
Coordinate
strategy
(6)
Share
experiences
2.0
Character of consortium
The
challenge, and the key to our success, will be to keep the efforts
of member groups independent, so that fresh ideas and original angles
and strategies can keep flowing, while at the same time enabling effective
coordinated action and mobilization.
AMWGC
shall be a “loose” consortium. By this we mean that member organizations:
(1)
Shall maintain their full independence of action outside of the consortium;
(2)
Shall never be forced to endorse or join any action, implicitly or
explicitly, proposed by consortium members;
(3)
May leave the consortium any time they wish.
3.0
Structure and Mechanisms
3.1
Coordinating Committee: The operation of the AMWGC shall be overseen
by a Coordinating Committee (CC): the CC’s mission is implement the
procedures depicted below, and overall to ensure the proper functioning
of the AMWGC.
The CC shall be run by three AMWGC members:
one chair and two co-chairs, elected to their positions once every
six months.
The first election of the CC shall be
held on Monday, September 24, 2001.
[Nomination and vote counting will be
managed by a volunteer to be picked shortly.]
Nominations from confirmed member organizations
of representatives of confirmed member organizations will be open
on Monday, September 17, 2001 and closed on Wednsesday, September
19, midnight.
All nominations should be sent to amwgc-votes@yahoogroups.com
All nominees must be contacted on Thursday,
September 20. Nominees must either accept or decline the nomination.
A non-answer is taken to mean a decline. Nominees must answer by Firday,
September 21, midnight.
The final Ballot list will be sent to members no
later than Saturday, September 22.
Member organizations may vote as soon
as they receive the ballot.
Voting is closed Monday night (midnight
going to Tuesday), September 24, 2001.
All votes should be sent to: amwgc-votes@yahoogroups.com
Results will be posted on Tuesday morning,
September 25, 2001.
The top vote recipient shall be named
chair, and the next two runner ups as co-chairs.
Between September 25 and Septe,ber 28,
the Founding Commitee and the CC shall work on transition of control
over the CC.
The term of the CC shall start on Friday,
September 28, 2001, at which point, the Founding Committee shall resign
its duties.
3.2 Membership: Membership is open to all organizations dedicated
to promoting a peaceful and just resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli,
including the right of Palestinians to return to their homes and lands,
the right of both Palestinians and Israelis to self-determination,
and the right to live in dignity, freedom, and safety in Israel and
Palestine.
Application
to the consortium is addressed to the CC and must include the following:
(1)
Full
name of Organization applying for membership;
(2)
Name,
address and contact information of the organization applying for admission;
(3)
A
brief statement describing the mission of the organization;
(4)
Full
name of organization’s representative at the AMWGC;
(5)
URL
(if available), or additional material, enabling the CC to find out
more about the organization;
(6)
Statement
declaring that the applying organization wishes to join the AMWGC;
(7)
The
official email address through which the organization will interact
with the AMWGC. This email
is the only email address through which the organization may issue
proposals, vote, and in general interact with the consortium.
Determination
of acceptance or rejection of membership is issued by the CC and announced
to the general membership within a reasonable period after initial
membership.
3.3
Actions
The
consortium never issues action calls or statements that speak on behalf
of ALL members of the consortium.
Actions must be endorsed explicitly by member organizations
that wish to endorse proposed action calls or statements.
Endorsement needs to be sent DIRECTLY to the CC. A member organization’s
endorsement must be sent from a member organization’s official email
address.
The
AMWGC undertakes two types of actions:
(1)
Planned
(2) Impromptu
Planned actions are actions that address a long-standing
problem in media coverage: e.g., the inherently biased vocabulary
routinely used by journalists, the great discrepancy between column
space provided to pro-occupation vs. pro-independence, tolerance of
blatantly violent or racist language against Palestinians, etc.
Planned
actions should be well prepared and accompanied by a report factually
supporting the case being made.
Any
member organization may propose a planned action call.
Planned
actions are issued the 1st Wednesday of every month
A
planned action must be proposed directly to the CC.
Proposals must include full description of action, motivation
and why it is important, and a report, or draft of such report, providing
supporting evidence.
In
case more than one proposal is on the table, the CC proposes all actions
to the membership, and the action that receives the most signatures
is selected for release for that week.
In case of a tie, the CC makes a determination which among
the competing proposals is to be proposed to the membership first,
which to pipeline, and which to reject.
Members
may re-submit their proposal as often as they wish.
The
final draft of a planned action is released for member signatures
at least 48 hrs before official release.
Impromptu actions are those actions that address an immediate,
urgent problem: e.g., the publication of an unacceptable article,
a particularly shabby piece of journalism, etc.
Impromptu
actions must be submitted to the CC for qualification. The CC proposes
all submitted actions to the membership, and the action that receives
the most signatures is selected for release for that week.
In case of a tie, the CC makes a determination which among
the competing proposals is to be proposed to the membership first,
which to pipeline, and which to reject.
Proposals
must specify fully what the action is, why it is important, and exactly
what to do.
Statements
must be released by the CC for membership signatures at least 12 hours
before official publication.
3.4 Official issuance of statements
Each
statement is issued via an official Action Alert, signed by the official
representatives of member organizations wishing to endorse the statement.
The
list of signatures will be ordered alphabatically on the name of the
organization.
3.5 Member obligations
The purpose
of the AMWGC is to amplify the collective voice of member organizations
rather than to reduce them to one voice. That is why it is crucial
for each member organization that endorses a statement or action to
act upon the statement or action call: if the AMWGC denounces
a newspaper for a journalistic breach, in addition to signing the
joint AMWGC statement, each signing member organization is expected
to issue its own separate protest against the newspaper in question
and to mobilize its own membership to act. In other words, the AMWGC
is not a means to reduce dozens of protests with a single umbrella
protest (something that would defeat the very purpose of the effort),
but rather a tool for organizing a coordinated mobilization of dozens
of organizations, enabling us to make a powerful impression and bring
about the needed effect on media behavior.
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