I took a risk by resigning from my secure job as an editor at SFGate.com, at the time the fourth-largest newspaper Web site in the United States, to start a First Amendment/civil-society agency called Independent Arts & Media. Indy Arts is a nonprofit media/cultural agency that harnesses the D.I.Y. (do-it-yourself) ethos to support a wide variety of community-generated media and culture programs.
Indy Arts does this as a means of expanding civic dialogue and cultural engagement in our democracy. We directly serve a growing community of more than a dozen independent media/culture projects, and thousands of individuals in the San Francisco Bay Area, through fiscal sponsorship, two major media and arts expositions, workshops, mentoring, and more.
This is more than public media: We're expanding the information and cultural commons, by connecting people and communities with the means to do it themselves. As such, this vision is transferable to other regions, thus creating a NEW CIRCUIT for information, ideas, cultural expression, and civic participation.
Every remarkable place I have lived in or visited has changed me -- when one becomes connected to a *place*, that place becomes a part of your internal geography ... it expands the landscape of your heart, soul and mind. For me, that landscape includes my childhood stomping grounds in northern New Jersey and Manhattan, the pine trees, kayaking and lakeshores of Maine and New England, and the fog and Victorians and blue skies breaking through over San Francisco ... as a mere traveler, and not an inhabitant, I've also been seen distant horizons in Paris, Kyoto and Tokyo, Perth and Western Australia, New Zealand's South Island, and New Mexico, truly a land of enchantment.
More community voices and deepened civic discourse to drive our democracy. I want to see the media and cultural sectors blown wide open, and the gatekeepers of mass media and the big nonprofit institutions truly disintermediated. People and communities need to be able to make media and culture that is relevant to their lives. They also need to be able to access that media and culture without the barriers created by the infotainment industry and the nonprofit cultural kingmakers. Similarly, journalists, media producers and culture workers need to be empowered with access to resources, audiences and mentorships without the by-your-leave of commercial mass media and institutional powers.
Josh Wilson, a 2009 Changemakers/WeMedia finalist, is one of the co-founders of Independent Arts & Media, a San Francisco nonprofit organization and producer's co-op that expands civic dialogue by increasing access to independent voices.
Through his work with Indy Arts he is also the founder and editor of Newsdesk.org, a commercial-free journalism Web site focusing on "important but overlooked news," and a co-founder of the Expo for the Artist & Musician, "the Bay Area's only grassroots connection fair for independent art, music and culture."
He is also a longtime producer, DJ and host at the award-winning community radio station KUSF-FM, and held various positions there, including Community Affairs Director and Program Coordinator.
A professional journalist and editor, Josh has worked in various staff and contract capacities for SFGate.com, Meredith Corporation, and Wired magazine, and as a freelancer for the San Jose Mercury News, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and other publications. He is a Community Fellow with the Full Circle Fund's technology circle, and in May 2008 was a Mesa Refuge writer-in-residence with a focus on new public media.
