Al Gore and running mate Joe Lieberman ran some of their media concerns up the flagpole in Los Angeles, and the audience roared approval. While they are focused on protecting children from overexposure to sex and violence in films and TV, a culture-cop position that can veer sanctimoniously into censorship, they know that running against media irresponsibility resonates with many voters.

How do they know? Because their own polling tells them so, and it is obvious that every phrase in every speech, every political position and all issue positioning, is pretested with focus groups and in-depth surveys. Politicians are not known for independent thinking or taking risks. Like most salespeople who rely on market research, they take "stands" they know there is already support for. Many public-opinion polls have confirmed widespread citizen dissatisfaction with the sensationalism and shallowness of our media system.

During last week's convention, while the Democrats were touching on some media issues and avoiding deeper ones, the problem was getting worse. As delegates partied in L.A.'s ballrooms, some of the world's most powerful mediacrats were scheming in their boardrooms to orchestrate even more mergers and industry concentration. Delegates in the Staples Center were cheering Al & Joe's calls for more meaningful programming at the same time as one of the owners of the Staples Center, ultraconservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch, was busy buying up more TV stations all over the United States. His $3.7 billion, convention-week acquisition of the Chris-Craft company makes Murdoch's company the number one owner of TV stations in the United States. The purchase also gives him leverage over the future of the United Paramount Network (UPN), now owned by Viacom-CBS, which transmits over key Chris-Craft stations in major markets.

Also at the same time, and more insidiously, AT&T, which had been remaking itself from a long-distance phone company into an Internet and cable TV powerhouse, is now talking a multibillion dollar merger with British Telecom (BT). A few months ago, I reported on AT&T president Michael Armstrong's rosy predictions at the Media Summit of his company's future. Despite earlier slips in the company's stock value, he was hyping his strategy of promoting media convergence. Now, with the company savaged by more losses, he may be looking for work. Meanwhile, one of his biggest shareholders, Murdoch pal and Armstrong's political soulmate John Malone, once described by Al Gore as the "Darth Vader of cable," may end up playing an even bigger role in the new multimedia combine.

If the politicians were ignoring what was happening, so were the activists. While some at the convention were staging an amusing "Million Billionaire" march to call attention to the need for campaign finance reform, no one was targeting real billionaires like Murdoch and Malone who are not big political givers. (FOX didn't bother to cover the conventions.) Ultimately, however, they have even more power to shape our political culture than most individual or even corporate donors.

Politicians And The Media

Judging from his history, Al Gore is unlikely to attack media companies with the same gusto that he is going after unnamed oil and pharmaceutical corporations or "bean counters" at HMOs. For one thing, he and the Democrats covet their money. For another, many of the moguls are "friends" of his current boss, Bill Clinton. Clinton is rumored to be in line for a studio presidency, perhaps DreamWorks, which is owned in part by David Geffen, who accompanied Gore to the convention Wednesday night. But for a third, politicians who take on entertainment companies usually end up backing away when those companies fight back, which they always do. That's why Lieberman softened his stance as soon as movie executives accused him of advocating censorship.

During Tipper Gore's l980s crusade against dirty lyrics in the music industry, which led to Senate hearings in which husband Al played an active role, both Gores were criticized by music moguls (and Frank Zappa!). Later, according to a report by Alexander Cockburn, Gore backpedaled during a secret meeting in Hollywood, where he denounced the hearings he had helped lead. "By l987," Cockburn wrote in his syndicated column, "the Gores were in full retreat on dirty music when they realized that if Al was ever going to run for president, as he did the next year, they'd need show biz gold."

So Gore and Lieberman are unlikely to take the lead on media reform, though it may be valid to support them for raising questions about all the dreck on the air. After Al's big speech — which took a swipe at sleaze on the air — I clicked through the channels. The pundit shows were droning on about the quality of his delivery and the way he kissed his wife. Elsewhere, HBO was running "G-String Divas"; E had Howard Stern examining a woman's butt; USA was offering "Strip Poker"; and on and on. There were more dead and dying bodies on the various movie channels in that next hour than in all of the Gulf War.

Sodom and Gomorrah TV is a disgrace — and we should be talking about it.

Media Reform

If a political coalition is to be built around media reform, then the concerns of both the left and the right — the radicals who want more access and the conservatives with cultural objections to pervasive porn — have to find a way to make common cause. Some on the left are already speaking out on issues traditionally associated with the right. Mark Crispin Miller, director of the Project on Media Ownership, a group that analyzes who owns what in the media world, has been making this argument for years, calling on reform advocates to be more responsive to the concerns of religious groups and parents' organizations. Writer Barbara Ehrenreich, a Democratic socialist, concurs. "There's a ground swell of public concern over violence in the media," she says. "We can build a grassroots movement to counter the sleaze, the distortions and the mind-numbing materialism of our unaccountable and corporate-dominated media."

Examples of how this is being done worldwide are recounted in some detail in John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney's "It's the Media, Stupid," which argues that significant media reform can be can achieved in the United States once the constituencies who are being excluded from the media spotlight are involved in a campaign for change. I spoke with media historian McChesney, who argues that the American people need to be educated about the urgency for structural changes and more regulation, while specific campaigns can target issues like banning all TV advertising aimed at kids, a policy that has been successfully implemented in Norway and Greece.

Beyond Protest

So what can Americans do? Activists are planning major protests when the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), a key industry lobbying group, comes to San Francisco, September 20-23, for its convention. The Media Alliance and micro radio coalition, which has been pressing for the licensing of more lower-power radio stations over the NAB's objections, will be taking to the streets — and to delegates' hotel suites — to protest the NAB's advocacy of the industry's interest over the public interest.

But protest is not enough. That became clear in Los Angeles, where media indifference and police repression made it hard for activists to get their messages out.

We who want to change the media have to articulate what we are for, as well as what we oppose. We need to communicate our values and make our case in a way that can engage, persuade and organize public opinion. That means explaining and justifying our policy proposals, not just hurling slogans in the air. (Hurling them on the air might be OK, but so far that has proven hard to do.)

Media reformers have to organize and educate. This is the only way for the media-reform agenda to be taken seriously. Two serious attempts at doing this — the Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting campaign and People for Better TV, led by the Civil Rights Forum — deserve more support. Both groups have held public meetings nationwide and they promote specific agendas for change. These are not quick-fix efforts, but long-term initiatives to build coalitions for change.

I tried to offer some ideas on how to do that in my book "The More You Watch, The Less You Know". I call for a Media and Democracy Act, a kind of omnibus bill to break up media monopolies, insure access to diverse perspectives, and provide universal service, free airtime for political advertising and financial support for public service programming. I also suggest a draft of a Declaration of Media Independence that outlines a number of goals that can serve as part of a manifesto for media reform.

Let's debate these ideas and others the way the politicians are debating theirs. Let's encourage the foundation world to be more supportive than they frequently have been of organizations that are encouraging this discourse and strategizing for change. And let us reach out to a public that is often ahead of politicians in recognizing the need for change.

"In an honest debate, the side that argued for the status quo wouldn't get five percent support," argues Ralph Nader in one introduction to "It's the Media, Stupid." In another, Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota goes further: "We must involve every citizen in this crucial work of insuring that the life blood of democracy — information from diverse and distinct sources — is allowed to flow freely."

AS THE MEDIA WATCH THE WORLD, WE WATCH THE MEDIA.

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