CHICAGO MEDIA ACTION ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER: October 1, 2003 http://www.chicagomediaaction.org (1) ANNOUNCEMENT: TWO OCTOBER EVENTS Friday, October 17 is International Media Democracy Day, and members of Chicago Media Action are actively working to organize two events around that date. * On Thursday, October 16, 2003, Chicago Media Action is organizing a panel and discussion on "Racial Stereotypes in Media: Who do They Harm? What Can We Do?" Your host will be Cliff Kelley. The panel will include Salim Muwakkil; additional panelists will be announced. The event begins at 6 pm, at First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple, 77 W. Washington. For more information, please visit: http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/pdffiles/2003-10-16-forum.pdf * On Friday, October 17, 2003, "Getting Labor's Message Out" is a labor media event which strives to help establish labor's own media production and distribution strategy. The event will be held on Friday October 17, 2003, 7-9pm, at UNITE Hall, 333 S. Ashland, at the Eisenhower Expressway. Scheduled speakers include Margaret Blackshere (President, Illinois AFL-CIO), John Anderson (Workers Independent News Service), and Chicago's own Kari Lyderson (Illinois Labor Press Association award winner for labor reporting). For more information, please visit: http://www.laborbeat.org/3/labormediafridayevening.pdf (2) WHAT'S HAPPENING IN MEDIA POLITICS? Lots. September saw a number of positive developments in the legislative and litigative arenas in the media democracy movement. On the legislative front, the U.S. Senate passed a Resolution of Disapproval which would override the FCC deregulation vote of June 2; 51 votes were needed, they got 55. For the Resolution to pass, the House would need to approve the Resolution, and it's unclear at this writing that the Resolution would even come to the House floor. Nevertheless, this Resolution allows the continuation a number of other legislative attacks against the deregulation. On the litigative front, the movement won what might be the most stinging legal victory to date. The Prometheus Radio Project filed a suit in Philadelphia against the FCC, asking for a delay of new media ownership rules. Prometheus won the the delay on September 3, one day before the rule changes would have gone into effect. The old rules will still be in play until this round of litigation against the FCC concludes, which could be many months away. Another bright point: this litigation against the FCC will stay in Philadelphia; the FCC had asked to move the suit to courts in Washington DC (which would be more favorable to corporate interests), but that request was declined. For more information on these and other developments in media politics, please visit: http://www.mediareform.net (3) WHAT'S HAPPENED LAST MONTH WITH CMA? CMA held two events in downtown Chicago: one was a rally at Tribune plaza on September 4 (co-sponsored by the Independent Press Association and the Chicago chapter of the National Organization for Women) on what would have been the date the FCC rule changes went into effect. Read more about the rally here: http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/index.php?link=s4_reclaim_report (This page received a mention in buzzflash.com) Another was a screening of the Guerrilla News Network's film "Aftermath: Unanswered Questions from 9/11" on September 11 at the Chicago Temple. The host was Cliff Kelley, and included a discussion with the audience. (CMA president Mitchell Szczepanczyk was a guest on Cliff Kelley's radio show on the morning of September 10.) Read more about the screening here: http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/index.php?link=aftermath For its efforts to organize this screening, CMA was named one of GNN's Guerrillas of the Week of September 15, 2003. Both events were filmed by CAN-TV and made into CAN-TV productions which aired in September, with subsequent reairings likely. Chicago Media Action asked its email list to participate in a survey on media issues. The results have been tabulated and posted to the CMA website here: http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/index.php?link=survey_2003_results (4) MEDIA FACTOID OF THE MONTH From an editorial at "Closed Circuit: Israel's Media" which appeared on the web site of "The Media Line", a non-profit Israel-based media education organization: "Not only does the IBA (the Israel Broadcasting Authority, a state/public hybrid) have the exclusive right to collect the annual licensing fee (like the BBC does in the UK), it also augments its revenues by selling radio spots and by screening paid "service announcements" and "program sponsorships" on television. These "sponsorships" are supposedly a form of contribution to the IBA but, in fact, the sponsors ensure that their name is repeated ceaselessly and the benefit is undoubtedly equal to that of a regular advertiser." Read more at: http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=947 (5) MEDIA QUOTE OF THE MONTH "Television is now our form of government." -- Kurt Vonnegut (6) THIS MONTH'S RECOMMENDED WEBSITE http://www.agitproperties.com Agitproperties.com describes itself as "a company and a Web site", which works to "license, manufacture and sell 'agitational propaganda' - parody apparel and otheritems lampooning current media outlets". Agitproperties created a "Faux News" T-shirt, modeled so closely on the Fox News logo that Fox attorneys issued a cease-and-desist order to Agitproperties; the result was a marked upsurge in business and attention to Agitproperties. (7) MORE ANNOUNCEMENTS Chicago Media Action holds twice-monthly meetings on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of each month. CMA's next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, October 14, at 6:30pm at the Chicago Newspaper Guild in downtown Chicago (36 S. Wabash, Suite 1400, near the Monroe Red Line station). All are invited. *** *** *** *** *** *** *** This is the monthly electronic newsletter of 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: www.chicagomediaaction.org E-Mail: cma@chicagomediaaction.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, simply send an email requesting removal to mailinglist@chicagomediaaction.org