Media Reform groups urge Corporation for Public Broadcasting to open meetings to the public
Letter to board is first salvo in “Must-See CPB” campaign
WASHINGTON -- Nine media reform groups today released a letter they have delivered to each member of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s board of directors and to new CPB President Patricia Harrison. The letter was signed by the Center for Creative Voices, the Center for Digital Democracy, Chicago Media Action, Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting, Common Cause, the Consumer Federation of America, Free Press, Media Alliance and the National Hispanic Media Coalition.
The letter calls for increased openness and transparency in the way the CPB board operates and conducts its meetings. It specifically asks for the board to vote on resolutions at its next meeting that would:
• prohibit board members from approving any contracts without the full knowledge and consent of the board, and make those contracts public;
• require that any time the CBP studies public broadcasting programming, it must first notify and get the consent of PBS, NPR or the appropriate public broadcasting entity it intends to examine;
• make its quarterly meetings public via real-time online, video, audio and other communications and release online its director’s conflict-of-interest statements; and
• permit the public to address the board at its open meetings.
“The uproar over certain policy decisions by CPB Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson makes clear that the public cares deeply about how the CPB views its role,” said Common Cause President Chellie Pingree. “Citizens should not be kept in the dark about how the CPB does its work.”
“These policies promoting transparency and sound, non-partisan corporate governance should be standard policy for such a body, not a debatable or contentious request," said Jeff Perlstein, executive director of Media Alliance.
“CPB must become accountable to the public, who foot its bills in the hundreds of millions yearly,” said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. “Why does the board fear disclosure and transparency?"
“We need to put the public back into public broadcasting,” added Jerold Starr, executive director of Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting. “We can start with the CPB meetings where judgments about who is to be served and decisions about how to spend taxpayers' money are made.”
Signers of the letter want the CPB board to consider and vote on these resolutions at their next board meeting on Sept. 19-20. The groups stressed that opening up its process was the first of many reforms that CPB should address.
“Opening the CPB to full public scrutiny will help cleanse the organization of covert partisanship,” said Free Press Campaign Director Timothy Karr. “Quality public programming must be allowed to stand on its own merits. There's no place at the CPB for ideological operatives who seek to twist broadcast content for political gain.”
“These suggested reforms are important first steps toward achieving these important goals,” said Jonathan Rintels, executive director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media. “America needs a public broadcasting system that operates in full sunshine, free from outside political and corporate pressure.”
July 26, 2005
All Ears for Tom Cruise, All Eyes on Brad Pitt
By Nicholas D. Kristof
New York Times
"I'm outraged that one of my Times colleagues, Judith Miller, is in jail
for protecting her sources. But if we journalists are to demand a legal
privilege to protect our sources, we need to show that we serve the
public good - which means covering genocide as seriously as we cover,
say, Tom Cruise. In some ways, we've gone downhill: the American news
media aren't even covering the Darfur genocide as well as we covered the
Armenian genocide in 1915."
Some of us in the news media have been hounding President Bush for his
shameful passivity in the face of genocide in Darfur.
More than two years have passed since the beginning of what Mr. Bush
acknowledges is the first genocide of the 21st century, yet Mr. Bush
barely manages to get the word "Darfur" out of his mouth. Still, it
seems hypocritical of me to rage about Mr. Bush's negligence, when my
own beloved institution - the American media - has been at least as
passive as Mr. Bush.
Condi Rice finally showed up in Darfur a few days ago, and she went out
of her way to talk to rape victims and spotlight the sexual violence
used to terrorize civilians. Most American television networks and cable
programs haven't done that much.
Even the coverage of Ms. Rice's trip underscored our self-absorption.
The manhandling of journalists accompanying Ms. Rice got more coverage
than any massacre in Darfur has.
This is a column I don't want to write - we in the media business have
so many critics already that I hardly need to pipe in as well. But after
more than a year of seething frustration, I feel I have to.
Like many others, I drifted toward journalism partly because it seemed
an opportunity to do some good. (O.K., O.K.: it was also a blast,
impressed girls and offered the glory of the byline.) But to sustain the
idealism in journalism - and to rebut the widespread perception that
journalists are just irresponsible gossips - we need to show more
interest in the first genocide of the 21st century than in the "runaway
bride."
I'm outraged that one of my Times colleagues, Judith Miller, is in jail
for protecting her sources. But if we journalists are to demand a legal
privilege to protect our sources, we need to show that we serve the
public good - which means covering genocide as seriously as we cover,
say, Tom Cruise. In some ways, we've gone downhill: the American news
media aren't even covering the Darfur genocide as well as we covered the
Armenian genocide in 1915.
Serious newspapers have done the best job of covering Darfur, and I take
my hat off to Emily Wax of The Washington Post and to several colleagues
at The Times for their reporting. Time magazine gets credit for putting
Darfur on its cover - but the newsweeklies should be embarrassed that
better magazine coverage of Darfur has often been in Christianity Today.
The real failure has been television's. According to monitoring by the
Tyndall Report, ABC News had a total of 18 minutes of the Darfur
genocide in its nightly newscasts all last year - and that turns out to
be a credit to Peter Jennings. NBC had only 5 minutes of coverage all
last year, and CBS only 3 minutes - about a minute of coverage for every
100,000 deaths. In contrast, Martha Stewart received 130 minutes of
coverage by the three networks.
Incredibly, more than two years into the genocide, NBC, aside from
covering official trips, has still not bothered to send one of its own
correspondents into Darfur for independent reporting.
"Generally speaking, it's been a total vacuum," said John Prendergast of
the International Crisis Group, speaking of television coverage. "I
blame policy makers for not making better policy, but it sure would be
easier if we had more media coverage."
When I've asked television correspondents about this lapse, they've
noted that visas to Sudan are difficult to get and that reporting in
Darfur is expensive and dangerous. True, but TV crews could at least
interview Darfur refugees in nearby Chad. After all, Diane Sawyer
traveled to Africa this year - to interview Brad Pitt, underscoring the
point that the networks are willing to devote resources to cover the
African stories that they consider more important than genocide.
If only Michael Jackson's trial had been held in Darfur. Last month,
CNN, Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, ABC and CBS collectively ran 55 times as many
stories about Michael Jackson as they ran about genocide in Darfur.
The BBC has shown that outstanding television coverage of Darfur is
possible. And, incredibly, mtvU (the MTV channel aimed at universities)
has covered Darfur more seriously than any network or cable station.
When MTV dispatches a crew to cover genocide and NBC doesn't, then we in
journalism need to hang our heads.
So while we have every right to criticize Mr. Bush for his passivity, I
hope that he criticizes us back. We've behaved as disgracefully as he
has.
E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com
Claire Taylor
ctaylor@theadvertiser.com
Lafayette voters turned out in surprising numbers Saturday for an election with a single issue. With a 27 percent turnout, they voted 12,290 to 7,507, or 62 percent to 38 percent, to proceed with the controversial fiber-to-the-home project.
"I am so proud of this community," said City-Parish President Joey Durel. "It humbles me a bit that Lafayette's citizens put so much trust in their leadership. Now, we need to prove them right and show that other 38 percent that they can trust us and look to us to move this community forward."
Saturday's vote authorizes Lafayette Utilities System to sell up to $125 million in bonds for a fiber to the home and business project. It will involve extending fiber optics cable down every city street, then offering residents and businesses the option of receiving high-speed Internet, telephone and/or cable TV service through LUS. City officials said they believe it can offer those services at lower prices than incumbents such as BellSouth and Cox Communications.
Fiber 411, the citizens group that opposed the LUS plan, took the loss as a victory.
"I think we won," said Tim Supple of Fiber 411. "We started off wanting to get people the right to vote. We accomplished that. We tried to get people to understand the issue. We accomplished that, I hope. We won."
Both Supple and Neal Breakfield of Fiber 411 have said they do not plan on pursuing or participating in any lawsuit to challenge the fiber project.
The next step for LUS is to work with the Louisiana Public Service Commission on its rule making, a move that can affect how much LUS can charge and could prevent LUS from guaranteeing the fiber bonds with revenue from its electric, sewer and water divisions. The matter may be taken up at a PSC meeting this week, said Terry Huval, LUS director.
Once LUS clears the PSC rulemaking, it will begin the process to issue bonds. Without delays, Huval said, LUS could have the bond money in hand in four to five months. Then the utility would hire an engineering firm to prepare engineering on every pole and lot in the city.
"Two years from today we ought to begin serving our first customers," Huval said.
It will take about another 1 1/2 years to bring fiber to everyone in the city who wants it. The voter turnout - bigger than the 15 percent expected, with at least two precincts at Thomas Park and Girard Park recording 45 percent turnout - is a good indication that residents want the services and the business plan can work, Huval said.
"I hope all the lawsuits and artificial hurdles are behind us," Huval said. "The people have voted. They ought to honor that."
Fiber supporters were pleased with the results and what fiber may bring Lafayette.
"This opens the door for every municipality in the nation to look at how they can do what we did," said Don Bertrand of Fibre911. "We deserve connectivity and as we did in 1896 with the electricity, if you won't bring it to us, we'll do it ourselves."
Benjamin Dorsey, 19, who attended several fiber town hall meetings, said fiber will be great for his generation.
"Lafayette's going to be on the world's map and the face of this city will change over time thanks to this project," Dorsey said. "We'll be able to stay here, and have high-paying jobs in science, software engineering and the medical field."
Jeffery Landry, government watchdog, said he had doubts about the project but voted in favor of it.
"I hope it will benefit everybody in Lafayette," he said. "The bottom line is I want everybody to benefit from it."
"Victory - that's what can happen when you get people together," said Gobb Williams of Citizens for Common Sense. "We will become Lafayette, Louisiana - not north and south Lafayette."
Originally published July 17, 2005
Source: http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050717/NEWS01/507170362/1002
How Comcast Censors Political Content
Or Why My Comcast Horror Story Is Better Than Yours
By David Swanson
Most Comcast internet customers seem to have horror stories, but in my humble opinion this one is a doozie and may even suggest threats to freedom of speech more significant than the jailing of a court stenographer.
I'm working on a campaign headquartered at www.afterdowningstreet.org that seeks to draw attention to the Downing Street Minutes and to lobby Congress to open an investigation into whether the President has committed impeachable offenses. According to a recent Zogby poll, 42 percent of Americans favor impeachment proceedings if the President lied about the reasons for war, and according to a recent ABC News / Washington Post poll, 52 percent think he did. But this story is nowhere to be found in the corporate media. So, our website attracts a lot of traffic.
In addition, July 23rd is the three-year anniversary of the meeting on Downing Street that produced the now infamous minutes, and we are organizing events all over the country on that day. Or, we're trying to. But we noticed about a week ago that everyone working on this campaign was having strange Email problems. Some people would get Emails and some wouldn't, or they'd receive some but not others. Conference calls were worse than usual (I can't stand the things anyway) because half the people wouldn’t get the info and know where to call in. Organizing by internet is super easy, but when you have to follow up every Email with a phone call to see if someone got it, it becomes super frustrating. Volunteers have been complaining all over the country – especially now that we've figured out what the problem was and they know what to complain about.
We didn't know it, but for the past week, anyone using Comcast has been unable to receive any Email with "www.afterdowningstreet.org" in the body of the Email. That has included every Email from me, since that was in my signature at the bottom of every Email I sent. And it included any Email linking people to any information about the upcoming events.
From the flood this evening of Emails saying "Oh, so that's why I haven't heard anything from you guys lately," it seems clear that we would have significantly more events organized by now for the 23rd if not for this block by Comcast.
Disturbingly, Comcast did not notify us of this block. It took us a number of days to nail down Comcast as the cause of the problems, and then more days, working with Comcast's abuse department to identify exactly what was going on. We'd reached that point by Thursday, but Comcast was slow to fix the problem.
During the day on Friday we escalated our threats to flood Comcast's executives with phone calls and cancellations, and we gave them deadlines. Friday evening, Comcast passed the buck to Symantec. Comcast said that Symantec's Bright Mail filter was blocking the Emails, and that Symantec refused to lift the block, because they had supposedly received 46,000 complaints about Emails with our URL in them. Forty-six thousand! Of course, Symantec was working for Comcast, and Comcast could insist that they shape up, or drop them. But Comcast wasn't interested in doing that.
Could we see two or three, or even one, of those 46,000 complaints? No, and Comcast claimed that Symantec wouldn't share them with Comcast either.
By the time Comcast had passed the buck to the company that it was paying to filter its customers Emails, Brad Blog had posted an article about the situation and urged people to complain to Comcast.
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001602.htm
Brad quickly added Symantec phone numbers to the story on his website, and we called Symantec's communications department, which fixed the problem in a matter of minutes.
So, why does this matter?
Comcast has a near monopoly on high-speed internet service in much of this country, including much of the Washington, D.C., area. Many members of the media and many people involved in politics rely on it. Three days ago, I almost decided to put a satellite dish on my roof. There's no other way for me to get high-speed internet, unless I use Comcast.
Comcast effectively censors discussion of particular political topics, and impedes the ability of people to associate with each other, with absolutely no compulsion to explain itself. There is no due process. A phrase or web address is tried and convicted in absentia and without the knowledge of those involved.
Now, did Comcast do this because it opposes impeaching the President? I seriously doubt it. Apparently the folks at Symantec did this, and Comcast condoned it. But why?
Well, we have no evidence to suggest that these 46,000 complaints actually exist, but we can be fairly certain that if they do, they were generated by someone politically opposed to our agenda. There's simply no possible way that we've accidentally annoyed 46,000 random people with stray Emails and mistyped addresses. We've only been around for a month and a half, and we haven't spammed anyone. In fact, during the course of trying to resolve the problem, Comcast assured us that they knew we hadn't spammed anyone. And once we'd gotten Symantec's attention, they didn't hesitate to lift the block.
But it had taken serious pressure to find out what the problem was and who to ask for a remedy. We only solved this because we could threaten a flood of negative attention.
This state of affairs means that anyone who wants to stifle public and quasi-private discussion of a topic can quite easily do so by generating numerous spam complaints. The victims of the complaints will not be notified, made aware of the accusations against them, or provided an opportunity to defend themselves. And if the complaints prove bogus, there will be absolutely no penalty for having made them.
And this won't affect only small-time information sources. If the New York Times or CNN attempts to send people Email with a forbidden phrase, it won't reach Comcast customers or customers of any ISP using the same or similar filtering program.
And there is no public list posted anywhere of which phrases are not permitted. This is a Kafkan world. This is censorship as it affects a prisoner who sends out letters and does not know if they will reach the recipient or be destroyed.
What if I had tried to Email someone about a serious health emergency during the past week, but they had been using Comcast and I had been including the address of my website in my Email signature? Is this not a safety issue?
Above all, though, this is a First Amendment issue, as is well laid out in this excerpt of a statement released today by People-Link.org, the organization hosting the www.afterdowningstreet.org site:
"This goes far beyond the normal anti-spam measures taken by major providers and represents an effective blocking of constitutionally protected expression and the fundamental right to organize and act politically on issues of concern.
"Most spam blocking measures focus on the email address or the IP address of the suspected spammer. While there are anti-spam measures directed at the body of the email, these usually target attachments that could contain virus programs.
"Targeting the inclusion of a website url can only have one outcome: that communications about that website and the issue it is presenting will be blocked from large numbers of people and that the communications from that site's administrators and the campaign's organizers will not reach their full constituency.
"Whether Comcast's intention or not, this is effectively political and unconstitutional.
"It keeps people from getting valuable information about a campaign that is, in the opinion of many, critical to the future of this country's political system.
"It disrupts the organizing of this campaign and cripples the campaign's ability to use its most effective communications tool: the Internet.
"It damages people's confidence in this campaign since many people who write the campaign can't receive the response they expect and that the campaign has sent.
"Perhaps the worst part of this development is that Comcast has been reportedly doing this without the knowledge of the managers of this website or anyone affiliated with this campaign. In fact, no Comcast customer has received any indication that email to him or her containing this url was blocked."
____________________________
DAVID SWANSON is a co-founder of After Downing Street, a writer and activist, and the Washington Director of Democrats.com. He is a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, and serves on the Executive Council of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, Media Coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as Communications Coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Swanson obtained a Master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia in 1997.
Two anticompetitive chains seek to dominate concert ads
By Tim Redmond and Kimberly Chun, SF Bay Guardian
New Times, which owns SF Weekly and East Bay Express, has cut a deal with Clear Channel, the giant entertainment conglomerate, that could shut other print media, including the Bay Guardian, out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in concert advertising, representatives of Bill Graham Presents, a Clear Channel subsidiary, told Bay Guardian ad sales staffers June 23.
Under the terms of the deal, New Times will pay Clear Channel a sum in the high six figures for naming rights to the Warfield Theatre, which for the next three years will become the SF Weekly Warfield, BGP representatives said.
In exchange, Clear Channel will spend so much money on advertising in the Weekly and Express that there will be little or no money left for competing print media.
In effect, one of the nation's largest media oligopolies has joined forces with the nation's largest alternative weekly chain to squeeze out an independently owned competitor.
"It's bad," Jeff Perlstein, executive director of Media Alliance, told us. "As all these dark tentacles become entwined, it gets more and more serious as a threat to independent media."
Nobody at New Times, SF Weekly, or Clear Channel would return our calls seeking comment. But a press release sent out June 27 from SF Weekly and BGP described the naming-rights deal and stated that SF Weekly and BGP "will collaborate across business fronts."
The press release never mentions New Times or Clear Channel and presents the deal as if it were just a friendly agreement between local companies.
The BGP staffers who informed the Bay Guardian's entertainment account manager, Adam Shandobil, and marketing manager, Warren Spicer, of the deal said it was effective immediately. And in fact, BGP has pulled all of its ads from the Bay Guardian this week.
BGP presents concerts and events at the Fillmore, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Chronicle Pavilion, Punch Line, and Mountain Winery in the Bay Area, and at Sleep Train Amphitheatre in Marysville, among other venues, and ads from all of these are affected by the deal.
Media observers we contacted said they'd never heard of a similar deal – but the arrangement comes as little surprise. Clear Channel, which owns 7 local radio stations and more than 1,200 nationwide, is known around the country for its savage, anticompetitive policies and its attempts to establish hegemony in entertainment markets (see "Clear and Present Danger," 4/24/2002). New Times, which owns 11 alt-weeklies, has become an icon of cutthroat, anticompetitive behavior in the alternative press (see "The Predatory Chain," 6/27/2002).
In the 1990s Clear Channel developed an aggressive strategy of buying up not only local radio stations but billboard companies and concert and sports promoters. The idea, as the Wall Street Journal reported June 24, was that "Clear Channel figured its radio stations and billboards could shill upcoming concerts, and performers would gravitate to its venues for the extra marketing. The radio stations would push concert offerings in each market."
But it hasn't worked out that well. "Instead," the Journal noted, "the combination irked music fans, record labels, and artists, who complained that Clear Channel used its might to punish artists who didn't play by its rules and contributed to the sharp rise in ticket prices at venues it controls."
That's why Clear Channel recently announced plans to spin off its concert business as a new subsidiary.
The media company has also been accused of censorship. The day after the Sept. 11 attacks, Clear Channel issued a list of songs that its stations were advised not to play, including John Lennon's "Imagine" and anything by Rage Against the Machine. Shortly after Clear Channel bought Bay Area radio station KMEL, the station fired producer David "Davey D" Cook, who had dared to air a show about Rep. Barbara Lee's objections to the invasion of Afghanistan. The corporation has close links to the Bush administration, and in 2003 Clear Channel stations sponsored rallies supporting the administration's war in Iraq.
These are the people SF Weekly is getting into bed with.
New Times and Clear Channel have at least one thing in common: They hate competition. In October 2002 New Times cut a deal with Village Voice Media in which the two chains agreed to end competition in Los Angeles and Cleveland by shutting down a pair of alternative papers. New Times closed its LA paper and secured the Cleveland market for itself; VVM reciprocated by shutting down its Cleveland operation. The US Justice Department declared the deal illegal (see "New Times Nailed," 1/21/03).
Sherry Wasserman, a senior official at Another Planet, a BGP competitor, said the deal sounded highly unusual. "Look at the Chronicle Pavilion, which still advertises in the Contra Costa Times and every other place," she said.
Guy Carson, owner of Café du Nord, said the arrangement might have a negative affect on the local music scene. "Obviously this has big implications," he told us. "To the extent that it hurts the Bay Guardian and [the] Chronicle, it's going to hurt the local scene.
"Maybe," he added, "SF is not immune to general homogenization."
PS: The Bay Guardian is suing New Times for predatory pricing, charging that SF Weekly and the East Bay Express are selling ads below coast in an effort to drive the Bay Guardian out of business.
Media reform and Media Revolution
by Dru Oja Jay, Z Magazine
The dominant evaluation of this year’s National Conference on Media Reform is that it was an overwhelming success. On the contrary—relative to where the movement could and should be—the conference’s achievements seem underwhelming as political divisions, a dearth of democracy, and a short-sighted agenda threaten the future effectiveness of the movement.
Free Press, a national, non- profit media reform organization, which convened the conference, advocates a reform agenda. Their goal is to facilitate democratic control over the policies that govern the press and broadcast media. In their own words, they seek to “generate policies that will produce a more competitive and public interest-oriented media system with a strong nonprofit and non-commercial sector.”
Free Press’s agenda is dominated by policy reform. As Free Press directors Ben Scott and Russell Newman put it in their contribution to The Future of Media: “To win just media, we must deliver just media policy.” As representatives of Free Press articulate again and again, this is the order in which change occurs: first just policy, then just media.
Judging by the loud cheers when Naomi Klein said, “It’s not a question of reform, it’s a question of revolutionizing the media,” media revolution (at least in the abstract) is not an unpopular idea with conference-goers. (This might be contrasted with the collective grumbling with which an otherwise extremely enthusiastic audience received Bill Moyers’s citation of NPR’s “courageous coverage” of the Iraq war.)
Indymedia activists made a prominent show of their discontent by setting up an ad-hoc Open Publishing center outside of the conference’s Saturday night keynote, inviting the audience to participate in an open online discussion about the conference.
Instead of regulating the corporate press, Indymedia activists seek to render it irrelevant by empowering people to “be the media” by doing their own reporting, creating their own radio stations, and publishing their own newspapers. Indymedia projects are democratically-run and decisions are made by consensus by those who participate in media-making. The overall goal of Indymedia is to empower people to represent themselves when they are misrepresented in the media.
The end result that Indymedia activists are working towards is quite different from (though not incompatible with) those of Free Press: a world where historical and current injustices are addressed, where local democratic self-governance and autonomy have primacy, where control of resources and production falls under democratic community control.
In five years, with no foundation or corporate funding, Indymedia has grown to a global media network with almost 200 local collectives spanning 36 countries and 20 languages. Their websites receive an estimated 30 million page views per month. Indymedia has many problems (lack of age, class, gender, and racial diversity are frequently cited, and some see its chaotic nature as a weakness), but its successes are undeniable.
The point I’m making is not that Indymedia is superior to less radical media reform efforts; it is that being uncompromising and being wildly successful are not mutually exclusive. Success at the grassroots level sprouts from other criteria, of which solidarity, democracy, and local relevance are examples.
Looking at the mandates of the reform-minded Free Press and the revolution-oriented Indymedia, there is a lot of room for agreement. In principle, Free Press seeks to open space for the grassroots—and so do Indymedia, Prometheus Radio, Community Wireless, and hundreds of other initiatives—to reach an audience without being shut down or marginalized by the government and corporations. So why is there a problem?
Structure of the NCMR
It has been said that, “Whatever your first issue of concern, media had better be your second, because without change in the media, the chances of progress in your primary area are far less likely.” This seems to have become a sort of mantra for Free Press organizers, but they have carried it one step further. Media reform, they have said repeatedly, is the issue of concern here and we shouldn’t get distracted by other political fights.
Their concern is understandable and no doubt well intended. If the movement is dominated by infighting, it could lose momentum.
As Free Press would have it, we need to stay focused on policy reform and then we can have independent media. Unfortunately, this concern betrays a lack of understanding of this movement in particular and politics in general and could ultimately stifle the emerging resistance instead of accelerating and empowering it.
Let’s look at the format of the conference. Friday: speakers address the conference, followed by pre-planned panels, workshops, and films, punctuated by breaks. Panels were followed by a short question period during which audience members were asked to keep things short and told to “please ask your question.” Saturday: pre- planned panels, workshops, and films until 4:30, at which point there were caucuses, the one official time that people could speak directly to each other. This was followed by a two-hour “Media Democracy Showcase” where various organizations set up tables. Soon after, there was a star-studded keynote session featuring Al Franken, Jim Hightower, FCC Commissioners, and others. The final day made time for “action clinics,” followed by a plenary session where there was a packed five minute summary of concerns with the conference—a rare moment of questioning.
I attended the Independent Media Producers’ Caucus and was surprised to find that instead of participating in a discussion among peers, I was subjected to an agenda, set ahead of time, of discussing ways in which the full room of independent media producers could advance the agenda of media reform. It felt insulting.
In hindsight, I should have been more careful in reading the conference program, which states: “The objective for these caucuses is to allow participants from specific stakeholder constituencies to meet other conference participants from their constituency, allow participants to articulate this group’s stake and role in media reform, and to discuss ways this constituency can engage more deeply in media reform.”
This language, and my experience of the “caucus,” in which attendees’ protests were repeatedly glossed over, reflects a fundamental confusion on the part of Free Press organizers about how popular movements function and what feeds them.
Whence the Movement?
It’s important to note where popular movements do not come from. They do not come from a concern with policy or with a desire to democratize federal bureaucracies and regulations; 99.9 percent of Americans do not dedicate a significant part of their day to thinking about policy qua policy. However, a clear majority do think there is too much advertising, do want better news coverage, do want their communities accurately represented in the media. A significant number have tried to make their own media only to be shut down—by corporations, the government, or both.
It is likely that the majority of these people have not heard of either Indymedia or Free Press. The media reform policy agenda is important, and thousands of people have recognized it as such. But to sustain its growth, the movement (and its self-appointed leaders) must recognize where it comes from. It comes from being misquoted. It comes from an attempt to start a radio station or community wireless network that is shut down by Clear Channel or Verizon. It comes from Fox News. It comes from a lack of community reporting. It comes from a lack of critical coverage of Social Security “reform.” It comes from propaganda for war. It comes from the stereotypes of Muslims or women (for example) that are cultivated by the media.
If one accepts that this is the case, then the way to cultivate a movement many times the size of the current one is clear. Rather than enlisting the (relatively small) existing pool of people into policy wars, the goal should be to make sure as many people as possible have the experiences that lead them to become active in the fight against corporate media and then help them fight their own fight. And win.
The National Conference on Media Reform facilitates this in a limited way, but it seems to do so despite itself. The U.S. part of the global justice movement that marched in Seattle, Washington DC, New York, and San Francisco has been learning that asking people to sign on to your agenda because you know best isn’t the way to build a movement; it’s the way to limit it. Free Press can learn this too. It needs to.
How Does Reform Happen?
Now that hundreds of thousands of people are concerned enough to act, how do we channel that concern into concrete change on the ground? The question should be asked before an answer is provided.
The MoveOn.org/Howard Dean/Free Press model of turning concern into action, whereby widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo ischanneled into focused campaigns to change specific policies, has become popular—though concerns about the lack of accountability or democracy in this model (e.g., who decides what campaigns to take on) have been voiced.
While no one can deny the power of uniting millions of people in favor of one cause, we must ask: is that enough? Not nearly. The model is simply a way of harvesting the existing discontent, not building, connecting, and expanding it. For reforms to be substantial, the threat of revolution must be real.
If we want to reform the media, we must undermine their credibility and their very existence from one end, while providing a “reasonable” way out on the other. If they do not heed the call of reform and we replace them, so much the better.
In the U.S., the right understands very well how to use its more militant factions to move the debate in their direction. I remember hearing Republican leaders on NPR calling attention to some “challenging” proposals—by more far right House Republicans—to legislate the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions. They may have little hope of passing such legislation, but calling attention to it as an imminent threat helps to move the debate in their direction and further their anti-abortion agenda. In the case of the right, cultivating a base of uncompromising militants has only helped them accomplish their political objectives.
The liberal left in the U.S. has yet to figure this out. Democrats wouldn’t be caught dead saying, “Well, some people are calling for the breakup of the media monopolies and local democratic control over the electromagnetic spectrum, but we’re making the much more reasonable request for more spectrum for LPFM stations in cities.” But there’s a good reason: broadcasters fund the Democrats and control the news coverage about them, too. Thankfully, Free Press is non-partisan.
In Front of the Parade
On many levels, Free Press recognizes these facts remarkably well. (I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t think they do good work.) However, the organization’s tendency (by no means monolithic) to try to constrain the movement and keep its own agenda at the fore will be damaging in the long term. Having placed itself at the front of the Media Reform parade, it is in danger of confusing being in front with being the reason the parade is happening—just as liberals confuse the fact that they were forced to implement a social safety net by the threat of social movements taking power with the idea that it was their leadership and benevolence that made it happen.
While it is an extremely important component of a strategy against corporate control of the media, policy is a secondary consideration in the building of a movement. Free Press’s Ben Scott and Russell Newman make the opposite case in The Future of Media: Resistance and Reform in the 21st Century, invoking the potential of consolidation of control over Internet networks and the end of common carrier rules: “The Indymedia battle cry of ‘Hate the Media? Be the media’ will ring hollow if ‘being the media’ requires signing a contract with Comcast or Verizon to have a mass-media mouthpiece in tomorrow’s media system.”
But while the case for media activists of all stripes to lend some kind of support to Free Press’s policy reform agenda is a compelling one, the political fact remains: Free Press won’t build the grassroots movement it needs by asking for the existing movement to submit to its agenda and stifle their tendencies to build alliances and to self-organize.
What is the goal of the National Conference on Media Reform? Does the NCMR exist to further the immediate agenda of Free Press, raising its profile and lending support to its campaigns? If so, this should be made clear so that the other parts of the anti-corporate media movement can regroup and create their own venues for networking and growing the movement as soon as possible.
Or is it to further the political goal of creating a media that serves the public and works for a more just and democratic society? If so, Free Press needs to water and fertilize the grassroots and sow seeds of resistance. You get our back, we get yours. That’s solidarity and that’s how you build a movement. The role of the conference organizer should be twofold: to address the needs of the movement, and to facilitate alliances between individual initiatives. It’s that simple.
Some Suggestions
* Empower, don’t hijack: It is crucial that people be treated as human beings with the ability to make political decisions for themselves. It’s our job to give them the tools to do it and make the case for doing it. It’s up to them to do the rest. People will appreciate this.
* Cultivate the conditions for action instead of giving orders: Free Press decided not to set up a media center where people could update their blogs, publications, upload audio, etc. But it is exactly this kind of resource that will achieve the desired effect of amplifying the message of media reform. Hijacking the independent media producers’ one chance to talk to each other seems to have the opposite effect (a quick glance at Indymedia coverage of the conference confirms this).
* Globalize (solidarity is mutual): At the excellent “Globalizing the Media Reform Movement” session, speakers from Korea, Brazil, and Africa spoke of the need to support media reform movements inside the U.S. Our ability to hold media accountable to the truth will make the difference between life and death, poverty and prosperity for millions of people. The support of those millions is there, waiting for a connection. For some reason, the connection isn’t being made. Why not invite delegations from social movements in Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Iraq, Lebanon, Ukraine, France, Haiti, South Africa, India, Nepal, and dozens of indigenous communities to speak about how disinformation in the U.S media harms them? The potential in those names alone shifts the focus from why the movement is so large to why the movement isn’t much, much larger.
* Get horizontal: For anyone wanting to organize a serious caucus outside of what the conference had already planned, the responsibility for promoting it rested firmly on their shoulders. Why not announce all independent caucuses at the close of each panel, workshop, and film that takes place right before the caucus? Better yet, devote one of the concurrent sessions in each time slot to open, facilitated discussions on specific areas of strategy and organizing. (Those who want to see big names get what they want, and so will those who want to build and discuss. Everyone will be happy.) Brainstorm ways to get people who are working on the same things talking to each other. The result will be a stronger and better connected movement.
* Recognize and encourage the contribution of all participants: It can’t be said often enough that media reform doesn’t come from policymakers, it comes from a broad range of movements for social justice, independent media, and community organizations. It’s not enough to recognize their past contributions; they should be an integral part of any successful movement to reform the media.
* Encourage Debate: There are political tensions in the movement, which remained invisible to most conference-goers. The majority of attendees are not invested in one side or the other of any conflicting set of visions, but depriving everyone of a clear delineation of the possible futures of the movement only impoverishes our collective imagination while maintaining the illusion of unity.
* Transparency: Make public the minutes of your organizing meetings and the archives of your mailing list, and consult widely before making major decisions. It’s difficult, but you will earn trust, hear a lot of valuable suggestions, and your organizing (and its political outcomes) will be much more rooted and solid as a result. I know from experience that this is a difficult step to take, but, nonetheless, a worthwhile one.
* Democracy: At the very least, send out emails asking what people want from the next conference and open up an online discussion about how best to run the conference. And then listen. Open up the organizing to involve other groups and distribute responsibility for different parts of the conference. (For example, let the Indymedia set up the space for people to make their own media and learn about open publishing that didn’t happen this time around.) The result will be a richer and more dynamic convention.
* React to politics with creativity: When the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression asked Free Press for workshop space so that police brutality could be investigated independently, Free Press responded that they were “here to discuss media reform.” If Free Press can’t see how police brutality and the lack of a civilian oversight board is a media issue, then there’s a fundamental disconnect.
* Shed the bizarre fear of politics: Most people realize that they live in a world with a lot of different points of view, cultural values, and political agendas. There’s no need to protect them from anything. The question that should be asked is not how conflicting agendas can be kept from clashing, but how dialogue can be made as productive and open as possible. The margins and the intersections: that’s where the breakthroughs and innovations happen.
* Make it more accessible: Nice work with the scholarships. Now expand them, make the price sliding scale, lower it overall.
* Ask not what the movement can do for you: Where are the strongest social movements in the world? In the U.S.? Hire organizers to go and ask them what they need to fight the bad media coverage that they are inevitably getting. It’s going to be different in every case. Some people need legal protection or to be bailed out of jail, some need sophisticated web sites, and some need the media reform toolkit.
The Response?
Whether Free Press embraces these (and similar) suggestions or not, their decision will help organizers and activists decide how to respond. Do we put our energy into other gatherings to fight corporate media? There is considerable momentum in this direction already, but Free Press will decide to what extent its National Conference on Media Reform will stay relevant to the movement as a whole. If it exists primarily to further one agenda, rather than to build a movement, it’s better for everyone that we know sooner rather than later.
If Free Press decides not to broaden the conference to achieve political goals and remains focused on a narrow reform agenda, their resources and formidable organizing power will be missed, but the movement will ultimately be better served by cultivating gatherings (the Allied Media Conference is one example) that focus on formulating a mass-based political challenge to corporate media.
That said, if there’s anyone who claims that defeating corporate media is possible without a broad based movement that takes social justice into account, that’s a dialogue I’m keen to participate in, as are many others. Now all we need is a venue.
CALL FOR A NATIONAL SHIELD LAW FOR THE PROTECTION OF JOURNALISTS
As reporters, editors and publishers, we join all our colleagues in journalism in calling for a national shield law legislation that protects journalists from being compelled to reveal their confidential sources.
The prosecution of journalists for refusing to reveal their confidential sources is a serious threat to the fourth estate’s ability to report the news and investigate instances of wrongdoing such as corporate malfeasance, political abuse, organized crime and government corruption, in which confidential sources are indispensable. Our inability to protect the identity of whistleblowers and eyewitnesses undermines the public’s right to know and, ultimately, the administration of justice.
During the past year more than 70 journalists and news organizations have been entangled in federal court over access to unpublished, confidential information. Several have been subpoenaed for their records or testimony. Jim Taricani, a television reporter in Rhode Island, served a sentence for refusing to identify an anonymous source. At least nine journalists—including Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time Magazine--have been held in contempt and face the threat of imprisonment or heavy fines or both.
These prosecuted journalists work for mainstream media organizations. They were vulnerable despite their organizations’ resources and high public profile. Their plight has an especially chilling effect on reporters, editors and publishers of ethnic media, which are far more isolated even though our media reach one out of four American adults (NCM National Poll, June 2005).
Forty-nine states and the District of Columbia, through legislation or court decision, have adopted "shield laws" that protect journalists from having to divulge sources of information given them in confidence. Some federal courts recognize such a shield, but most do not. It is time for a national shield law that recognizes journalists as unique watchdogs of the public good.
Signed,
Media Alliance
New California Media (NCM)
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Sun Valley setting for media event
By Seth Sutel
The Associated Press
The annual retreat for media bigwigs, investors and technology gurus in
Sun Valley, Idaho is known as a place for CEOs to take the family on
vacation and talk about business deals.
Which is just what Allen & Co., a well-connected investment bank that
traces its roots to the 1920s, had in mind when it started putting on
this high-powered conference in 1983.
Allen's close relations with Rupert Murdoch, Barry Diller and other
entertainment honchos are the stock in trade for this small but
powerful family firm, which recently passed control to the third
generation in the Allen family.
The setting for the conference is a scenic mountain resort that has
been a favorite with well-heeled celebrities since it was founded in
1936. Actor Tom Hanks and Las Vegas mogul Steve Wynn are among those
who have homes in the area.
Each year, the meeting brings together CEOs from top media companies,
several technology leaders and a number of big investors who mingle,
listen to presentations, and talk shop over rounds of golf, horseback
riding and even whitewater rafting.
The week is structured as a family retreat for corporate leaders, and
all the events are closed to reporters.
But with so many heads of major media companies in attendance, the
annual conference also is seen as a breeding ground for potential
merger deals. Walt Disney Co.'s landmark acquisition of Capital
Cities/ABC in 1996 famously began with conversations struck up at a Sun
Valley conference.
But as they head into this year's weeklong meeting, which gets under
way Tuesday, media CEOs are facing a much tougher business environment
than many have seen in the past, with advertising growing sluggishly
and the Internet and ad-skipping devices like the digital video
recorder challenging traditional media business models.
Plus, Wall Street largely has largely soured on giant media
conglomerates, so much so that one of the biggest stories in the media
world so far this year is that Viacom Inc., a major media conglomerate,
is breaking itself up into two units in hopes of regaining favor among
investors.
Other media companies are also slimming down. Cablevision Systems
Corp., a New York-area cable TV provider, is spinning off a business
unit containing three cable networks and Madison Square Garden, and
radio industry leader Clear Channel Communications Inc. is spinning off
its live entertainment division.
It's not necessarily that doing deals is a bad thing, it's just that
there's not as much enthusiasm for big media companies being big just
for the sake of scale.
"The main issue is not consolidation but conglomeratization," says Jim
Rutherfurd, executive vice president at Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a
media private equity firm.
"There's a lot of sense in combining like media, for example magazines
or TV stations," Rutherfurd said. "Where things went ... too far is
when companies were acquiring too many kinds of businesses under one
roof."
Viacom is hoping to fix that problem and reverse a long slump in its
stock price, which is down 10 percent so far this year, by splitting
itself into a "growth" company anchored by its MTV Networks group, and
a "value" company centered on CBS.
The split will essentially undo Viacom's acquisition of CBS, which was
announced in 1999. At the time, bigger is better seemed to be the
mantra among media companies, with Disney buying ABC and Time Warner
later agreeing to be acquired by AOL.
Now, the Big Media Theory just isn't what it used to be.
"It's always been a tradeoff," says media consultant Peter Kreisky. "Do
you create more value with scale, or with focus? And the jury is
clearly out in terms of the advantages of scale."
But even if they're not talking about big deals, the media honchos at
Sun Valley still have plenty of big issues to discuss over their golf
games and skeet matches.
Finding new ways to reach consumers through developing technologies
like cell phone screens is a major topic for media honchos, and so is
the widening impact on media consumption by personal storage devices
like TiVo video recorders.
Another big topic at Sun Valley is sure to be a pair of Supreme Court
rulings last week which handed big victories to media companies. In one
case, the court ruled that media owners can go after file-sharing
companies for copyright infringement, and in another the court found
that cable companies did not have to share their lines with rival
Internet access providers.
The monster growth of Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod and similar digital
listening devices is sure to be a major topic, as well as the
implications it has for the future of traditional radio companies.
Apple
CEO Steve Jobs is expected to attend, as is Clear Channel Chairman
Lowry Mays.
There are sure to be interesting matchups in conversation among the
eclectic group of guests this year, which includes regular visitors
such as Berkshire Hathaway founder Warren Buffett and Microsoft Corp.
Chairman Bill Gates, as well as relative newcomers like the Google Inc.
founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Allen & Co. participated in
Google's IPO last year.
Comcast Corp. chief Brian Roberts won't attend because of a scheduling
conflict, but other media bigwigs are expected to turn up, including
Time Warner Inc. CEO Dick Parsons, Murdoch and his son Lachlan, and
outgoing Disney CEO Michael Eisner.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Brad Kava, San Jose Mercury News
'Tsunami Song' producer to start Bay Area morning show Monday on Wild 94.9
The morning "Doghouse" got canned for making offensive comments, and there's an even more controversial personality taking their place.
Rick Delgado, the twice-fired former producer of "Opie and Anthony" and "Miss Jones in the Morning" will produce "Strawberry in the Morning" starting Monday, in the morning at 6.
Delgado was the guy behind broadcasting a couple allegedly having sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the one who created a song that made fun of Asian tsunami victims.
Station exec Kim Bryant tells a story that explains why she made this controversial hire.
Photo: Portrait of Producer Rick Delgado, DJ Fay Carmona and DJ Strawberry at the Wild 94.9 station in San Francisco on July 7, 2005. These three will be hosting a new morning show (from 6am-10am) at Wild 94.9 station. (Joanne Ho-Young Lee/San Jose Mercury News)
The story comes from Clear Channel executive Ed Krampf, whose father was hospitalized with a heart problem.
Krampf was in the hospital room and saw his father looking worse. He told a nurse, and the nurse said his father looked all right.
Then, his father went code blue and had to be treated immediately.
The next day a nursing supervisor told Krampf that they would have another nurse take over his father's care.
But Krampf said no. He wanted the same nurse, the one who had learned his lesson, to continue caring for his dad.
"That's an important story for all of us,'' says Bryant. "The best person for the job may be the one who has learned from his mistakes."
It's a gutsy move by Bryant, the highest-ranking female in local radio, who oversees 11 Clear Channel stations (what a reality show her life would be), including liberal Air America; conservative KNEW; urban KMEL; classic rock KUFX and Spanish KSJO.
Bryant says Delgado and the new show featuring local deejay "Strawberry" and Fay Carmona, last in Miami, will be more community-oriented and listener-friendly than the "Doghouse," which she said got to be more about the hosts than the community.
In a surprising interview, Delgado said he thinks he was misinterpreted and wrote a song that was only in bad taste, but not racist, even though it used an epithet for Chinese people. He said he won't do that again, "because I like their food and want to eat in their restaurants."
He also recalled that shock jock Howard Stern called him a "scumbag."
"I don't know how much that says," he added.
Bryant said he would be monitored closely to make sure it didn't happen again.
Christine Chen, executive director of the national Organization of Chinese Americans, said her group will also closely monitor the show.