Archive for July, 2008
Monday, July 28th, 2008 by megantady
Ah, summertime, when the days are long and the possibilities are endless. But are you already tiring of the BBQs and the sunsets? Don’t fret. Here’s a list of the top five things you should do this summer, in no order of importance:
1. Eat more ice cream than a six-year-old left alone with a stool and an open freezer
2. Laze about
3. Fawn over the new Batman movie but giggle over Christian Bale’s super hero voice
4. Paddle something – a canoe, a kayak, a blow-up raft
5. Petition your representatives in Congress to stop more media consolidation
When I said the list was in no order of importance, I fibbed. Urging your representatives to veto media consolidation is one of the most significant things you could do all summer.
Just two weeks ago, we launched a campaign to get 100 House Representatives to co-sponsor legislation that would reject the FCC’s recent decision to allow media conglomerates to control more local news and information.
Already, 41 lawmakers have joined the fight, which means we’re nearly halfway there. But it also means we have halfway to go. We need your help to ensure that Big Media doesn’t get any bigger. So put down your summer reading – you were never going to get through War and Peace anyway – and tell your representatives to take a stand.
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Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 by megantady
Broadcasters can rest easy and not worry about covering local elections in Chicago and Milwaukee thanks to an FCC decision released last week.
Two public interest groups, Chicago Media Action (CMA) and the Milwaukee Public Interest Media Coalition, had appealed to the FCC to reject the license renewals of these TV stations. The Commission ruled that the groups did not prove that the stations were operating in “bad faith.”
But the FCC didn’t address serious allegations that broadcasters are not living up to their public interest obligations. The CMA’s research showed that during the 2004 election campaign, all of Chicago’s full-power TV stations “failed to present adequate programming relating to state and local elections.” In the month leading up to the federal election, five stations dedicated less than 1 percent of their stories to local election coverage.
It’s not just local election coverage that gets purged from newscasts, and it’s not just happening in these two towns. Across the nation, and to the detriment of our civic participation, broadcasters are devoting less air time to local news stories. Why? Most TV station owners are far removed from the local communities where they’re broadcasting, giving them little incentive to invest in local, on-the-ground reporting.
But if you thought newscasts about local candidates running for office were elusive now, it could get much worse unless we stop media consolidation. The FCC last December voted to further gut media ownership limits and let a few giant corporations swallow up more local outlets.
The Senate has already voted to reject this rule, and now it’s up to the House to do the same. And it’s also up to you. Act today to stop media consolidation in its tracks, so we can begin to give our local elections the coverage and scrutiny they deserve.
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Friday, July 11th, 2008 by jstearns
In just a few weeks members of Congress will pack up their DC offices and return home for their annual summer break. But before they leave, they need to hear from you about why stopping further media consolidation must be a top priority. We are mounting a summer of action and we need your help to kick it off.
In May, the Senate voted to stop Big Media by passing a “resolution of disapproval,” which rejected the Federal Communications Commission’s latest effort to consolidate local media. We won in the Senate. We can win again in the House.
To do this, we need to get 100 co-sponsors in the next 100 days to support the House version of the bill (H.J. Res. 79). This summer, we’ll be delivering hundreds of thousands of petitions at in-district meetings with key members of Congress. Make sure your voice is heard.
Help Stop Big Media: Sign the Petition Now
By acting now you can ensure that there are thousands of petitions ready to be delivered when your U.S. representative sets foot back in your district for the summer congressional recess. Tens of thousands of people already have signed the petition, and 30 members of Congress have agreed to co-sponsor the bill. But we need to do more to swing a majority in the House.
And we don’t have much time. We plan to deliver the signatures in August, when elected representatives leave D.C. for the summer.
Help Us Get 100 Co-Sponsors in 100 Days.
Sign the Petition Today
Congress may be about to go on break, but we aren’t going to rest.
Help spread the word! Join the 100 Cosponsors in 100 Days event on Facebook and tell your friends to sign the petition.
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Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 by megantady
Just because we saw a woman within reach of a presidential nomination doesn’t mean the mainstream media have covered the 2008 race with gender equality in mind. From bashing Michelle Obama to calling black women “angry” to consistently labeling Sen. Hillary Clinton a bitch, the mainstream media have displayed one outrageous sexist moment after another.
But don’t trust me - the National Organization for Women has the evidence to prove it. They’ve launched a Media Hall of Shame and are listing the worst offenders in this season’s election coverage, from TV, radio, print, Web and political cartoons. NOW is asking for your help in ranking the “Shamers” on a sexism scale they’ve dubbed the “Misogyny Meter.” They’ll present the top offenders at this year’s national NOW conference in July.
And just how does sexism work its way into the everyday dialogue of political pundits, news anchors and columnists? Well it doesn’t help that media consolidation has squeezed women out of top-level positions at media outlets. Women own just 5 percent of commercial broadcast television stations and 6 percent of all full-power radio stations.
“If we are to create a media environment that covers issues important to women, that treats women with respect, promotes their voices and opinions and portrays them as three-dimensional human beings, we must have more women at the very top calling the shots,” said NOW in a press statement. “The same goes for people of color and other traditionally disenfranchised groups.”
The situation could be getting worse if the FCC is allowed to follow through with plans to let media conglomerates own ever more media outlets. The Senate has already passed a “resolution of disapproval” to thwart the FCC’s plans. It’s now up to the House to do the same.
We’ve launched a campaign to get 100 co-sponsors for the House version of this crucial legislation. Already, 31 representatives have joined. But we’ve got 69 more to go, which means we need your help.
Tell your representative to co-sponsor H.J. Res. 79 to Stop Big Media and help end sexism in our news.
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Monday, July 7th, 2008 by megantady
Katy Parrish didn’t know what she would find when she sat down at her computer five years ago and typed the words “alternative media” into a search engine. She was outraged at the mainstream media’s coverage of the war in Iraq, and her local media in Anchorage, Alaska wasn’t much better.
A few months later, she was on a plane headed to Madison, WI to attend Free Press’ first National Conference for Media Reform. Parrish said she was so inspired by the people she met during the conference, she “came home with this fire in my belly to create awareness around media consolidation.”
After organizing community forums and teaching media literacy workshops, Parrish was tapped to run a new non-profit community television station in Anchorage, KACN-TV. The low-power station was created to “provide a ‘voice’ for Alaskans and address the polarization and disparity experienced by many” as other local and national commercial stations dismissed their public interest obligations.
The station offers training to both youth and adults in videography, television production, computer training, and media literacy.
“When people get their hands on [media tools] and realize they have access, they start understanding that there are only a few companies controlling the information that they’re receiving,” Parrish said. “It’s like these light bulbs go off as far as how [media consolidation] is impacting democracy.”
Not only are citizen journalists able to broadcast their own videos and news stories, but Parrish said the station airs public interest documentaries. “We have the ability to broadcast documentaries that typically people would not see,” she said. “So here you have rural Alaska seeing a movie and that content is not being seen anywhere up here at other stations.”
Watching people become empowered and take back their media gives Parrish hope.
“Prior to stumbling upon alternative media, I was pretty cynical about where we were headed as a country,” she said. “I still have my bouts of cynicism, but every time I see one person become inspired and be able to share their stories and their voices, and see other people realize that they can share their story, I just know we can rise above all of this insanity.”
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