When it comes to the question of why most progressive national media outlets reach such a small persentage of their potential audience, progressive activists are conflicted.
| NATIONAL PROGRESSIVE MEDIA: WHO'S LEFT? by Andrea Buffa. When it comes to the question of why most progressive national media outlets reach such a small persentage of their potential audience, progressive activists are conflicted. |
| DEMOCRATIZING THE MASS MEDIA: AN ASSESSMENT AND PROPOSAL. by Randy Baker. Robert McChesney's contention that democratizing the mass media must become a central--perhaps the central--concern of progressives is hard to dispute. However, the ways in which progressives are currently approaching the issue seem unlikely to substantially change the status quo. |
 | 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. |
 | FANG'S EXAMINER. by Harrison Chastang. "You get what you pay for," was the opinion of one reader looking at the first edition of the "new" San Francisco Examiner. |
| FCC EMBRACES MONSTER MERGER: AGENCY IMPOSES MILD OPEN ACCESS PROVISIONS ON AOL TIME WARNER. by Marshall Runkel. What do Bugs Bunny, Batman and Steve Case have in common? They are all now brothers in the same corporate family. So you ask, "What's up with that, Doc?" From CNN to BMX Business News, Dancer in the Dark to The Sopranos, old-school publications like Time to new-school rap and roll, AOL Time Warner has now got it all. |
| YOUTH MEDIA: THE POLITICS OF SELF-EXPRESSION. by Twilight Greenaway. Much of today's youth media stems from a long tradition of DIY (Do-it-Yourself). Look at the zines of the 1980s and '90s. These self-published, cut-and-paste tracts took young people's sense of expression to a new level |
| 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. |
| TENANT ACTIVISTS WIN MARKET STREET BUILDING, MEDIA YAWNS. by Randy Shaw. Media coverage of the recent victory of the Grant Building Tenants Association (GBTA) once again shows how the media can diminish the role of grassroots activism in shaping the world. |
 | 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? |
| 25 YEARS: MA EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS COVER THE DECADES. by Rich Yurman. The accomplishments, crises, and controversies that make up Media Alliance's 25-year history are reflected in its eight very different executive directors. I thought it would be a fitting part of MA's silver jubilee celebration to tap into their memories. |
| 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. |
| WATT'S UP? BEHIND THE MEDIA'S COVERAGE OF THE ENERGY CRISIS. by Andrea Buffa. In analyzing media coverage of the California energy "crisis," the one crucial tool you must have on hand is a flashlight. Not for use in case of a blackout, but for hitting yourself over the head to stay awake. |
| 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. |
| COLOMBIAN JOURNALISTS UNDER ATTACK BY PARAMILITARIES. by Frank Smyth. On May 3, 2001, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) named Colombian paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño to its annual list of the ten worst enemies of the press. |
| 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. |
 | MEDIA DEMOCRACY: PACIFICA VICTORY LAYS GROUNDWORK FOR MOVEMENT. by Juan Gonzalez. The Pacifica radio network, the nation's only listener-sponsored community radio network, has recently emerged from a period of unprecedented turmoil, one that threatened its very survival as an oasis of free speech and dissent, a forum for news and radical analysis, and a venue for serious music and art. |
| 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. |
| STAYING HOME TO ORGANIZE THE GLOBAL STRUGGLE FOR INFORMATION JUSTICE. By Dorothy Kidd. At the huge peace demonstration in November in Florence, Italy, together with "No" to war on Iraq, were "No's," to globalization, genetically modified foods, commercial control of the Internet, copyright laws, and Israel's policies toward the Palestinians. |
| 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." |