Documentary film makers should work together documentarist Danny Schechter told an audience of about 175 persons at an alternative media summit in Santa Cruz. I plucked that from a summary of the proceedings written by New England media entrepreneur Bill Densmore who notes that:

“Documentary producer and author Kristina Borjesson suggested establishing a ‘standards and practices cookbook’ that could be followed by progressive media-makers and would raise their credibility with the public. ‘We have to be organized,’ she said. “We have to be brutally organized. We have to be more bottomline.’ “

Along these lines film makers might look to the The Empowerment Project which “produces and distributes its own documentary films and videos, and provides facilities, training and other support for independent producers, artists, activists and organizations.”

The conference, Truth Emergency 2008, was organized by Project Censored and 911Truth.org. According to Densmore the speakers included Peter Dale Scott, an emeritus professor at UC Berkeley, who urged speakers not to use words like fascist to describe the current situation in the U.S. because in such a state an opposition meeting of this sort would not be tolerated.

FYI, in visiting Scott’s web page at UC Berkeley, I noted this request:

“Jan. 17, 2008: I need urgently to raise U.S.$25,000 dollars, for a project, otherwise in place, for an international colloquium leading to a book. Since 2006 I have been attempting with Prof. Eric Wilson of the Faculty of Law, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, to put together a colloquium with the following title and summary description: Hidden Forces and Assaults upon the Public State.”