Supporters of a free Internet, rejoice. The Federal Communications Commission is about to get a new leader, Julius Genachowski, who is a strong net neutrality advocate. Net neutrality, to the non-geeked-out, is the principle of keeping the Internet’s infrastructure open to all rather than letting big telecomm providers control access and connection speed. It’s a democratic idea that ought to fare well under a Democratic administration and Congress.

The media reform and tech blogospheres are abuzz about Genachowski’s anticipated appointment.

At Personal Democracy, Nancy Scola calls Genachowski “the Tom Hanks of Washington. You can’t mention his name without hearing the phrase ‘great guy, great guy.’” And she points out that Matthew Lasar at Ars Technica dug into Genachowki’s past and didn’t dig up much—but “it’s more than you’ve got on Caroline Kennedy,” he concludes.

Over at Media Citizen, Timothy Karr writes: “Genachowski is one of the principal architects of Obama’s pro-neutrality tech and media platform, which was partially unveiled during a November 2007 event, at which Obama pledged to ‘ensure a free and full exchange of information’ and ‘take a back seat to no one in my commitment to network neutrality.’”

At Public Knowledge, Art Brodsky calls the platform a “forward-looking document that hit all the right notes—a free and open Internet, a central place for technology in government policy, transparency in government.” But Brodsky also points out that “Genachowski’s expected appointment, while significant, is still one-third of the new telecom lineup that includes three new chairmen in the Senate and House.”

Brodsky is referring to Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WVA), who’s taking over the Senate Commerce Committee; Henry Waxman (D-CA), who will chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee; and Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), who will head the House Communications Subcommittee. All three bodies play key roles in communications policy.

The outgoing FCC chairman, Republican Kevin Martin, has supported some principles of net neutrality. Last August, he teamed with the FCC’s two Democrats, Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, to rule that Comcast was operating its broadband network in a discriminatory way. However, Martin has not provided aggressive leadership in the net neutrality fight—certainly not the type of leadership that is expected from Genachowski, who’s been a high-tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist.

Writes Brodsky: “There hasn’t been this much high-level interest in technology since the Clinton/Gore years when the White House staff was intimately involved with telecom policy.”

It’s difficult to break through the white noise of horserace media coverage this election cycle, when stories about lapel-pin patriotism and other frivolous distractions dominate the news headlines. The show Live from Main Street hosted a town hall meeting about how people can make their voices heard in the time before the 2008 election. It was held directly after the National Conference for Media Reform earlier this month, and a few of the highlights can be seen below.

One of the best (and most overwhelming) parts of a conference like this weekend’s Free Press event is the confluence of energized people, all armed with sharp ideas, many working on innovative, exciting projects. On Saturday afternoon, one project making innovative use of radio stood out from the fray:

Thousand Kites , a project of the Appalachia-based arts and education center Appalshop, is “a national dialogue project addressing the criminal justice system” that uses video, theater, radio, and the Internet to help people to share their experiences and motivate reform. Amelia Kirby, the project’s media producer, played several minutes of a radio call-in show for conference attendees during a session on “Connecting with Social Justice Organizations.” Over crackling phone lines, family and friends sent holiday wishes to incarcerated loved ones from whom they were separated.

Before one airing of the show, Kirby explained, they had a caller who was outraged at the premise, offended that they’d be doing such a thing for incarcerated people. After the show aired, Kirby said, the man called again. He had listened to the program. He had changed his mind—he’d never “thought of things this way.”

It reminded me of what Janine Jackson, from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, had said the day before, when someone asked her how media critics might also be activists. Her answer resonated beyond media criticism: To make change, she explained, you don’t have to necessarily change the institution. You just have to change how one person thinks about the institution.

For more on the National Conference for Media Reform, click here.

Over the past few years, as the immigration debate has heated up, a lot of so-called “mainstream” folks have shown up on television and radio stations to espouse anti-immigration perspectives. When their organizational affiliation shows up on the bottom of the screen, it probably doesn’t sound overtly racist: the Center for Immigration Studies, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), and so forth. But as a group of experts discussed at the “Standing Up Against Hate Speech” panel at the National Conference for Media Reform, a teeny bit of digging reveals that many of these talking heads have close ties to hate groups (FAIR was, in fact, recently classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center). But in spite of this, they’re invited back to the airwaves again and again, spreading false information and drumming up fears that immigrants carry diseases, fill our prisons, and drain the economy.

These “commentators” are not experts—they’re extremists. “If the mainstream media was doing its job,” said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, “we wouldn’t see them.” Here’s a quick list of resources to keep track of reality vs. rhetoric, hate group vs. think-tank:

* Truth in Immigration, created by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)

* Intelligence Report, published by the Southern Poverty Law Center

* The Anti-Defamation League’s section on Immigration Reports and Resources

* The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights

Big, bold, and occasionally crazy-sounding ideas get thrown around at the National Conference for Media Reform. Abolish the FCC. Take down Fox News. 9/11 was an inside job. But the most out-there notion I’ve heard yet this weekend has to be this: Let’s rewrite the First Amendment.

“The First Amendment is an amendment, meaning it can be amended,” is how community activist Malkia Cyril announced her brainstorm during the well-attended panel titled “From Broadcast to Broadband: The Next Frontier of Media Reform.” Malkia had already admitted that she had forgotten until this morning that she was speaking on the panel, and she spent the first part of her address riffing on the colonial implications of the word “frontier” before dropping her First Amendment bombshell.

The crowd, which had gotten into the habit of politely applauding any remarks regarded as potentially hell-raising, delivered a notably tepid response to this suggestion, though it should be noted that a few people clapped exuberantly. But as Cyril further delineated her idea—something about the First Amendment being the “product of a slaveocracy” that needs to be redefined to include more marginalized groups—it became clear that not only did her suggestion have little to do with the panel’s topic, it had possibly just occurred to her.

Now, I’ve seen Cyril fire up a crowd with well-prepared, impassioned speeches before, and she made some good points even in her off-the-cuff remarks. But of all the many things on the media reform movement’s agenda, taking a bottle of Wite-Out to the first item in the Bill of Rights is way, way off the radar, and I daresay it’s a pretty stupid idea. But of course—thanks to the First Amendment—she’s got a right to speak about it, even in a crowded theater.

For more on the National Conference for Media Reform, click here.

It’s easy to look at the disaster in Iraq, hang your head, and curse Dick Cheney’s soul. Indeed sometimes, especially at lefty fests like this weekend’s National Conference for Media Reform, it seems like all our troubles can be traced back to Dick and his underling George. Blood and Oil, a documentary based on Michael T. Klare’s 2004 book of the same name, makes a strong case for looking beyond Bush & Co. to the roots of the United States’ geopolitical oil mongering. Along the way, it takes aim at some sacred idols of the left, namely Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter.

In 1945, as Roosevelt saw the United States’ self-sufficiency in oil production slipping away, he set out to meet with Saudi Arabia’s king, striking a deal that has survived all administrations since: U.S. protection of the Saudi royal family for proprietary oil development rights. From there, Klare, the defense correspondent for the Nation, traces the evolution of U.S. oil policy through various presidents, reserving a special place for Jimmy Carter, who he says laid the foundation for the doctrine sanctioning the use of military force to protect America’s strategic oil interests in the Middle East. Reagan beefed up that doctrine, and, producer Scott Morris noted in a question-and-answer session after the film, Cheney “blew the policy out of the water.” But it didn’t come out of nowhere, and that’s a valuable lesson as we prepare to write the obituary of the Bush administration and look toward the policies of the next president.

For more on the National Conference for Media Reform, click here.

Writers and bloggers are blurring the already thin line between advocacy and journalism. In a workshop at the National Conference for Media Reform today called “How Independent Media Creates Change,” Jane Hamsher, the founder of the popular blog Firedoglake, spoke about her work as “somewhere between activism and journalism.” She set out to “keep journalists honest” in her acclaimed work during the Scooter Libby trial. Speaking on the same panel, Jefferson Morley of the Center for Independent Media drew a sharp distinction between the two camps, putting himself squarely on the side of journalism.

The question is: Where’s the line? I spoke with Tracy Van Slyke, director of the Media Consortium, and she said that the blurring of advocacy and journalism could be a good thing. She said the mix hearkens back to the original intent of journalism, which is to “inform and to activate” people. At the same time, she stressed that journalists should be transparent about their biases and affiliations. Van Slyke, who directs a network that includes outlets such as In These Times, Air America Radio, and Grist.org, aims to “build the echo” within the progressive media.

There is, however, a danger in building a left-wing echo chamber that Van Slyke acknowledges. As the Democrats begin to take power in Washington, the progressive media can’t sacrifice its role as a watchdog of people in power, regardless of party affiliation. This is where the mix could become problematic, when a journalist’s role as an advocate strains journalistic integrity.

For more on the National Conference for Media Reform, click here.

“As journalism goes, so goes democracy,” renowned PBS host Bill Moyers told the crowd at the National Conference for Media Reform. And right now, journalism is in trouble. In his serious and eloquent style, Moyers warned the crowd of the “mighty armada of power and influence” that threatens the media and democracy today—propagating junk news that dominates the national discussion and forces out more legitimate and competing storylines. 

There is one central tenet that runs through the media reform movement, according to Moyers: Everyone here sees media consolidation as a “corrosive force.” As the wall between journalism and advertising is broken down by businesses pushing profit over public good, honest information and accountability in this country literally disappears. He called out the “myths of the marketplace,” including the idea that private systems will provide for the public good, and the business mantra that public interest is what the public is interested in.

Moyers effortlessly drew connections from the complicity of the media in the war in Iraq to the near-constant attacks on the environment, from the “political marionettes” in Washington, D.C., to the soaring credit card debt and inequality in America today. The way to combat these problems is with media reform, and the only way reform the media is with a healthy and popular movement.

“In numbers is strength, and in strength is success,” Moyers told the crowd of journalists and activists, urging them to support a diversity of voices from all communities. He called on journalists and activists to “be vigilant” and “show courage,” because their job is literally to protect “the freedom that makes all other freedom possible.”

For more on the National Conference for Media Reform, click here.

And to watch a video of the speech, click on the link below.

With a pivotal presidential election just around the corner, attendance was robust at the panel dubbed "Media and the Elections: Covering 2008" at the National Conference for Media Reform. The discussion didn't produce any silver-bullet solutions for immediate improvement of political coverage, but the panelists offered substantial food for thought as Barack Obama and John McCain head for a November showdown.

The starting point, naturally, was the dismal state of mainstream media election coverage: the off-the-charts obsession with remarks made by Obama's pastor, the Rev. James Wright; the racism and sexism on display in coverage of the Obama and Clinton campaigns; the gaping media blind spots on issues of race, the environment, and unemployment; and the marginalization of third-party and lesser-known candidates. John Nichols, Washington correspondent for the Nation magazine and author of the book Tragedy and Farce, put the problem in stark terms: "We're not just seeing bad media. We're seeing assault and battery on our democracy."

Robert "Biko" Baker, a community activist with the League of Young Voters in Milwaukee, brought a more street-level perspective to the topic, describing the poverty and disenfranchisement of the youth he works with—and the vast distance between them and the talking heads on CNN and Fox. "Corporate America runs the media and will continue to run the media until we stop it," he said before concluding with a clarion call: "The world is in peril. We have to challenge our contradictions."

Sirota, author of The Uprising, added a fresh twist to the discussion. Many of us, he noted, see the media as a monolithic force, and we await the news sent down from "Media Mount Olympus." But that passive role is exactly what has strengthened the role of the "paternalistic" media. "We have the chance to be our own media," he says, and we ought to seize it. For another audience, this might have sounded like a simplistic bromide. But for this crowd, made up largely of indie media activists and advocates, it sounded plausible, and when they filed out of the room, you suspected they might just go out and do it.

For more on the National Conference for Media Reform, click here.

A while back I blogged about a witty British group that’s pushing Parliament to make legislation more technologically accessible to the public with its “Nice, Polite Campaign to Gently Encourage Parliament to Publish Bills in a 21st-Century Way. Please. Now.”

I lamented the lack of such efforts in the United States and longed for tools that would let people easily search and track legislation (no easy task today, as anyone who has rooted around Thomas.gov for legislative information without a public policy degree knows), but also allow citizens the opportunity to provide feedback and help shape the proposed laws that will affect their lives.

Well, apparently there was no need to lament. Turns out there are some innovative, promising stateside websites and online conversations converging to create Legislation 2.0. And I heard all about them at a panel at the National Conference for Media Reform today.

First, there’s Open Congress, a handy project of the Sunlight Foundation and Participatory Politics Foundation that lets you search, track, and comment on legislation. Also check out PublicMarkup.org, another Sunlight effort that goes a step further. The site invited the public to help Sunlight refine their own legislative proposal, the Transparency in Government Act of 2008. They’re culling through the feedback, and a newly revised version of the bill is due out later this month.

“Legislation is essentially an outgrowth of conversation,” said Open Left cofounder and panelist Matt Stoller. “That conversation has been corrupted.” The internet offers a way for citizens to reclaim the dialogue from lobbyists. Stoller offered the real world example of Illinois Senator Dick Durbin’s efforts to open an online conversation on how to expand broadband access. Live blogging and an unexpected flurry of feedback ensued, unleashing the thoughts and passions of fired-up, informed constituents. And those are the folks that Senate staffers need to hear from (and be motivated by), said panelist Russell Newman, then a legislative aide for Durbin.

They’re all very encouraging developments in terms of democratizing legislation and shedding some light on the machinations of Congress. Before I go, I’ll just mention one more. It’s not about legislation per se, but rather the wining and dining that gets legislation flowing: This July the Sunlight Foundation will release Party Time, a database of all the D.C. hobnobbing, fundraising parties and the hosts who host them. Should be an interesting new tool for tracking the web of money and influence in Washington.

“Let’s take off the gloves,” moderator Paul Schmelzer of the Minnesota Monitor said to his panelists, an assembly of media critics charged with talking about their changing role in an evolving media landscape. The question: What could they be doing better?

Janine Jackson of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) called for more rounded subjects. Critics get mired in deconstructing the coverage of domestic and party politics, she said. Among the areas in which Jackson would like to read more are the disability community, labor news, and feminist and antiracist criticism. She also noted a tendency to focus heavily on print media, neglecting mediums such as radio. “Wherever the influence is, criticism should be,” she stressed.

Eric Deggans of Florida’s St. Petersburg Times noted that media critics don’t criticize themselves very well, that they’re more cautious when approaching their own institutions. Deggens also pointed out the lack of media criticism on TV; he’d like to see the nightly news dissecting media coverage. “[Producers] don’t think viewers are interested,” he said, “but they could get them to be interested.”

Media Matters for America 's Eric Boehlert suggested refraining from personal attacks. It’s a model that’s worked for Media Matters, which keeps its criticism focused on “comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media,” as opposed to demonizing conservative pundits.

Finally, Diane Farsetta, from the Center for Media and Democracy, chimed in with the need to form partnerships with community, university, and other local organizations. If the media is missing a story, or misreporting the information, instead of “becoming an expert in 30 minutes,” make a community connection, she counseled. Then when you deliver your criticism, you can direct the criticized party to an expert source.

For more on the National Conference for Media Reform, click here.

The National Conference for Media Reform kicked off today with a rehash of corporate media’s recent and familiar failures—lapdog reporting during the run-up to the Iraq war, the contrived “balanced” coverage of the climate change debate, and the infiltration of Pentagon “message force multipliers” into network and cable news shows, to name a few. 

But as fun as it is to lambaste the likes of Rupert Murdoch and his corporate cronies, this conference isn’t about licking the wounds of the past. Rather, speaker after speaker intoned, it’s about looking to the future, harnessing a building movement for media reform, and ensuring the same mistakes aren’t made again. 

“In this day and age, we want to be good at reaction, but we need to be much better at proaction and vision,” the Ruckus Society’s Adrienne Maree Brown told the crowd gathered for the conference’s opening plenary. To that end, Brown’s group works with disenfranchised communities to empower them as media creators instead of media consumers. Those previously bereft of media outlets, like young people of color, get to tell their own stories—through low-power FM radio, zines, web zines, video blogs, you name it. The idea here, says Brown, is that communication is action.

“We’re very comfortable on the margins, holding it down,” Brown says. It’s time, though, to move beyond the comfort of the choir.

Today’s movement is well poised to do that, according to Lawrence Lessig, renowned Stanford professor, author, and chair of the Creative Commons project. “Now is the time,” he said “that we understand the issues better than they do.” Lessig gives media reformers an eight-year window—during which they’ll grasp new media’s tools better than the legislators brokering media regulation—and in that time the movement has to secure a free and neutral internet.

Lessig’s issue is congressional reform, freeing the mechanics of government from the vice grip of lobbyists and corporate influence through his new organization Change Congress. Media reform, he says, is central to that mission. And there to back him up on that was Keith Ellison, Democratic representative from Minneapolis, who roused the crowd by telling them that their efforts ripple in the halls of Congress, when they make their voices heard.

“Welcome to the beginning of a great movement in our country that is all about the common good.”

For more on the National Conference for Media Reform, click here.

Cutting through the media spin and hype that has filled this election season, Live From Main Street is hosting a televised town hall meeting this Sunday, June 8 at the Woman’s Club of Minneapolis. Join us and an all-star panel of speakers talking about what stands between the public and the truth, and how to make your voice heard this year.

The event features:
 
Amy Goodman, Host of Democracy Now!
John Nichols, Washington Correspondent for the Nation
Malkia Cyril, Director of The Center for Media Justice
Coleen Rowley, FBI Whistle Blower and 2006 Congressional Candidate
Joel Kramer, Founder of the MinnPost
Paul Schmelzer, Managing Editor of Minnesota Independent
Marlina Gonzalez, Program Director of the Unconvention and Intermedia Arts
And more of your Twin City favorites.
 
This interactive town hall event will be distributed by an unprecedented collaboration of independent media including LinkTV, Free Speech TV, The National Radio Project and many more —come be part of the fun!
 
RSVP for preferred seating here: http://livefrommainstreet.com/content/RSVP

The first 150 guests to arrive will receive a free copy of Amy Goodman's Standing Up To the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times courtesy of Progressive Book Club

DETAILS:

WHEN: Sunday June 8, 2pm (doors open at 1pm)

WHERE: The Woman's Club of Minneapolis
410 Oak Grove Street, Downtown Minneapolis
MAP: http://www.womansclub.org/page/1/contact.jsp

FREE OF CHARGE and open to the public. Seating is limited so please arrive early -doors open at 1pm.
 
RSVP for preferred seating here: http://livefrommainstreet.com/content/RSVP
 
RSVP is not necessary to attend- there will be general admission seating available on the day of the event.
 
Live From Main Street is a project of The Media Consortium. 

In this week’s issue of the Nation, legendary media critics Robert McChesney and John Nichols sound the call for a stronger media reform movement, one that “must prepare . . . to promote a wide range of structural reforms—to talk of changing media for the better rather than merely preventing it from getting worse.”

They’re right—for years, media activists have mostly worked to stave off consolidation, mobilize against big media–friendly legislation, and the like. It’s important (not to mention unglamorous) work, but McChesney and Nichols are right: The media reform movement should be about more than keeping big bad (corporate) media wolves at bay.

Now . . . we must require corporations that reap immense profits from the people's airwaves to meet high public-service standards, dust off rusty but still functional antitrust laws to break up TV and radio conglomerates, address over-the-top commercialization of our culture and establish a heterogeneous and accountable noncommercial media sector. In sum, we need to establish rules and structures designed to create a cultural environment that will enlighten, empower and energize citizens so they can realize the full promise of an American experiment that has, since its founding, relied on freedom of the press to rest authority in the people.

We’ll be spending this weekend (June 6-8) with some 3,000 media activists at the 2008 National Conference for Media Reform, swapping stories and strategies and reimagining the future of the media. Tune in to Utne.com all weekend to see what’s unfolding, and to sneak a peek at the bold new movement for media reform.