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 Media Savvy News Media for Democracy News Dissector Blog
BLOGGING MEDIA REFORM?
Will you be blogging this weekend's National Conference for Media Reform? Let us know: we'll feature your coverage. Write doug[at]mediachannel.org.
What does media democracy look like?
Monday, May 9 2005 Robert Jensen:J-schools are to blame for the corporatization of journalism. Mark Crispin Miller:J-students are insulated from the "sad reality" of journalism today. Also on MediaChannel: Danny Schechter:The time is now to bring media reform to the masses. David Shaw:Are journalists today more dishonest than earlier generations? Tuesday, May 10 2005
Jennifer Nix:Vote with your dollars. Stop feeding the corporate media beast!
Sonia Shah:Progressive publishing needs you. Also on MediaChannel: Rory O'Connor:Media reform in the midst of a radical takeover isn't enough, but one congressman has an idea. Cong. Bernie Sanders:President Bush and his right-wing colleagues are going after your computer, your radio and your remote control. Wednesday, May 11 2005
David Moberg:Reporters think they can beat the "free market."
Kari Lydersen:Immigrants are still "the other" to mainstream media.
Liza Featherstone:Today's elite press can't relate to working Americans.
Barbara Ehrenreich:The bulk of media cater to the affluent. Also on MediaChannel: John Atcheson:Why liberals are mad at the MSM. Thursday, May 12 2005
Josh MacPhee:Respect the power of imagery and culture. Corporations do.
Eric Galatas:Preserving public access TV is an epic, and crucial, struggle.
Howard Zinn:Know your history, and expose the failures of the media. Friday, May 13 2005
Ben Bagdikian:Don't believe the hype: newspapers are profitable. |
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Josh MacPhee: I believe that if you look historically, the left has generated some of the most powerful images ever created, from Constructivism after the Russian revolution to the prints of the Taller Grafica Popular in Mexico in the 30's and 40's to the posters of the Atelier Populaire during May 1968 in Paris. Our problem is that we have no collective visual memory, corporations are more likely to understand and mine our visual history for their benefit than most on the left are. I think the left in general has access to immense and impressive visual resources, but tends to look down on culture, disrespect cultural workers, and fail to understand how to communicate graphically. How you battle the perception that graphics simplify an issue too much, compared to the complexities of a written analysis? Every idea that needs to be communicated probably would benefit from different tools of communication. It is true that some concepts probably are better articulated with words, but there are plenty of others that are best screamed out with clear, concise and powerful graphics. We live in a society where our visual landscape is extremely designed, and we interact with thousands of images a day, that all are trying to grab our attention. One can argue that an issue demands 5 pages of 10 point type to be explained, but how are you going to get anyone to read that? Stand out on the street like the Trotskyists with placards that have 50 lines of text on them? No one is going to read that! You plan to make your "Reproduce and Revolt!" collection anti-copyright; why won't you copyright it, and why should artists give up the right to control their work? I'm still researching the ins and outs of different anti-copyright, open source, and creative commons rights options. I believe that artists should maintain some rights to their work, at least the right not to be exploited by corporations or people trying to profit off their creative labor. I understand that we all need to put food in our mouths. The left should value cultural labor as much as other forms of labor, so groups shouldn't expect poster art for free but not think twice about paying a printer to print the actual posters. Why is the printer's labor worth more than the artists? But on a more realistic level, I also think that we that are cultural workers need to be generous with our work, and allow people to use it in the service of social justice, social reorganization, and ultimately revolution. – John K. Wilson, coordinator of the Independent Press Association's Campus Journalism Project and founder of the Indy, where the interviews were published. Indy: How do you decide what programs to put on Free Speech TV (FSTV)? Do you find yourself rejecting programs because they seem too far out of the mainstream and might alienate your audience? Eric Galatas: We have a series of parameters, from gut check (is it something that you can't turn away from?) to technical (can you see it? can you hear it?). When I first got to FSTV there was no mission statement, so we worked on one, and came up with a list of things that we felt defined what we were doing, what it means to be "progressive" television. Expose abuses of power, highlight positive solutions, provide a platform for voices traditionally silenced, that sort of thing. So each film we pick fits into that rubric, we always go back to that. I think we've also changed in the past couple of years in a central way. Michael Moore gave some good advice to a first time film-maker. He told him to make a film that he'd be willing to take a date to, pay money for, and stand in line to see on a Friday night. In other words, don't make a film that you think people need to see, make something you'd want to see. That rang a big bell for me, too many times we'd been picking films like it was bad-tasting medicine that we felt some "sick" public needed. Seems pretty obvious now, but these days we have a pretty high bar for getting the right content that comes with the best execution possible. I think this connects with movement building. It's pretty obvious that we'll need a lot more people involved if we want to stop the next war, or if we want to make sure everyone has access to health care. Clearly we don't have enough right now to get the job done. FSTV is on DISH, which reaches a pretty mainstream audience. If you only pick films that appeal to your core, you're not growing. But if you pick films that start where most Americans already are, in terms of their political perspective, and if it's a good story, well told, what we're finding is that there's a lot of people in the "red states" that really want to be a part of the progressive conversation. Opening up that conversation is the first step in reclaiming real discourse, informing citizens instead of mobilizing consumers. But at the end of the day, we have to remember it's only media. It will take a lot of organizing, the kind of work the right has done for 30 years, to bring these new people from passive viewers to engaged activists. Many intellectuals look down on television as a tool for education, thinking that it simplifies too much. Why do you think progressives need to focus on television? This may sound flaky, but I see it as an epic, even mythic struggle. Television is the dominant medium of public discourse. Back when the Europeans first started colonizing the planet, it was print. Back in the day, the language was Latin, and the church was the only one allowed to read and write. Everyone else kneeled down, handed over their 10% or whatever the going rate was. Today it's electronic media, and television is it. That's why the biggest corporate powers control it. Is it subtle? Not really. Is it as exhaustive as a dissertation? Probably not. Should people steal this particular Promethean fire from the current gods of dominant discourse? Absolutely. How can local activists organize to bring Free Speech TV to their cable access channels? It's important to keep cable access alive, not just for FSTV, it's really under threat in so many communities right now. Communities own the land, city streets, utility poles, that cable companies use to make lots and lots and lots of money. So with franchise agreements, the city gets rent from the cable company. If the city is greedy, they don't ask for anything in return, or put the rent into the general coffers. Community organizations have to fight and demand that part of that rent goes to fund community television. We're working on a slightly different campaign right now. We want to get FSTV onto regular cable, with its own channel. There's some great folks in Madison who are trying to convince Charter to carry FSTV full time. Since the telecom act of 1996, communities have little recourse, Congress stripped away their power to choose which channels they wanted. Groups like Free Press are taking on these kinds of reform agendas, so it's important to support their work, even while we're creating alternatives. – John K. Wilson, coordinator of the Independent Press Association's Campus Journalism Project and founder of the Indy, where the interviews were published.  Howard Zinn: Yes, Amy Goodman, Naomi Klein, Barbara Ehrenreich, columnists Derek Jackson of the Boston Globe and Bob Herbert of the New York Times. Why did the media fail to question the Bush Administration policy in Iraq, and what can be done to make the press more responsive to the needs of the public? The media failed because the media is essentially a business operation, and the profit motive is powerful, and it threatens profits to become known as a critic of the establishment. Furthermore, the editors of mainstream newspapers are themselves limited people, with limited knowledge of history, with a strong tendency to timidity, fearful to challenge people in power, wanting to stay in the good graces of such people. Readers should continually criticize the media, write letters which are indignant and angry, embarrass the media by exposing their failures to inform the public. How can alternative and independent media fight against the misrepresentations of the mainstream media? Simply to keep doing what they are doing – to unearth and disseminate information missing from the major media, to sharply criticize official policy and back this up with facts, to bring before the public voices that are absent in the orthodox media. – John K. Wilson, coordinator of the Independent Press Association's Campus Journalism Project and founder of the Indy, where the interviews were published.
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