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Help get Democracy Now! on WYCC TV, Chicago channel 20
| August 29, 2010 |
| Posted by Mitchell | Entry 660 |
 Chicago Media Action has worked for years with the staff of the daily radio and TV news program Democracy Now!. We've had success over the years in widening the reach of the show and of independent media more generally, and members of CMA have played roles in helping to get Democracy Now! on WZRD radio, on CAN TV, and on ECTV in Evanston. We've also been working on a campaign (now in its sixth year) to get Democracy Now! on WBEZ, Chicago Public Radio (any time now, Torey).
And since May, we've been working on a new campaign to bring the show to one of Chicago's PBS channels, WYCC Channel 20. We had success in a petition that launched at the 2010 Chicago Green Festival that was met with success, and we're now taking the campaign online -- with this petition on The Petition Site and with a print copy in PDF format.
Be sure to sign up today and tell your friends. Welcome to all "A Merger That Isn't Comcastic" Readers
| August 15, 2010 |
| Posted by Mitchell | Entry 659 |
 We would like to welcome new visitors to the website who have read the national op-ed published by the American Forum by two CMA members about the proposed Comcast/NBC merger. Our big hits thus far have been Truthout and the Seattle Times. But the op-ed has been published in a number of other publications nationwide. Here is a list of some of them:
Richmond County (NC) Daily Journal | New Jersey Today | The Compton Bulletin (Los Angeles County, CA) | Augusta (VA) Free Press | Caribbean Life News | OpEdNews | Delaware County (PA) Daily Times | The Tennessean
We have editions of the op-ed republished here on the CMA website in English and in Spanish, which your publication is welcome to republish.
This op-ed is just the latest salvo in our fight against this proposed merger. We're planning more work on this issue. Stay tuned, folks. Quick dispatch from the FCC event on the proposed Comcast / NBC Merger
| July 13, 2010 |
| Posted by Mitchell | Entry 655 |
 Thanks to everyone on the side of the angels who attended tonight's FCC event on the proposed. CAN TV (and I think C-SPAN) recorded the event, and no doubt will broadcast it soon. We'll be posting more analysis and commentary in the days to come.
Meanwhile, here are some links from media that have covered the event or related issues in recent days and weeks:
Chicago Independent Examiner: Public hearing opens on Comcast NBC merger | Gapers Block -- Missing the Point: A Comical Hearing on Comcast-NBCU | Gapers Block - Eating Broadband for Breakfast: Doomsday Scenarios for Chicago's Media Landscape | Newstips: Dueling hearings on Comcast-NBC merger | Newstips - Comcast/NBC: How will it Play in Chicago? | Chicago Public Radio: Comcast Could Be Tougher on NBC Unions | Free Speech Radio News: Comcast/NBC Universal merger draws differing views at Chicago hearing | Benton Foundation: Assorted links on the Chicago Comcast hearing | Kevin Gosztola's Open Salon blog - Comcast-NBC Merger: Nonprofits Distract, Support the Move | We The People Media / Residents' Journal: FCC Public Hearing on Comcast Merge with NBC Some notes (and audio) from the House Committee Hearing on the proposed Comcast / NBC merger
| July 8, 2010 |
| Posted by Mitchell | Entry 653 |
About 50 people attended the House Committee Hearing on the proposed Comcast / NBC merger, held in the Dirksen Federal Building, and just down the hall from where U.S. v. Blagojevich trial was taking place.
Five representatives from the committee -- Bobby Rush, Maxine Waters, and three white people whose names I don't remember offhand -- questioned five invited speakers to discuss the potential ramifications of the merger, particularly focusing on questions of diversity of communities of color in hiring practics, management, and TV programming. Mind you, three of those five invited speakers were employees of the two parties at issue or related entities, and to little surprise supported the merger. (Yup, that's some unbiased testimony.)
The full audio, nearly 95 minutes' worth, is here.
Some quick highlights:
* A gentleman whom I met beforehand tried to wedge his way onto the schedule (about 25 minutes in) and was rebuked by the meeting chair.
* Maxine Waters was relentless in her questioning about NBC standing for Nothing But Caucasians (right near the end). I think she hammered this point home because it is a going concern, and one which only is addressed (or seems to be addressed) whenever mergers like this happen, promises are made regarding diversity or other good things, and then those promises are ignored almost as soon as the merger goes through.
* One of the white Congressional representatives (I didn't get his name) actually made some salient points that made the Rainbow PUSH representative who testified look bad, and left speechless. It's at about the 70 minute mark. The Realm of Debate on the proposed Comcast/NBC merger
| June 29, 2010 |
| Posted by Mitchell | Entry 650 |
With weeks to go before the Chicago FCC event on the proposed Comcast/NBC merger, discussion on the proposed merger and its consequences are heating up.
There's the narrow question which will be the focus of the Chicago FCC event on July 13: Should the FCC approve the merger? On the one side, you have folks in favor of the merger like the Teamsters who say the merger would be "very much" in the union's interests (it won't; expect more layoffs) and Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley who claims that the companies have been "good corporate ctizens" (despite evidence to the contrary).
On the other side, you have folks opposing the merger like former employees of NBC (who happen to sit in the U.S. Senate), almost all non-white people, a bunch of people in South Los Angeles, and just about every activist group to the left of the Federalist Society.
Among the camp that oppose the merger, which is large and passionate, there is a difference in opinion as to tactical considerations. Some groups are calling for the merger to be blocked altogether. Others, many others with the guts to speak up are tacitly supporting the merger, probably because the merger would be a disaster for the company like other media mergers -- though it'd also be a disaster for more than just the company.
Comcast is trying to allay concerns, and the government vows to take a critical eye on the merger. It's important to remember that what's happening is not a done deal -- not by a long shot, and that while power can be intimidating, it's also very fragile, as we have seen time and again. Plus, remember that corporations have taken a black eye as of late, which leads many to critically examine the corporate edifice and posit possible alternatives. So be sure to attend the hearing, and stay tuned to this website for new developments. Chicago Media Action at U.S. Social Forum 2010 - A Workshop
| June 13, 2010 |
Chicago Media Action at U.S. Social Forum 2010 - A Workshop
"Control of Public Media as a Social Justice Issue:
Lessons from Latin America and the U.S."
Thursday, 06/24/2010 - 3:30pm to 5:30pm - Location: Cobo Hall: D2-09
Download event flyer here.
Featuring activists from the front lines of struggles for community controlled media, this workshop explores why the contest to control the means of communication is a life or death struggle. This workshop calls out to social justice movements to 1) strengthen existing movement based media 2) build communication networks between our movements across boundaries and 3) demand democratic control of public media channels.
In the hands of social justice movements, media can be a means to build cultures of direct action and community self-organization and to create new social conditions. This workshop interrogates professional authority as a cultural force that enables neo-liberal capitalism and restrains social justice demands. So called impartial professionals cannot build a democratic system of communication. Only when marginalized and oppressed communities participate in shaping media systems and media content can we build a culture of solidarity and justice. Another world is necessary and to build it we need another media!
Speakers include:
Gerardo Torres, a member of the International Commission of the National Front of Popular Resistance of Honduras (FNRP).
Roberta Rael, with the Raices Collective of KUNM-FM in Albuquerque.
Speakers from Radio Populares and La Voz de Los de Abajo will discuss how new community radio stations in Latin America supports new political agency for dispossessed communities.
Workshop facilitated by James Owens and Scott Sanders.
More information here and here.
Join us on FaceBook
Workshop made possible with help from Chicago Media Action & Media Alliance.
FCC Comes to Chicago regarding the proposed Comcast / NBC merger
| June 9, 2010 |
| Posted by Mitchell | Entry 647 |
Chicago will play host to an FCC public forum on the proposed Comcast/NBC merger to be held on Thursday, July 13th, from 1pm to 8pm at Northwestern University Law School in downtown Chicago. This was the same locale where seven years ago a bunch of us gathered to discuss media concentration in a more general sense, at the Midwest Forum on Media Ownership in the run-up to the dramatic media ownership uprising of 2003.
The stakes couldn't be higher. The major corporate media have been slightly deconcentrating in recent years, and corporations are checking out of the journalism game, but if Comcast completes its proposed buyout of NBC/Universal from General Electric, that could foretell a trend where internet service providers -- phone and cable companies -- could buy up content media producer conglomerates.
If the merger goes through, you can expect the following:
* Comcast/NBC will kneecap of Hulu
* Comcast/NBC will censor your blog
* Comcast/NBC will shut out black-owned cable networks
* Comcast/NBC will be racist
And Comcast is doing everything it can to make sure the deal goes through:
* Comcast is deploying a massive lobbying army, including 78 former government employees
* Comcast is paying coin-operated think tanks to deliver reports that, unsurprisingly, support the acquisition of NBC Universal
* Comcast bought off convinced the governors of Pennsylvania, California, and New York to support the merger
But there's a lot of resistance to the proposed merger:
* ...by members of Congress
* ...by media advocacy groups
* by the House Judiciary Committee (or at least certain members of the committee)
* ...by sports fans, including fans of the Olympics
Past hearings like can often seem like pro forma events, like the broadband event in Chicago held just four days before Christmas 2009. But don't dismiss the potential of such events -- it can help raise awareness, build momentum, and coupled with an FCC quadrennial media ownership review coming soon and investors feeling lackluster about the merger, and recent history of public involvement changing the calculus on media ownership matters, the future is yet to be lived. Who controls public media is more important than its funding
| June 4, 2010 |
(Note: A version of this post first appeared at Free Press's "New Public Media" page here.)
I'm not in any way convinced that the present public media system, which is controlled by elite trustees, professional journalists, corporations, and government, is worth funding permanently. Respectfully, unless we first address the more fundamental issue of who controls "public" media, we doom ourselves to repeat the mistakes of the past, only on a bigger scale and with better technology and software.
The waste in the PBS and NPR system nationally and locally is shameful, particularly executive salaries. (We'll talk more on executive salaries in a future post.) The fact is that public access and community radio operations are able to do much more with much less money.
Let's instead make the best of the innovative, vibrant community production we already have - programming that actually serves and engages and is from, of, and by marginalized communities.
We ought to make some of the better public access and community radio programming of limited circulation available to lots more people through the respective local, larger public broadcast outlet(s). Pay these creators $10-$50,000, provide training and a little cash, pay a little to lease the community facilities where these shows are made and you make a good news or public affairs show great and available to the masses. Under this scheme, a weekly show could be brought in at maybe $200,000 - $350,000 a year. That sure beats the millions spent on "quality" "professional" shows like Moyers' replacement "Need to Know" and its local kindred. We require larger programming spaces where community groups and their needs and concerns are royal.
Therefore, we first need governance structures that permit approaches like this to happen and that don't perpetuate old, tired failures. Committed journalism workers have a limited but important role to play in station governance - don't get me wrong. But they need a lot of oversight, lest they help take us to war, misery, and ruin yet again. No, the elite at PBS and NPR outlets who call themselves professionals are not our gods, our parents, or our "partners".
We, the public, must instead, and at all times, be their bosses. Or they can hit the road.
So before we talk about money, we have to completely change the power relationships that determine the way decisions are made at the PBS and NPR outlets.
If it's to be more money for a programming product aimed at an advertising consultant's disappearing - dying - target demographic, count me out.
(This was written by Scott Sanders, but James Owens contributed a few thoughts too.)
see also --
"A Neutral Network Alone Will Not Build a Just Media System for Us and Neither Will Professional Journalists: Control of Public Media as a Social Justice Issue"
DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed on this
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