The 2003 media ownership encounter accomplished a lot for Free Press. It got its members "battle-tested and seasoned" fast and taught them at least six crucial lessons:
-- the public cares enough about media issues to organize around them and become energized and active; many issues motivate them that include a lack of localism in media, "unimaginative musical fare" on radio, poor media coverage on many issues like the Iraq war, few quality programs, inadequate representation of women and people of color as owners and in the media, vulgarity and excess commercialism, and more; one or more of these issues galvanize millions of Americans to react and growing numbers do;
-- people have considerable ability and insight about media issues; they know the media should do more than "amuse, entertain, or hawk products;"
-- media reform can be a "gateway" for public activism; it ignites people to get involved in political activity; it won the last media ownership fight, stopped the Bush administration from paying journalists like Armstrong Williams to corrupt themselves for profit, and it protected Net Neutrality so far by keeping the nation's telecommunication laws from being overhauled by Congress and a real chance for consumer-friendly ones ahead;
-- Internet and digital technologies dramatically change the way political organizing is done that would have been impossible earlier; they greatly lower the cost and make it much easier to be effective with fewer resources;
-- the media reform movement is nonpartisan by being neutral and aims to expand the range and quality of viewpoints; it's also a "bedrock progressive issue" that advocates "establishing the institutional basis for effective and accountable self-government;" and
-- conservatism is unable to address media reform concerns or provide a coherent government philosophy; there's dissension in their ranks that contributed to the Republican 2006 collapse; the movement abandoned its principles for honest and small government, balanced budgets, respecting individual privacy, the rule of law and competitive markets; instead it shows one-sided support for corporate interests, entrenched wealth and corrupted itself by its actions.
McChesney discussed his National Conference for Media Reform initiative and what he learned from the first one held in 2003. First, it's crucial to have credible research be part media reform so first-rate communication scholars must be involved to produce it. Second is the importance of linking scholars to the actual "sausage-making" process on Capitol Hill so the right kinds of legislation get introduced and become law.
In 2004, an important effort toward this got started called COMPASS - the Consortium on Media Policy Studies formed by heads of several key university communication programs. It supports a broad range of media studies by "creat(ing) a critical mass of (doctoral) students working in policy research (and making this effort) a cornerstone of the field (by producing) journals, conferences, and academic lines." In other words, making COMPASS communication research "relevant outside the discipline and the academy." But it's not enough as the struggle for "communication to embrace the critical juncture (goes) beyond researchers at Ph.D. programs; it has to be all-encompassing."
Free Press knew it had to get scholars involved in the second media reform conference in 2005 and did it on short notice with a "solid" 150 of them attending. Key for reform is credible research to take on the "vending-machine" kind by corporations and the FCC. It's contaminated with lies and distortion and must be countered with hard, well-documented facts - the real stuff that can stand up.
Media reform took shape between 2003 and 2007 and exposed the Bush administration's efforts to undermine freedom with a host of illegal and unethical acts:
-- fake news the major media airs promoting administration policies;
-- paying off "professional" journalists to promote these policies in their reporting;
-- having a "ringer" in the White House press corps to ask planted pro-Bush questions;
-- appointing a corrupted crony to head Public Broadcasting and a former head of all US overseas propaganda to run National Public Radio;
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
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