via the brand spanking new Allied Media Blog!

“Now this is what a ‘conference’ is supposed to look like: 800 concerned citizens and activists, most of them young and denim-clad, many of them people of color, queer, or both, gathered in Detroit on a crisp June day to create and critique media. There are no tote bags, no swag, no cocktail parties. Just tables full of radical literature, free hip-hop concerts, and late-night bowling.

“And you can forget about expense accounts and self-serving corporate sponsors. These people spend months raising funds to finance their trips from all over the globe, and conference organizers are squeaking by on their annual budget of $100,000, all of which makes the 2008 conference (the 10th annual) hum with a singularly engaged, productive energy. ‘It really makes the event user-owned,’ says Mike Medow, one of the conference’s five organizers. ‘Everyone made a personal sacrifice or a personal investment to be here, and everyone has a deep stake in its success.’