SchNEWS activist newsletter calls it a day
- Thread starter soulman
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In Bloom said:Yeah, there's a lot of those within the alleged subculture
Got any kind of argument?
What subculture you going on about?
If people create and distribute a newsletter to realise their opinions and make links with other people, and it works, and they explain how to do it so other people can try then what's the problem eh?
Shame the AF couldn't do the same.
The problem is that it's part of a viscious circle of complete irrelevance. The left (for lack of a better term) and its forms of activity are largely isolated from people's everyday experiences and concerns, just the way the bosses like it.soulman said:
Activists talk to other activists about the things that concern activists and what types of activism can be centred around those concerns. Meanwhile, the rest of the world carries on, comfortably oblivious of whatever they get up to.
Do what? Produce a newsletter?
For what it's worth, we already do.
editor
hiraethified
I haven't done an audit of their readership, but over the years I've seen it picked up and read by a fairly wide selection of people, but I'd say its main readership is students, activists and 'alternative' types of all ages - and (like urban) a fair chunk of media journos.In Bloom said:
I fail to see what your problem is with the paper.
It's free, usually well written, covers a wide range of topics on a local and global scale and has quite probably played no small part in making people aware of a whole range of issues.
It was one of the very few publications, for example, to initially cover my Football Fans vs the CJA campaign, and I think my first newspaper interview came after one of their reporters had read SchNEWS.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
sure schnews ain't perfect, but IMO it's the best researched, best written, most comprehensive alternative newsletter going in the UK, and must surely be one of the most widely read given their email list must be upto tens of thousands by now.
for me it's the best way of keeping in touch with what's going on in multiple campaigns nationally and internationally, as well as providing an alternative viewpoint on issues that you rarely get from the mainstream media, full respect to the schnews crew for keeping it going for this long
for me it's the best way of keeping in touch with what's going on in multiple campaigns nationally and internationally, as well as providing an alternative viewpoint on issues that you rarely get from the mainstream media, full respect to the schnews crew for keeping it going for this long
The problem is that "its main readership is students, activists and 'alternative' types - and (like urban) a fair chunk of media journos"editor said:
As I said, my problem is with the inward looking nature of Schnews. Considering that it's a long standing newsletter with a reasonably high print run and some experienced, talented people working on the stories and layout, it should be far more widely known than it is. Specifically, if it were of any relevance politically, it wouldn't be so exclusive to the lefty milleu.
editor
hiraethified
OK. I don;t think I've ever seen it anywhere, but I see SchNEWS a fair bit on my travels.In Bloom said:
So instead of wasting time slagging it off and trying to create bad blood, why not learn from their distribution methods?
Their mailing list, for example, is fucking huge.
editor
hiraethified
And just to keep things in context, I don't have anything against the people running Schnews (or the newsletter itself, per se), if I'm in News From Nowhere, dropping off Resistance or leaflets and I see it lying out, I'll usually pick it up and read it while I'm having a coffee or on the train back.
Looking over the first two pages on google, all of the results are for activist or lefty websites, with the exception of the wikipedia article.editor said:
If I went up to somebody at random in work and said "Did you read about blahblah in the new issue of Schnews", I'd get a blank stare. That's the problem I'm trying to get at here, Schnews is only really relevant and widely known among activists.
Yes and no. I'll come back to this bit when it's not half 2 in the morning.laptop said:
Believe it or not, it is possible to have a middle road between obscurity and patronising drivel.Far better it be the way it is than follow the Trot path of trying to be a "left tabloid"
In Bloom said:
I'll look forward to it when (or if) you find it
(Why is it not obvious that there's a "middle road"? Because, as briefly as possible, the assumption that there is is founded on the notion of the public. "Obscurity" is relative to a public, among many. Consider trying to write - or, more importantly, edit - articles about [a] Kurdistan and wind - for a hangliding magazine...)
AF? Is that the same 'AF' as this bunch:In Bloom said:
http://www.infoshop.org/wiki/index.php/Anarchist_Federation
I think I now realise why you are so overwhealming negative about almost everything and seem to spend more time knocking other activists than you do your hated capitalists. Butchersapron is an AF member as well isn't he? All he could do was sneer at and slag off everything as well.
It is simply hilarious to to hear a member of a tiny ultra-far-left "class struggle anarchist" la-la-land sect like AF start pronouncing that Schnews is irrelevant, not widely enough read and inward-looking.
"Genuine liberation can only come about through the revolutionary self activity of the working class on a mass scale. An anarchist communist society means not only co-operation between equals, but active involvement in the shaping and creating of that society during and after the revolution. In times of upheaval and struggle, people will need to create their own revolutionary organisations controlled by everyone in them. These autonomous organisations will be outside the control of political parties, and within them we will learn many important lessons of self-activity."
Do you think that the AF is irrelevant? If so why are you a member? Why do you bother distributing its newsletter?In Bloom said:
And if you engage in such irrelevant and piointless activism where do you get off slagging everyone else (and their activities/campaigns) off so much?
The AF is a propaganda organisation, it exists almost entirely for the purpose of spreading a certain set of ideas. I'm a member because I'd like to see those ideas gain greater currency.TeeJay said:
It's certainly not the be all and end all of my politics, or even the most important part.
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