Feb 10, 2011

Huff & Puff It Down - Towards a Vibrant Indy-Media Ecology

By Micah White and Tim Hjersted / adbusters.org
Huff & Puff It Down - Towards a Vibrant Indy-Media Ecology

Arianna Huffington has betrayed us, so let's huff and puff her house down.

She built a blog-empire on the backs of thousands of citizen journalists. She exploited our idealism and let us labor under the illusion that that the Huffington Post was different, independent and leftist. Now she's cashed in and three thousand indie bloggers find themselves working for a megacorp.

But the Huffington Post is not Arianna's to sell. It is ours: the lefty writers and readers, environmentalism activists and anti-corporate organizers who flooded the site with 25 million visits a month. So we're going to take it back.

We'll stop going to her site. And we'll stop blogging for her too. Then we'll give birth to an alternative to AOL's HuffPo by using the #huffpuff hash tag to tell the world about our favorite counter-culture websites and indie blogs.

We are the ones who built the Huffington Post. And now we will be the ones who will huff and puff it down.

Updated | Feb. 10 – 4:00 p.m.

#HUFFPUFF has touched a nerve. Now, a firestorm is developing as writers, readers and publishers of indie media are rallying to huff and puff Arianna’s AOL merger into the ground.

Media activists, this is our chance to strike a blow against the corporate media and simultaneously energize the indie blogosphere … a step towards a world where the news that animates our political and activist lives is not controlled by those who pander to advertisers and the bottom line. With continued pressure, we can topple AOL-HuffPo and fertilize a healthy media ecology.

So let’s keep blowing harder and harder!

  • If you are a writer, take your content off the Huffington Post (like Al Giordano of @Narco_News did)
  • If you are a HuffPo reader, unsubscribe/uninstall the app/delete your bookmark to the Huffington Post (like @jaberard, @RavenWytch, and @drlawler)
  • Everyone, keep telling the world about your favorite alternative indie sites using the #huffpuff tag (see the list of alternatives nominated thus far below)

 

Our ultimate goal is to rejuvenate the indie leftist blogging scene with the idea that we need a diversity of websites, not a single mega-site that goes corporate.

Films For Action has been nominated by Adbusters' readers as an important post-HuffPo resource.

Please consider posting a story on your website, Facebook or Twitter page about the backlash against the HuffPo. Share with your friends the #huffpuff campaign and use this as an opportunity to tell them of the vital importance of independent media.

Tweet this to your followers on Twitter or post it as a status update on Facebook: @FilmsForAction - an alternative community-powered news source that anyone can participate in, dedicated to changing the world #HuffPuff

Become a member of Films For Action and start posting videos, headlines, original articles, and actions. This site was made for you, and all of us, so that we can side-step our dependence on corporate media and become the media ourselves.

Encourage your friends to join us and to use the site to learn about what's really going on in the world - it's an expansive library of over 700 high-quality videos and independent news.

Together, we can topple AOL-HuffPo and restore a healthy balance to the media ecology.

 

For the wild,

Micah White
Contributing Editor
Adbusters Magazine
http://adbusters.org/huffpuff

Tim Hjersted
Project Director
Films For Action
https://www.filmsforaction.org/

 

Relevant news stories:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/bloggers-readers-band-quit-huffington-post/

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlla/the-huffington-post-rebellion_b22215

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/4301/why-ive-removed-my-journalism-huffington-post

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten-column-huffington-aol-20110209,0,7406565.column

http://guildfreelancers.org/gf/

 

 

Growing List of alternatives to AOL's HuffPo:

https://www.filmsforaction.org/

http://www.gonzotimes.com/

http://adbusters.org/

http://truth-out.org/

http://commondreams.org/

http://cryptome.org/

http://indymedia.org/

http://truthdig.org/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree

http://alternet.org/

http://endmoney.info/

http://globalresearch.ca/

http://thiscantbehappening.net/

http://anarchistnews.org/

http://news.infoshop.org/

http://www.rawstory.com/

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/

http://www.thecommentfactory.com/

http://www.greanvillepost.com/

http://www.democracynow.org/

http://www.therealnews.com/

http://buildingapowerfulleft.org/

http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag

http://counterfire.org/

http://english.aljazeera.net/

http://revista-amauta.org/

http://www.bellacaledonia.org.uk/

http://www.opendemocracy.net/

http://www.scottishleftreview.org/li/

http://www.corbettreport.com/

http://mediamonarchy.blogspot.com/

http://importantmedia.org/

http://www.UpsideDownWorld.org/

http://www.outfarpress.com/outfarpress/shortwave.shtml

http://veracitystew.com/

http://www.yesmagazine.org/

http://www.indypressny.org/

http://www.nacla.org/

http://firedoglake.com/

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/

http://www.businessethicsblog.com/

http://www.thenation.com/blogs

http://www.transitionculture.org/

http://www.opednews.com/

http://www.feministpeacenetwork.org/

http://www.fsrn.org/

http://www.grist.com/

 

What else?

Rate article 
Activism
Trending Articles
Reconciliation at the Intersection of the Sacred Masculine & Feminine
Solidarity Theory
Media Literacy
Subscribe for $5/mo to Watch over 50 Patron-Exclusive Films

Become a Patron. Support Films For Action.

For $5 a month, you'll gain access to over 50 patron-exclusive documentaries while keeping us ad-free and financially independent. We need 350 more Patrons to grow our team in 2024.

Subscribe here

Your support helps grow our 6000+ video library, which is 99% free thanks to our patrons!