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 | MEDIA RACISM. By Salim Muwakkil.
We seem to be in the midst of some kind of paradigm shift in the way that news is produced, packaged, and consumed. Increasing numbers of news shops are beginning to display their ideologies in their windows. They continue to give lip service to those cherished journalistic ideals of objectivity and impartiality, but the actual news product is shot through with bias. |
| METHODS OF MEDIA MANIPULATION, by Michael Parenti
We are told by media people that some news bias is unavoidable. Distortions are caused by deadline pressures, human misjudgment, budgetary restraints, and the difficulty of reducing a complex story into a concise report. Furthermore, the argument goes, no communication system can hope to report everything. Selectivity is needed. |
 | MEDIA ALLIANCE STAYS TRUE TO ITS ROOTS. by Makani Themba.
These journalists and these times gave birth to Media Alliance more than a quarter century ago as an institution that would hold the profession, and democracy, accountable to the highest standards of quality and transparency. MA took on union busting, protection of reporters and sources, and the perpetual corporate cover up; and it moved beyond those issues to become the area's most important training resource for those seeking a career in media and those seeking to influence the media for progressive change. |
| MEDIA IS THE MIRAGE, by Mumia Abu-Jamal
American mass media is a marvel of technology. It is whiz bang, sparkle glitter, and satellite wizardry. It is a master plan of methods to communicate, and a pauper's worth of substance. With such technology, how are people so woefully misinformed? |
| ANTI-IMMIGRANT RACISM AND THE MEDIA. by Arnoldo Garcia.
September 11. After an 18-hour flight from Johannesburg, where I had attended the World Conference Against Racism, I was seated in a San Francisco-bound United Airlines jet plane at JFK International Airport in New York, when the captain announced that a hijacked plane had been crashed into the World Trade Center (WTC). |
| JUSTICE JOURNALISM: JOURNALIST AS AGENT OF SOCIAL CHANGE. by Terry Messman.
Many forms of politically engaged journalism have arisen to fight social injustices in the course of U.S. history: the radical pamphlets by Thomas Paine that helped incite a revolutionary uprising against British rule; the muckraking reporting of Upton Sinclair that exposed inhumane conditions in the Chicago stockyards; the investigation of the Standard Oil Company by Ida Tarbell; Dorothy Day's prophetic reporting on the injustice of poverty in her groundbreaking Catholic Worker newspaper; the attacks on municipal corruption by Lincoln Steffens; the exposé of the profiteering funeral industry by Jessica Mitford; the no-holds-barred struggle with the war machine waged by the underground press of the 1960s. |
 | MANY VOICES, ONE WORLD. by Dee Dee Halleck.
The recent activism against globalization has encouraged people the world over to reassess the role of transnational corporations and their governmental counterparts in the widening of the gap between rich and poor and the headlong rush toward global warming and ecological devastation. Media corporations are key targets in the ongoing struggle. |
| MEDIA, OIL, AND POLITICS: ANATOMY OF THE VENEZUELAN COUP. by Eric Quezada.
The April 2002 attempted coup against president Hugo Chavez in Venezuela was widely applauded in U.S. corporate media editorials the day after the coup. In Venezuela itself, the mainstream media helped mobilize the anti-Chavez demonstrations which were used as the coup pretext. But a people's movement, with information and support from online and alternative news sources, ended up reversing the coup. In the months since, evidence is mounting of direct U.S. participation. |
| WHAT'S CENSORED? Project Censored Fights for Media Freedom, by Peter Phillips
In medicine, it's called Managed Care. In media, it's Managed News. Corporate media today is in the entertainment business. Market shares, advertising dollars, and political self interest drive the news. Stories about the decisions and manipulations of the powerful and news about challenges to power by the powerless are continually ignored or under-reported in mainstream media. |
 | FREE SPEECH TELEVISION. By Eric Galatas.
n your article on the state of our national progressive media (MediaFile, Jan/Feb 2001), Don Hazen is quoted as saying that there is currently no progressive television network operating in the United States. Happily, Mr. Hazen is wrong. |
| GREENS SHUT OUT BY NATIONAL MEDIA. by Peter Hart.
The pain the establishment media felt over Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader's challenge to the two-party system was evident in CBS's election night coverage. When reporter Ed Bradley commented that Ralph Nader might approach the five percent threshold for receiving federal matching funds, Dan Rather interrupted: "About $12 million, $13 million of your money and mine." As Bradley pointed out that Nader was "hurting" Al Gore in several states, Rather added: "And every taxpayer." |
| DISTORTED MEDIA COVERAGE FUELS ANTI–YOUTH PROP. 21, by A. Clay Thompson
When searching for the perpetrators behind this nation's current cops-and-incarceration boom, media workers need only look in the mirror. While reporters and writers may occasionally finger demagogic pols for shamelessly campaigning on soft-headed, tough-on-crime promises, our industry typically primes the public to salivate in anticipation of each new slab of lock-'em-up legislation. This is nowhere more obvious than with youth crime. |
| YOU'RE THE PUBLIC, SO GET CABLE ACCESS, by Lisa Sousa
Are you Margaret?" two or three people ask me eagerly as I walk through the door. "No, she's not Margaret," responds Brian Scott, CityVisions Channel 53's public access coordinator. The large, lofty studio is a flurry of activity this Friday night. |
 | TAKING JOURNALISM TO JAIL: an interview with David Gaither, by Elton Bradman
David Gaither is an associate editor at Pacific News Service (PNS), where he works on The Beat Within, a weekly newsletter by and for incarcerated youth in the Bay Area, as well as on New California Media: In Search of Common Ground, a television talk show aimed at members and readers of the ethnic press; Youth Outlook, a journal of youth life in the Bay Area; and the PNS wire service. |
| TAKING BACK THE MEDIA: NOTES ON THE POTENTIAL FOR A COMMUNICATIVE DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT. By Bob Hackett
Of all contemporary popular struggles, the struggle to democratize the communication media is arguably one of the most important and least recognized. In this article, I first argue for the importance of placing media democratization higher on the progressive agenda, and briefly sketch its normative commitments. Then, I explore the potential social and political obstacles and bases for a media democracy movement, concluding with a few strategic suggestions.
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| NOAM CHOMSKY: BEHIND THE HEADLINES ON COLOMBIA. AN INTERVIEW by David Barsamian.
DB: Talk about evolving U.S. policy in Colombia. The Interhemispheric Resource Center in Albuquerque has issued a statement: "U.S. Policy in Colombia: Towards a Vietnam Quagmire." Do you think that's an appropriate analogy? The New York Times writes in an editorial titled "Dangerous Plans for Colombia" that the aid to Colombia "risks dragging the United States into a costly counterinsurgency war." |
| PBS SHUTS OUT INDEPENDENT PRODUCERS. by Jerold M. Starr.
Despite its auspicious and promising beginning, the Public Broadcasting Service largely has failed its congressional mandate. PBS was supposed to compensate for the inadequacies of advertiser-driven network programming by providing, in the words of its mandate, an "alternative" that expresses "diversity and excellence," involves "creative risks," and addresses "the needs of the unserved and underserved audiences." |
| ACTIVISTS FIGHT MEDIA CONSOLIDATION: FCC DROPPING OWNERSHIP LIMITS by Aliza Dichter
Under intense lobbying pressure and lawsuits brought by corporate media, the federal government is now considering removing the last few media-ownership limits. These rules--intended to protect diversity of viewpoints, competition and local ownership-- keep major TV networks from merging into one and prevent a single company from dominating the local TV market or owning a town's local newspaper, TV and radio station.
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 | CAN MUNCIPAL BROADBAND HELP SF SMASH THE DIGITAL DIVIDE?
by Jeff Perlstein
What do Tacoma, Provo, Lompoc and soon Philadelphia share in common? All residents there have access to very low-cost, very high-speed Internet service thanks to visionary policy initiatives, known as Municipal Broadband. |
| STREET SOLDIERS SILENCED BY MEDIA MERGER, by Laura Saponara
Produced in San Francisco, the radio program Street Soldiers is well known as a live forum for youth to talk openly about their experiences with gang violence, crime, drugs, pregnancy, and countless other issues. Antiviolence activists credit the program with saving lives by mediating conflicts through dialogue and providing an on- and off-air system of social support. |
| AT&T STALLS BROADBAND ACCESS, by Laura Saponara
Tired of the dial-up routine that connects your computer to an Internet service provider through your telephone line? If you've been following the debate over control of broadband technologies, you know that faster, smoother means of sending and receiving data over the Internet already exist. But questions about how these services will be provided, who will control the way they function, and what their financial and social costs will be remain unanswered. |
| INTERNATIONAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNS WIN VICTORIES, by Dorothy Kidd
The convergence of activists on the recent World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle signaled not only worldwide concern about the effects of globalization, but also the emergence of a well-organized and increasingly sophisticated network of internationalist media campaigners based both in and outside the media world. |
| MUMIA'S TRIAL -- THE SMELL OF SMOKE, by Margot Pepper
I saw the ad in the last issue of MediaFile soliciting signatures for the writers' petition in support of a fair trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal. I am signing the petition and would like to share my reasons for doing so. |
| REPORTS FROM THE FIELD: FCC says to Hell with the Public Interest , by Camille Taiara
Congress has been hacking away for years at the Federal Communication Commission's original mandate to regulate the broadcast industry in the public's interest. The passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the relaxation of antitrust regulations related to media ownership were major blows. And now, with the release of its Draft Strategic Plan for the 21st Century, the FCC itself has openly renounced its mission as regulator and forfeited democratic concerns in favor of a new role as "market facilitator." |
| REPORTING ON DISABILITY, by Suzanne C. Levine
Media coverage plays a crucial role in educating the public on disability issues. It could--and should--be helping people understand that these are civil-rights issues. But more often than not, reporting on disability perpetuates negative stereotypes or fails to tell the story from the perspective of people with disabilities. |
| WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH WELFARE REFORM?, by Camille Taiara
Three years after the federal government ended subsistence guarantees for low-income people--and after hundreds of thousands of people have left or been kicked off the benefit rolls--welfare is no longer considered newsworth |
| TIPS FROM A PRO ON INVESTIGATING DEATH ROW CASES, by A. Clay Thompson
h. In the past few years Northwestern University journalism professor David Protess and his students have helped liberate three wrongfully convicted condemned men through two class projects in investigative reporting (their work wasn't published but was covered by the press and used by the defense lawyers). Inspired by those successes, MediaFile asked a prominent local defense investigator for tips on digging into death-row cases. |
| DISSENTING VOICES OF THE STREET, by Terry Messman
Over the past decade, an outspoken brand of iconoclastic journalism has emerged from the harsh experiences of people living on the streets in dozens of cities in the United States, Canada, and Europe. |
| ALTERNATIVE INTERNATIONAL NEWS SOURCES: FOCUS ON MEXICO, by Ben Clarke & Steve Rhodes
When events like the Acteal massacre in Chiapas or the U.S. bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan occur, there are a variety of news sources you can go to for perspectives other than uncritical reporting of the latest press releases from the State Department and Pentagon. Some of the following resources deal with breaking stories; others provide the in-depth information necessary to interpret the news.
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| HAVANA JOURNAL, by Elaine Elinson
Magnolia trees and purple jacarandas sweeten the heavy tropical air of the courtyard of the UPEC building, whose marble staircase and stately columns testify to its past as an old Havana mansion. |
| FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS: why labor actions are not news, by Akilah Monifa
It's a typical Wednesday evening in November and it's raining again. I hear loud chants outside my office window, the same ones that pierce that air three times a week, every week: "Union--Yes! Marriott--No! Union bashing's got to go! What do we want? Contract! When do we want it? Now! Hey there Marriott, you're no good! Sign that contract like you should." |
| BAY AREA GROUPS MONITOR MAINSTREAM, by Samantha Calamari.
Three Bay area organizations, Retro Poll, the Youth Media Council (YMC), and If Americans Knew have been using monitoring tactics to challenge mainstream media’s reporting patterns. Their efforts take media criticism a step beyond analysis and are beginning to turn frustration at the lack of unbiased information in the mass media into productive steps towards media democracy and public access to balanced news |
| INTERNATIONAL NEWS: WHERE IS IT COMING FROM? by Franz Schurmann.
American newspaper readers traditionally haven't taken much interest in "foreign" news. Nevertheless foreign news has been on newspaper front pages for a long time. And America has had foreign policy ever since the USA was formed. Where do the ideas and intents of those policies ----- and the news shaped by them ----- come from? |
| WHOSE MEDIA? OUR MEDIA! by Dorothy Kidd.
During the action against the National Association of Broadcasters last September, a small group met to discuss a Communications Bill of Rights for the United States. Our aim was to start envisioning a democratic media that was accessible, inclusive, and accountable to everyone, and independent of both corporate and government control. |
| PUBLIC BROADCASTING FOR PROFIT ON SATELLITE RADIO. by Ben Clarke.
National Public Radio (NPR), Public Radio International (PRI), the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), and the hundreds of public TV and radio stations across the U.S. are the institutions which, in aggregate, are known as public radio and television. |
| ANTI-REPARATIONS ADS BUILD RIGHT-WING MOVEMEMENT. by Bill Berkowitz.
As the smoke cleared from David Horowitz's recent carpet-bombing of the issue of reparations for African Americans, he sought safe harbor in the First Amendment and then claimed that his attack was prompted by a desire to prevent African Americans from becoming targets of resentment over reparations. Sounds like the old Vietnam War saw about "bombing the village to save it." What's up with this Master of Mean, Prince of Conservative Politics? |
| NORTH AMERICANSTREET NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION. by Challa Tabeson.
Culminating in a march and protest at the doors of the San Francisco Chronicle on July 28, the international conference of the North American Street Newspaper Association (NASNA) gathered for three days of meetings and workshops to strengthen the street newspaper movement. |
| GLOBAL MEDIA GIANTS LOBBY TO PRIVATIZE ENTIRE BROADCAST SPECTRUM. by Jeremy Rifkin.
Question: What is the single most valuable piece of property worth owning at the dawn of the information age? Answer: The radio frequencies--the electromagnetic spectrum--over which an increasing amount of communication and commercial activity will be broadcast in the era of wireless communications. Our PCs, palm pilots, wireless Internet, cellular phones, pagers, radios, and television all rely on the radio frequencies of the spectrum to send and receive messages, pictures, audio, data, etc. |
| UNDERMINING EFFECTIVE REPORTING: NEW FCC PROPOSALS. by Jeffrey Chester.
Just two days after the terrorist attacks in the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission moved ahead with plans to end or weaken several long-standing policies designed to promote diversity of media ownership. Under the leadership of the new FCC Chairman Michael Powell (son of Secretary of State Colin), the commission released two proposed "rulemakings" that will have a major impact on the country's newspaper, broadcasting and cable TV industries. |
| MEDIA JUSTICE, by Makani Themba-Nixon.
Drawing its inspiration from the environmental justice movement and their efforts to advance a different analysis from the “mainstream” environmental movement, media justice proponents are developing race, class and gender conscious frameworks that advance new visions for media content and structure. |
| INTERVIEW: LINDA FOLEY, PRESIDENT NEWSPAPER GUILD. by David Bacon.
Writers and photographers during the Vietnam war considered it their responsibility to expose the lies of the Pentagon's propaganda machine, and they often did so brilliantly. But reporters during Desert Storm and in the war in Afghanistan have generally accepted a different role, willingly or unwillingly, and pictured those wars within the political limits dictated by Generals Schwartzkopf and Franks. |
| PALESTINIAN MEDIA BULLDOZED. by Cherine Badawi.
Yesterday had to be one of the worst days," begins the email from Dalia, a 21-year-old Palestinian-American journalist, to her friends. "Israelis have gone into all media stations and either taken them over or searched them." |
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