If you're on the CMA emailing list (and if you aren't you're welcome to join), you got an email earlier this week asking to respond to a brief survey for CMA. I'd like to take a moment to give a big thanks to everyone who took the time to respond.

Upcoming events: Chicago Media Action is planning to join a number of nationally coordinated actions on Thursday, September 4--the date at which the FCC media ownership deregulations offically go into effect. We're thinking the Tribune Plaza, 5pm in the afternoon, and hoping that there's no rain. More details to come...

Chicago Filmmakers has just announced its Fall 2003 lineup; CMA is co-presenting six films from the lineup. I plan to set up a separate page on this site highlighting the co-sponsored films. Watch for it.

And speaking of movies: I went to Reclaim The Media and discovered this interesting tidbit:

Heiress vs. radio barons biopic next for Sarandon

Susan Sarandon has signed to play the role of Frances Payne Bolton, an heiress who battled 1930's era radio barons, for Dreamworks. "It's a cross between 'Quiz Show' and 'The Way We Were,'" says Sarandon squeeze Tim Robbins who will helm the pic. The left-leaning duo said the project appealed to them because it sheds light on what Robbins says is "one of the most important turning points in American history, the decision to give total control of broadcasting to profiteers and media barons." If Mrs. Bolton had won her fight, Sarandon says "our entire history, from the 1930s right up to the Iraq war, might have been different." The story will be developed from an unusual source, two books on media history, "Rich Media, Poor Democracy" and "Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy," by prof Robert McChesney, who will consult. To lift the story above a PBS-grade snorer, Robbins and co-writer Joe Cacaci have invented a romantic history between the heiress, who was married to an Ohio Congressman, and an educator who worked with radio nets rather than join Bolton's fight to save airwaves for schools and nonprofits. Sarandon is coy, but clearly sees the role as Oscar bait. "There are so few roles for women over 40 these days, and here's a strong, determined woman, who came very close to making an enormous impact on our way of life. The fact that she failed and is totally forgotten today doesn't detract from the power of her story.

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