The Revolutionary Newspaper Conference held at Wayne State’s Lower DeRoy on April 12 was fairly successful. Over 70 persons registered and over 125 were in attendance throughout the day.
The morning session consisted of a panel on the function of the media in a revolutionary movement. On the panel were Nick Medvecky and James Tripp of the South End, Peter Werbe from this paper, Marty Glaberman from Speak Out, and Mike Honey from the Oakland Observer.
The afternoon sessions began with attorney James Lafferty running down the law regarding publication, obscenity, libel, and distribution. After that the Yippie film on the Democratic Convention was shown along with the Newsreel film of the Black Panthers and “Kick Out the Jams” a short movie of the MC5 done by Magdalene Sinclair.
Then a workshop was run on how to produce and improve publications. A high school coordinating committee was proposed to facilitate communication, increase buying power of supplies and to protect member publications against harassment.
Dave Watson of this paper will temporarily handle the coordination and wants all high school publications to contact him at the Fifth Estate office.
Also, Joel Landy of the Community Print Shop and Nick Medvecky of the South End offered to assist anyone preparing to publish a paper or newsletter. Joel can be reached at 833-5832 and Nick at the South End office on the Wayne campus.
Recently we received a letter from a brother in Jackson Prison complaining that he was being denied his Fifth Estate that he had subscribed to. Since we have several subscribers who are prisoners of the State we wrote a letter to the Michigan Department of Corrections. This is the reply we received:
He just should be careful of the precedent he is setting. Because when he is finally jailed for crimes against the people, his decision means no Fifth Estate for him either.
Gentlemen:
I have checked with the officials of the State Prison of Southern Michigan and find that they have looked over the publication and they do not believe that the content and language is proper material for inmate distribution. The courts have held that material entering a penal institution properly is subject to censorship.
Gus Harrison, Director
What a lot of shit. We have notified the American Civil Liberties Union of the problem, but it seems as though Gus and the boys will probably continue to run their concentration camps according to their whim.