Tell us how we can improve Green Left

September 6, 2012
Issue 
936
General

We’re hoping to improve Green Left, and we need you to tell us how.

The mainstream media force their elitist ideas on audiences from the boardroom down. But Green Left is people-powered media, shaped by its audience.

As the multi-award-winning journalist - and strong Green Left supporter - John Pilger puts it: “Truth comes from the ground up, almost never from the top down.”

We’ve created a special email — GreenLeftFeedback@gmail.com — for you to send your ideas in.

Are there areas we are not reporting on that you’d like us to cover? Sports or entertainment, maybe? Are our articles too long? Too short? Too dry? Not in-depth enough?

Do you like the look of the paper or are there ways in which you think we could make it more appealing?

Do you like the way the website looks and works?

Do you like the look of our films on Green Left TV or are there ways we could improve?

Are there other formats in which you’d like to receive Green Left - as a phone app, for example?

As always, if you have suggestions, you might also think of ways you could help make them happen. Perhaps you’re a designer, a programmer, a photographer, a writer, or film producer.

Perhaps you’re good with people, in which case you’d be great at selling the paper at protests, stalls and in the street.

Or if you feel you don’t have any of these skills, perhaps you know someone who has.

In any case, everyone can help increase Green Left’s audience by getting our coverage seen by a wider audience.

Therefore, when you’re finished with your paper, don’t just recycle it - always leave it somewhere it will get picked up and read. Anywhere with a captive audience is good, such as on a train or bus, in a doctor’s waiting room or café. Maybe you know a library, progressive shop or record store where you can leave your copy.

If you access it only online, remember to share articles and videos on Twitter, Facebook or just email them on. Every bit helps.

We look forward to hearing from you at GreenLeftFeedback@gmail.com

Comments

Anonymous replied on

I have lots of ideas, but just one is to reduce the international coverage and to expand the Australian coverage. The international coverage is about the same proportion of the newspaper as it was in 2000, but since then there has been the internet expansion. Finding out international stories is easier than ever. For example, this morning I have already looked at three international news stories. You can't do that with Australian-generated stories (ie, with GLW reporters in the field). Either stories about Australian issues are found in GLW or they are found nowhere else. GLW can only be a second-rate source for international news. The internet has it all. But GLW is absolutely first-rate when it comes to Australian coverage. There is nowhere else to get it. Another suggestion is that there are biographical details about journalists. Who, exactly, is Jay Fletcher? Or Pip Hinman? No one knows, unless they are part of a very small number of people who know these people by reputation or personally. Having a biographical note about a person's expertise in an area changes the reliability of an article. After all, this is what the mainstream press has been doing for ages. Also, let's drop references to "Fidel." It really makes GLW sound like cultists. Outside of Latin America and very sophisticated political people, referring to Fidel sounds really weird. I also think it would be good if GLW became a left newspaper, and not a Socialist Alliance newspaper. This would mean covering stories and allowing viewpoints which SA does not agree with. It would make for genuinely interesting discussion, rather than the repeat of viewpoints which are already known. Dale Mills

Anonymous replied on

of course, what I meant to say above was that this morning I have already read several international 'sources' and not 'articles.' It just underlines the point that with such ready availability of sources from overseas, reading stuff in GLW a week later is just a bit stale. Another suggestion, of course, is to improve the links between the hard copy and internet sources. For example, publications from New Internationalist to the (London) Financial Times will have an article in the hard copy and at the end it will have links to further information, background material, etc. This is done sometimes in GLW but not as much as it could. It that case, GLW hard copy becomes the start for those stories one is really interested in, rather than a stand-alone end product.

slorter replied on

I think the green left weekly is an excellent publication that informs and educates people with subjects that main stream corporate newspapers cannot and will not do. However the word left to me is not relevant. Humans are about community, transparency, communication, cooperation, problem solving, engagement and reflection. We do all these things as a group; whether we are from the left or the right, rich or poor religious or not so much, at the end of the day we are human; and as humans we need information to plan and create a future for all living things. Not just for a few. Does that sound too much to ask for.

teknik replied on

I was just researching on the history of the Peach Pilgrimage from Lake Eyre to Japan which started in 2003, and found that their official website had been let expire, and same I couldn't find anything on the internet about the State Of Emergency conference in Melbourne, ( I think also in 2003) and would see the need for a long time left media entity such as Green Left, to collaborate with activist organisations to have these things stay on line for the long term. It may be to seek out and save these websites, and then talking to the organisations about mirroring them within Green Left or some kind of network.

Leftforever replied on

comments on previous post/suggestions on this page. 1. Do not see why would a journalist's background be so important. As long as the articles carry professional quality, it should not matter who and where from is the author. A little bit of personal space should still be given to journalists. 2. Dropping Fidel Castro as a reference is juvenile. If Fidel did say something worthy of sharing, then by all means we should share it. Just as we share what that foreigner president obama says, on almost daily basis. The way to present his opinion should be, again, professional (in journalistic terms, of course). And void of any cult-making sub-tones. Which is not the case here, with the GLW. 3. I do agree with the need to talk about domestic issues more. After all, we do not strive to change the world before we change ourselves (for the better), and to improve our own turf should be the first objective. International news should contain more of informative content about the left in other parts of the world. I am sick and tired of pro-Palestinian tirades, as true as they are. There's little movement in these news other than reporting what is already known and adding a little bit of local perspective to the mainstream news. A good example would be the massive movement in Argentina, after the 2002 collapse. The workers occupied and appropriated many factories in the best fashion of Jugoslav self-management. And turned out to be success stories. Well, most of them. We should be informed of such positive, and inspiring, working class achievements too. To learn that there are workers who are acting, and successfully at that, changing the game from imperialist exploitation of brutal usa-style "demcoratic" capitalism to more subdued but by far more successful socialist enterprises. There are similar self-managed factories even in the usa itself. No one knows that some of the biggest names in many industries are self-managed factories in the heart of the beast itself. West epoxy System, for example, Bessemer blocks and many more. I do not want to clog the page with the full list. If you search it, you will see some very well known names in capitalist centre being the top level manufacturers in their industry and yet being organised and structured according to the Jugoslav ( the president Josip Broz Tito was the architect of the system) self-management. Socialist through and through. The transformation of the modern society is going towards socialism. Marx and Engels predicted it long time ago, and it is happening. What irks me is that capitalism is taking all the credit for these highly efficient and successful companies, when the reason for their success is application of pure socialist methodology, structure and commercial management. These are the themes we should read more about and help spread within our inner circles, helping people learn the truth about socialism and how it can actually be good and, naturally, better alternative than this imperialist capitalism we have to live under.

Leftforever replied on

And if the word "left" is not relevant to some, then I would suggest they are looking in the wrong direction for their inspiration. The word "left" has its political meaning and rich history behind it. I do not see the conservatives changing their wording just so they are more "in tune" with the times. Australian left is already too much out of the tune with the essence of the meaning this word carries. If we start shedding the nomenclature that describes our ideological roots, we are saying to the conservatives that we are admitting defeat, recognising their superiority and are turning into them. That is exactly what Labo-U-r party has done and we can see how well did it work for them. They are openly running around saying to anyone willing to listen that they are NO LONGER socialists. Little wonder they are stabbing each other and infighting for the "throne", are unable to come up with a meaningful policy based on their ideological foundations - because they do not have any - and are as a whole a sorry bunch to listen when they speak publicly. They have nothing to say about everything, except to attack Liberals as soon as these open their beaks. Lacking their own ideological platform, their attacks are predominantly personal. Deprived of any useful counter arguments that would show how much are actually inept Liberals themselves. Once they had abandoned their glorious socialist roots and ideological history, they had condemned themselves to disintegration and oblivion. Slow and painful. The only reason they are still here is Abbot's government. Abbot and his cronies succeeded where Labour had failed catastrophically: Abbot and Hockey made Labour look good. Remove them and Labour has nothing to fall back to. I'd say keep the word. Put it up and let it flutter proudly.

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