Adventures of a Gonzo Journalist
This is the Winter 2020 edition of the Virtual Gonzo Zine Library.
The VGZL is a zine reading list and miniature zine distro. From time to time, I curate some of my favorite zines — zines that I think everyone should be reading, including myself.
These are the main selections from this edition of my reading list. I’ve selected a few bonus zines as well as some other resources to consider, too.
There’s a lot of tension and anxiety about what could happen in the coming days, including the possibility of serious civil unrest of a type…
It’s becoming very obvious that we face a dangerous fight against fascism in the U.S. (and elsewhere).
Even though I’ve been sounding the alarm for a while, I’m still alarmed at the speed with which things are progressing towards a full blown authoritarian state, the rate of escalating fascist political violence, and the general feeling that we’re all less prepared than we should be.
This is just a brief post to say that what you are seeing happen in front of you is real and scary to me too. Don’t believe anybody who tries to tell you that you’re over-reacting.
Posted in Creative Commons, and Journalism
The First Amendment doesn’t grant you the right to film people’s faces or put protesters at risk without facing social consequences.
Recently, I’ve watched protesters turn increasingly hostile against some media, especially livestreamers. Even though I’m a journalist, I find myself agreeing with protesters that streamers can put them at risk.
Any journalist, even well meaning ones, can become a media troll if they endanger movements. And right now, as we face off with ascendant fascism, the potential risks to activists are very high.
Posted in Creative Commons, Journalism, and Zines
A free zine by Kit O’Connell with nonviolent tactics for protecting your movement from media trolls and grifters that seek to harm activists.
During the Occupy movement, the smartphone allowed anyone to broadcast live or instantly report on protests or police action using social media. Some of these citizen journalists started to bring in donations from their viewers, usually just enough to keep them supplied with Megabus tickets to the next protest. Most of them either broadly supported the movement, or subscribed to “journalistic neutrality.”
Then, some of them figured out you can make way more money working for the dark side. So they tucked their beanie caps down a little lower and got to work making the Left look bad. A trickle of donations turned into a flood of money.
Dishonestly edit a video, and you could land a job with Infowars. Get roughed up while harassing antifascists, and you earn a 6-figure paycheck. All you have to do is give up a piece of your soul.
Posted in Creative Commons, and Zines
Welcome to the Virtual Gonzo Zine Library. The VGZL is a quarterly zine reading list and miniature zine distro. A few times per year, I curate some of my favorite zines — zines that I think everyone should be reading, including myself.
This is the very first edition. I tried to pick zines which felt topical to this moment of pandemic, and could help inspire, comfort, and give us new perspectives. I selected a mixture of the very practical and the theoretical, but I tried to focus on zines written in an accessible way that wasn’t overly academic.
I’m dividing this edition of the Zine Library into a main selection and bonus content. The main selection is my reading list for the quarter, while the rest are other zines I think you might find interesting.
