Zine: BECOMING THE MEDIA - A CRITICAL HISTORY OF CLAMOR MAGAZINE by Jen Angel
Anyone who is involved in any sort of independent, radical, progressive, or otherwise non-mainstream project (be it media, a crafting cooperative, social change org, anything) needs to read this pamphlet. Jen Angel, founder, editor, and publisher of the late CLAMOR magazine (2000-2006) has written an extensive history of the project, covering both the “Successes” (such as standing firm on their American Apparel expose) and “Challenges” through the years. She’s fair and honest, and more than willing to discuss problems and errors. (I also admire that she didn’t label the latter section as “Failures”, because publishing 38 issues of a well-respected, smart, thoughtful magazine is certainly NOT a “failure”.) Jen’s also very truthful about the simple fact that you need money to fund projects.
“A central problem in activist culture is the denial of money as a powerful force. Whether it’s that people are afraid of money because they don’t understand it, they believe it’s just a tool for capitalist lackeys, or they feel that it’s an instrument that can only be used for evil, this kind of mythology around money means that activists and organizations often lag far behind their conservative or for-profit counterparts in terms of building structure and long-term stability. To build projects and institutions that are sustainable and effective within the capitalist system we currently live in, we need to fund them.”
Becoming the Media is available through PM Press and Microcosm Publishing. Read Jen Angel’s blog here.
