CHICAGO MEDIA ACTION NEWSLETTER, March 1, 2004 http://www.chicagomediaaction.org In this month's newsletter... * Amy Goodman and David Rovics visit Chicago * Actions against Chicago's main PBS and NPR affiliates * A lot of activity in media politics in a short month * Media factoid of the month: The first chair of CPB * Media quote of the month: Bill O'Reilly comes clean * Website of the month: The Black Commentator You can also visit an expanded and graphic-enriched version of this newsletter online, at: http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/newsletter/cma_nl_March_2004.html (1) ANNOUNCEMENTS AND SUGGESTED ACTIONS Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman will present a talk in Chicago in March 3 as part of Speak Out! and Women's History Month. The free event will be held on Wednesday, March 3, 2004, at 5:30pm, at the Harold Washington Library Center, 400 S. State St., 9th Floor South Hall (formerly the Beyond Words cafe). You can listen to Democracy Now! on Chicago's WZRD, 7am, weekdays, or online at www.democracynow.org. Chicago Media Action is proud to announce the arrival of singer/songwriter Dave Rovics at the Heartland Cafe, Sunday, March 7th at 8:00 pm, with opening act Attila the Stockbroker. Tickets are $10. Learn more about Dave Rovics at davidrovics.com. Plus: Be sure to partake in you can get involved in there's the campaign to launch Democracy Now! on WBEZ and CMA's campaign to clean up Chicago's PBS affiliate, WTTW-TV, Channel 11. Learn how to get involved: http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/index.php?link=rapid_response http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/newsletter/cma_alert_2004-01-27.txt (2) WHAT'S CHICAGO MEDIA ACTION UP TO? * On February 15, CMA co-presented (with Chicago Filmmakers) a well-attended screening of the BBC documentary "Al-Jazeera Exclusive", a film about the Qatar-based news broadcaster in the days leading to and during the 2003 war on Iraq. * CMA has been increasing its efforts to get Democracy Now! on WBEZ, including through this mailing list. Thanks to everyone who called and spread the word about this campaign. Unfortunately, efforts have turned up nil so far; repeated attempts to get WBEZ's news director to address this issue have so far been unsuccessful. However, CMA has contacted Democracy Now! for additional support and strategy, and we will continue work on this campaign. * Also, springtime is coming, things are warming up, and CMA is poised to turn up the heat on its WTTW campaign. Watch for more on this soon. Also, look soon for an announcement of a formal CMA membership package. (3) WHAT'S HAPPENING IN MEDIA POLITICS? February is the shortest month of the year, but February 2004 has been a frenetic month in media politics. * The Chicago community broadcaster CAN TV continued its fight against the stingy cable company RCN regarding unpaid debts. Activist efforts can chalk up some victories: On February 10, the Chicago Cable Commission passed resolutions condemning RCN and launching fines to penalize RCN. On February 21, the Commission really flexed its muscle and applied fines against RCN amounting to $1 million per day. On February 27, the Chicago City Council and its Finance Committee supported the Cable Commissions actions and city lawyers have begun the process to claim some $10 million in letters of credit and performance bonds from RCN. RCN has announced that it may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy once it comes to terms with all its creditors. * The fight against the FCC and its disastrous media ownership policies continues. In Philadelphia, on February 11, oral arguments were heard in the court case against the FCC. A decision is expected sometime in the spring or later. Word so far is that there's a good chance for a court victory against the FCC. In the House of Representatives, we saw an introduction of Resolution 72, the House equivalent of the Resolution of Disapproval which would override entirely the FCC ownership. Momentum behind this bill has quickly grown. * The cable company Comcast announced a multi-billion-dollar hostile bid to take over Disney. Disney's board rebuffed the offer--for the moment. The effects of such a merger would be considerable, not only in a quickly concentrating media environment, but also in the fact that such daunting merger proposals now move from speculation to reality. * We have a major victory in the Low-Power FM movement. The FCC has finally released its report on LPFM interference. The six-page report said that there's no technical grounds to keeping LPFM under wraps, so therefore LPFM should be deployed on a large scale. The LPFM effort now moves to Congress: John McCain has announced that he will work to make LPFM a legal reality. Chicagoans will be interested in this quote from the report: "even with [this change in policy], there will not be many LPFM opportunities in most communities of significant size". We shall see. For more information on all of these media activism efforts, be sure to visit: http://www.chicagomediaaction.org http://www.cantv.org/rcn http://www.mediareform.net http://www.prometheusradio.org (4) MEDIA FACTOID OF THE MONTH According to James Ledbetter's book "Brought to You by...The Death of Public Broadcasting", the first chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, General Frank Pace, Jr., had no broadcasting or media experience, but he had been Secretary of the Army from 1950 to 1953 during the Korean War and had also served as the chief executive officer of General Dynamics, a major manufacturer of military fighter planes and bombers. Shortly after being appointed by President Lyndon Johnson, Pace commissioned research on how public television might be used for riot control. Pace's 1969 budget request to President Richard M. Nixon was a paltry $20 million. (5) MEDIA QUOTE OF THE MONTH "I was wrong. I am not pleased about it at all and I think all Americans should be concerned about this. What do you want me to do, go over and kiss the camera?" -- Right-wing pundit Bill O'Reilly, February 10, 2004, quoted in an interview on ABC's Good Morning America, following up on a promise to publicly apologize if weapons of mass destruction were not found in Iraq. (6) THIS MONTH'S WEBSITE http://www.blackcommentator.com/ The Black Commentator is a website devoted to commentary, analysis and investigations of issues affecting African Americans. The website publishes a new set of commentary every Thursday. (7) MORE ANNOUNCEMENTS The next CMA meeting will be on Tuesday, March 9, at 6:30pm, at 3411 W. Diversey (corner of Diversey and Kimball, near the Logan Square stop on the CTA Blue Line). All are invited. *** *** *** *** *** *** *** This is an email from Chicago Media Action, a Chicago activist group devoted to media issues. Chicago Media Action, P.O. 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