BY JORGE JORQUERA
MELBOURNE — In preparation for the S11 protests against the World Economic Forum meeting here in September, Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly has launched a new web site. The site ( (Archived by )) will contain background analysis on corporate globalisation and, as the city readies for the big day, news from the front line.
Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly will have two journalists in the city for two weeks before the beginning of the non-violent mass blockade of the forum site on September 11. They will cover all the lead-up activities, actions and preparations exclusively for the site and, during the three days of the summit, will provide up to the minute reporting of the protest events.
Activist and GLW journalist Susan Price says the site is an exciting new venture for the newspaper. "We've put a lot of effort into our coverage of this new rise of 'global resistance to global capital'", she said. "Given the S11 protests will be this country's first attempt to replicate the Seattle and Washington demonstrations, we wanted to do something appropriately ground-breaking — that's what this site is about."
Price says the web site aims to keep Â鶹´«Ã½'s readers informed no matter where they are, "whether they're in Melbourne and participating in the demo's, or in some other part of the country, or anywhere in the world".
The site now features more than two dozen articles related to the World Economic Forum in particular and corporate globalisation in general.
"We've uploaded all of our newspaper's coverage so far onto the site, as well as some extras, like a list of frequently asked questions about the WEF and Fidel Castro's speech to the G77 summit", Price explained. "And the contents will be updated each week, as more features are published in GLW."
Sean Healy, who'll also cover S11 events for the paper, said the site's output will increase dramatically when the team gets here. "We're looking at covering all of the happenings in Melbourne — the conferences, the teach-ins, the spot actions, the blockade itself obviously — and we're going to try to make it as 'real time' as we possibly can", he said.
Healy also explained that the site will cover the many debates over political strategy and tactics going on amongst the protesters. "This will be a very diverse group of people", he said. "There's no unanimity on what its ideas are or should be, and there's a lot of discussion, argument even, between different points of view. We hope to both report those debates and bring a revolutionary socialist viewpoint and analysis to them."
Price explains that the newspaper will cooperate with other community media outlets to provide a top-notch alternative to "what is undoubtedly going to be a full-scale mainstream media assault on the protesters".
"An Indy Media Centre web site is being set up for the protests, which anyone will be able to upload text, audio or video stories onto", she explained, "and community radio and television are also planning heaps of coverage. There are already a lot of ideas about how Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly and 3CR can cooperate, for example, which we're very excited about and we'll be working from the station's Collingwood office."
The web site features an expanding list of links to other progressive sites, an email newsletter, so you can receive updates as they're posted, and a calendar of upcoming events. Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly is considering maintaining the site for coverage of days of global action after S11.