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Independent media editors cover first war By Sean Wolfe Ashland Daily Tidings On Feb. 4, the Rogue Independent Media Center posted its first article to its Web site. A little more than a month later, the center is covering its first war. Articles about anti-war protests and rallies are the principal fodder for RogueIMC, found at www.rogueimc.org. But the group also posts links to news that cuts across the spectrum of international media coverage, including links to photos of Iraqi civilian and U.S. soldier casualties that have spurred shutdowns of various Web sites as recently as this week. RogueIMC cameraman Wes Brain, at left in photo, records an exchange between Ashland police officer Mike Vanderlip and a motorist stuck in traffic during a March 20 war protest. Tidings file photo On Monday, Yellowtimes.com - a Web site hosted by a Florida-based Internet service provider named Vortech - was threatened with having its plug pulled for posting photos of war casualties made available by the Saudi news network Al-Jazeera. In an article posted to the Web site Salon.com, Vortech's owner Craig Smith reportedly said that such photos constituted "adult content," adding that his company's decision to suspend service had "nothing to do with politics and nothing to do with how we feel about the war in Iraq." Like the better-established Seattle and Portland-based Indymedia groups (www.indymedia.org), RogueIMC is organized differently than other news organizations. The all-volunteer group's mission is to provide coverage that might not ordinarily make it into the mainstream. Anyone can join and post articles, and editing is done by a collective of editors. One of those editors is sound engineer and peace activist John Fricker, who said RogueIMC would have no issue with publishing photos of American or Iraqi casualties, but thus far, the site has yet to do so. "Our editorial policy restricts hate speech, but that's about it. Anyone can post articles, so it doesn't matter if you're far left, or far right," Fricker said. "This is about making information available. Without access to information, there can be no real participation in a democracy." RogueIMC, which currently gets about 350 visitors a day, is hosted by Jeffnet, the Internet access arm of Jefferson Public Radio. According to Warren Bechtolt, JPR's director of planning and research, Jeffnet prefers to act as a carrier of content. " Much like that of a telephone utility, Jeffnet does not monitor Web site content on an ongoing basis. Rather, we rely upon inquiries or complaints from users or visitors to a given site when a report of a potentially illegal posting is received. In our history of 8 years of ISP service this has rarely occurred," Bechtolt said. Should images of dead American soldiers, prisoners of war or Iraqi casualties be posted - now or in the future - on one of the many Web sites it hosts, Bechtolt said the ISP would not have an interest in censoring such content. Currently Jeffnet's policy only bans pornography. "Seeing those images might be disturbing and unfortunate � but we don't see ourselves as being responsible for censoring content, unless that content is illegal," Bechtolt said. Wes Brain, an environmental health and safety technologist for Southern Oregon University and a peace and labor activist, became one of RogueIMC's newly-minted editors earlier in the week. Brain said he thought it was fair to post images like those released by Al-Jazeera, if only to offer a counterpoint to the idea that war is bloodless. "This is a generation that thinks that war is a video game. But I remember seeing body counts on the news every night when I was 18 years old. Today, I think the media is a lot more controlled, and a lot more like an arm of the military than it was back then," Brain said. "The fact is we have a blackout of alternative media here in Southern Oregon. There are a few shining lights, like (Jefferson Public Radio), and the Internet." LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. OTHER: Road Cams Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -