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By Russ Baker
TomPaine.com
NEW YORK, May 20, 2005 — How much of a pipe dream is it to be an effective "media reform activist?" Most of us are skeptical about real
opportunities for mere mortals to do anything to stanch the flow of
life from an increasingly sold-out, wimpy, self-censoring,
corporate-owned fourth estate.
Now, I don’t want to come off as excessively starry-eyed. But I’ll
tell you this: I wasn’t the only one attending the National Conference
on Media Reform last weekend in St. Louis who was impressed, energized,
made to see what is now possible in terms of reclaiming our right to
read and hear the truth. So were the 2,500 other attendees. So were the
hundreds or perhaps thousands more who wanted to come, were there ample
space to accommodate everyone. So were participants Michael Copps and
Jonathan Adelstein — the two holdouts on the Federal
Communications Commission who still believe in a vigorous, diverse
press. And so was Bill Moyers, the poster boy for a conservative
campaign to neuter public broadcasting, who capped the proceedings with
a rousing call to arms.
Pretty much everyone was begoshed to find that so many other people
care about such dry-sounding and technical matters as media monopolies,
censorship at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, affordable and
unfettered Internet access and strategies for funding independent
journalism.
I usually can’t stand such conferences, and I’ve attended plenty.
Lots of blather but little concrete to show for it. However, this one — organized by the group FreePress (co-founded by Robert McChesney and John Nichols —
was singular. Attendance was dramatically up over previous conclaves,
and everyone, it seemed, had success stories from the media wars. Which
suggests this rather elementary formulation: If you can get enough
people doing lots of different things on an issue that has
traditionally eluded popular appeal or public scrutiny, everything can
change.
Here are just a few of the things you can affect as an individual:
What’s on television. Cable companies set the menu
for what you can watch in your city, but every few years, cable
franchise licenses come up for renewal. And at that time, you can help
persuade your local government to require those companies to reconsider
what kinds of programs they carry, and to expand the diversity and
value of their offerings. One way is to increase the number of public access channels. For more on this, contact Alliance for Community Media.
What’s on the radio. A huge chunk of the
programming going over the airwaves is now determined by a handful of
executives at companies like Clear Channel, owner and operator of more
than 1,200 stations. So you can help support and promote the growing
number of alternatives, which include locally owned and run stations,
Pacifica, Air America, Internet radio, podcasts, and, notably,
community-run "low-power FM" stations — which, facing severe
obstacles, now appear poised to emerge in a bigger way, thanks to the
Local Community Radio Act of 2005, from Senators John McCain, R-Ariz.,
Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. As noted recently by
the Utne Reader, "the bill would expand LPFM service
nationwide, easing the burden on would-be LPFM stations to prove
noninterference with commercial broadcasters." For more on LPFM,
including information on obtaining a license, contact Prometheus Radio Project.
What’s on public broadcasting. Common Cause, recognizing that the campaign financing system can’t be changed unless the media are reformed — and the best parts protected — is involved with a "Hands Off NPR and PBS" campaign. You can find out about it here.
The creep of commercialism in your community. To
learn more about what’s wrong with Channel One, the providers of
advertising-soaked "news" programming to a captive audience of 8
million students in 12,000 schools across America, read my articles
from The New Republic and The American Prospect. Then contact Commercial Alert to find out what you can do about it.
FCC Decision-making. The FCC must ask for and
acknowledge public comment, but hardly ever hears from anyone but
corporations. Recently, large numbers of citizens have begun exercising
their right to be heard, and the rising chorus seems to be making a
demonstrable difference in FCC deliberations. To get started, go here.
Local coverage. Monitor your area media and, when
you see something wrong, speak out. Many attendees had stories of
getting results from their own newspaper, radio and TV stations when
they complained about bias, poor journalism and tepidness. One woman
from an extremely conservative part of Florida happily recounted how
she had single-handedly muscled key advertisers into withdrawing
support from one hate-mongering program.
Support the good media that are out there, or create your own. Independent newspapers, blogs, podcasts —
there’s a thriving marketplace of ideas out there, if you look just a
bit. And a cornucopia of groups are bringing democracy to media. Go to http://www.freepress.net/content/orgs for a list of 149 organizations working in various aspects of media reform. Choose your favorite area. And dive in.
Remind the "old media" folks that they’re becoming dinosaurs not
just for economic and technological reasons. They've forgotten how to
do real journalism anymore, so busy are they establishing their
'fairness' by giving equal time to credible information served up in
the public interest and to blatant lies, and by lowering the barrier to
fluff. Bill Moyers’ trademark maxim nails it: "News is what people
want to keep hidden and everything else is publicity."
And there's a nice counter-maxim. Publicity — in the form of concerted public action — is in fact an antidote, the best way to coax that "real news" out of hiding.
— Russ Baker is an investigative reporter and essayist, and a longtime contributor to TomPaine.com,
where this piece was originally published. He is involved in the
development of a new not-for-profit organization dedicated to
revitalizing investigative journalism in America.
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