About Tampa Bay Indymedia

How to Stop Hating the Media... By Being the Media!

Tampa Bay is a community-based news site. Part of the decentralized Indymedia network, this website is a space where every reader can also be a reporter and even an editor.

Rather than simply relying on profit-driven media outlets to cover issues and events in our community, tampabay.indymedia.org encourages traditionally ignored perspectives, the networking with other community members, and creation of content through grassroots journalism. The website employs an open publishing model already proven on hundreds of other Indymedia websites world-wide, and even further improves upon this with an open editorial model that is derived from many growingly popular community-based news sites, like digg.com. This allows little to no centralization of power and makes the policing of content by moderators obsolete, as the website users get to decide what articles should be on the front page and even what should be marked as spam.

In an age where information and news are so tightly managed and controlled by the corporate-owned media, industry and government, a free, independent and alternative press is essential for creating a more sustainable community and better world.

How the Site Works

Like any other Indymedia site, anyone can simply click on the left sidebar to create/re-post an article, share videos/pictures, add an event to a community calendar, post a forum topic or comment on a story. When an article is submitted, it will show up under the Newswire on the left. We just request if possible that you cite the original source of the article in the bottom "source" text box located on the article creation page.

Tampa Bay Indymedia further incorporates a new voting system that controls our editorial process. Below each story, you will see an up/down arrow adjacent to a number of votes. If you create an account and log in, you will be able to click either the up or down arrow to vote whether the story should be included on the front page or not. If a story in the Newswire gets 4 "yes" votes or more, it will automatically be displayed on the front page of the site. If it receives 4 "no" votes, it will be removed from the Newswire.

Users can also report spam by clicking on the "report" button on the bottom of every article, event, forum topic and comment. Anything marked as spam is never removed but hidden from view, and will always remain accessible by the "spam" link on the left sidebar.

For more information, feel free to contact us or check out the history of Indymedia.