CHICAGO MEDIA ACTION NEWSLETTER: October 3, 2005
http://www.chicagomediaaction.org

In this newsletter:

* Public access still under threat: Contact Congress today
* CMA on Chicago Public Radio; CMA joins national media coalition efforts
* Media policies and activism are affected by Hurricane Katrina
* Digital telecommunication struggles continue
* Local professional sports on local public television?


(1) ANNOUNCEMENTS AND SUGGESTED ACTIONS

* All of the television broadcasters in Illinois have their broadcast 
licenses up for renewal in 2005, and Chicago Media Action is in the process 
of pursuing one or more planned license challenges.

We are looking for organizations which might be interested to co-sponsor 
any possible license challenges.   If you're part of an organization which 
would like to join in this effort, or might be interested, or would like 
to learn more, contact CMA (respond to this email, or call
1-866-260-7198).

* Three bills now before consideration in Congress -- H.R.3146, S.1349 
and S.1504 -- would prove disastrous to local public access broadcasting.  
We strongly encourage you to contact your elected representatives in 
Congress and encourage them to oppose these bills.  One resource for 
contacting Congress, of many to use, is here:

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/

To learn more about what's at stake, you can read this webpage from 
CAN TV, Chicago's main public access cable television network, which 
has also announced a call to action:

http://www.cantv.org/callactn.htm


(2) WHAT'S NEW WITH CMA?

* CMA was prominently mentioned in a radio segment on WBEZ, Chicago's 
main National Public Radio affiliate.  The topic of discussion, Chicago's 
main PBS affiliate, WTTW.  Listen online:

http://tinyurl.com/9wtpf

http://tinyurl.com/blk5l

WTTW has been getting other critical coverage in local corporate media 
for other (questionable) decisions.  For example:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/feder/cst-fin-feder21.html

* CMA co-signs two national responses to recent media policy questions. 
CMA joined eleven other groups in a call on the Corporation for Public 
Broadcasting to increase transparency of its decision-making and open 
its meetings to more public participation.

http://www.freepress.net/press/release.php?id=91

As part of the campaign, a public service advertisement appeared in 
the public broadcasting trade paper "Current":

http://www.freepress.net/docs/cpb_ad.pdf

CMA was also one of twenty-two organizational co-signatories on a 
national response calling for to Congress to hold public hearings and 
listen to the concerns of citizens in crafting rules for the future of 
American telecommunications:

http://www.freepress.net/press/release.php?id=92

* CMA also makes available a short film about actions in St. Louis at 
the 2005 National Conference for Media Reform, and a podcast of past 
CMA presentations and interviews:

http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/index.php?link=ncmr_2005_film_mov

http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/index.php?link=ncmr_2005_film_wmv

http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/podcast.php


(3) WHAT'S NEW IN MEDIA POLITICS?

Much of media politics in September 2005 could perhaps be summed by a 
single word -- Katrina.  For example:

* Chicago area community organizers, including those with Chicago's Center 
for Neighborhood Technology, have been working to establish community 
intranet infrastructure on the Gulf Coast:

http://www.radioresponse.org/wordpress/

http://wcn.cnt.org/news/

* Organizers in Houston had launched a low-power radio station for hurricane 
survivors at Houston's Astrodome:

http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/news.php?id=357

* Various communications networks suffered in the wake of an emergency 
response -- much as the New York Fire Department experienced 9/11:

http://www.freepress.net/news/11270

* A dispute arises over the future of digital spectrum.  Should 2009 be 
the final date when TV goes digital at which point TV spectrum would be 
sold to cellphone companies and set up for use by emergency responders -- 
or, with first responders in the news again, should the transition date 
be moved up?

http://www.freepress.net/news/11457

* For a comprehensive list of hurricane-and-media stories, please visit:

http://www.freepress.net/content/katrina

* Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich announced the creation of a 
Broadband Deployment Council to ensure that all Illinois residents 
have access to the Internet.  Good news: The council includes a number 
of community organizers and members of the Get Illinois Online coalition:

http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/news.php?id=356

http://www.getillinoisonline.org

* Despite recent reports to the contrary, the digital divide is large and 
does not appear to be disappearing soon. Blacks and Latinos are much less 
likely to have access to home computers than are white, non-Latinos, 
according to a study by Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education 
Fund:

http://www.civilrights.org/issues/communication/details.cfm?id=36099

* The Electronic Frontier Foundation have posted an alert about attempts 
by Big Radio and Big Music interests to hobble by legislation the 
technical potential of forthcoming generations of digital radios, 
reducing the control of listeners to control what they hear and how 
they hear it:

http://tinyurl.com/9rafh


(4) FACTOID OF THE MONTH

* To quote from an article by Robert Feder in the Chicago Sun-Times: 
"Under terms of a three-year 'exclusive broadcast partnership,'  [WTTW] 
Channel 11 will air all home games of the (Women's National Basketball 
Association team) Chicago Sky, starting in May [2006]. Several commercial 
broadcasters with experience in sports production earlier had talks with 
the team about a deal. A spokeswoman for the station said Channel 11 would 
not be paid a fee to produce and broadcast the games.  Instead, all 
revenue would come from underwriting (public TV-speak for advertising), 
split between the franchise and the station."


(5) QUOTE OF THE MONTH

"In 1874, the English Parliament passed the Infants' Relief Act to 
protect children 'from their own lack of experience and from the wiles 
of pushing tradesmen and moneylenders...'"

-- a Report of the American Psychological Association's Taskforce on 
Advertising and Children, regarding Psychological Issues in the 
Increasing Commercialization of Childhood.  Read more:

http://www.apa.org/releases/childrenads.pdf


(6) SUGGESTED WEBSITE

http://blackpressusa.com/

BlackPressUSA.com is the the shared web presence of America's Black 
community Newspapers and the National Newspaper Publishers' Association. 
It's a portal of many often sidelined concerns and issues.


(7) MORE ANNOUNCEMENTS

* The next CMA meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, October 11, at 6:30pm,
at 3411 W. Diversey, in Chicago (at the intersection of Milwaukee, 
Diversey, and Kimball, near the Logan Square blue line stop).  We
encourage all those interested to attend.

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***

This is an email from Chicago Media Action, a Chicago activist
group devoted to media issues.

Chicago Media Action, P.O. Box 14140, Chicago IL 60614-0140  
Call toll-free: 1-866-260-7198  
Web: http://www.chicagomediaaction.org
E-mail: cma@chicagomediaaction.org

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