Greg Palast Speaks on Improving Alternative Media

This video features Greg Palast speaking on a panel of alternative media dignataries about what we can do to reach a wider audience and be more effective as journalists working outside of the mainstream distribution outlets.   The short answer: "don't be so fucking dull".  This was filmed at The Boston Social Forum, a counter convention of sorts that took place in the days leading up to the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

The video was meant as a prequel to my convention coverage and was filmed and upload the day before the convention started.   I met a great journalist this day and together we scouted the 1st ever instance of a designated caged area called a Protest Pen, a Freedom Cage, etc etc.  No, it wasn't Greg Palast. 

Mark Baard became a trusted ally in the years to come but at the end of the DNC when he made the generous offer of a police scanner to help me cover the anarchist march from Boston to NYC for the RNC.  I knew he was a cop.  Just like the anarchists I had grown found of, by working closely with the Democratic Party, knew i was a cop.  It was a period of much paranoia.  I was certain that the scanner was either a recording device or that the possession of it alone would be enough to get me arrested.  So I had to politely decline the scanner.  These days you can get all that online.  Hell, they even have an app for that. 

But back then as a politically charged anarcho curious video journalist living in and editing video in a van on the side of the road full time with no training and very few friends in the protest scene, I was very cautious of taking candy from stangers.