That's where my personal story begins. I became an active community tv producer in Evanston, Illinois in the mid-eighties, co-creating a progressive news program. But the cable provider wanted to eliminate our access. My co-producer and I were banned -- almost permanently. Instead of walking away, I organized for an independent democratic governance structure, akin to the models forged earlier in Canada and elsewhere, and helped carry the nonprofit Evanston Community Media Center through the legislative course -- and we won. I know how that's done. In the process, I was threatened with arrest several times and arrested for loitering.
Congress heard the complaints of independent producers in 1987 when it directed the CPB to establish the Independent Television Service to address the concerns of minorities and working people. Activism increased in the 1990's in Chicago, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, and elsewhere. I led Chicago efforts, which included a large coalition to press for programming and structural reforms. We increased the diversity of Chicago public tv station WTTW's trustees, but the lock local elites have on the station is formidable. An FCC warning concerning home shopping with my name on it was cited in an FCC fine levied against WTTW for airing commercials -- the first and only such fine ever involving a large public tv station.
More recently, Chicago Media Action activists issued a study of WTTW's nightly news show that swept out three elite news execs. And while co-panelist Cass Sunstein nodded in approval at a 2005 event, I told the entire public broadcasting system that it had failed on the run up to the Iraq invasion. We've sought wider distribution of "Democracy Now!", and advocated for Chicago Access Network TV, low power radio, and other needs. A critical public radio fight holds the remaining key we need.
In 1999, the CPB insisted Pacifica radio centralize and be more secretive. Program hosts and the station manager at Berkeley's KPFA were fired. A network gag rule was implemented. Listeners issued thousands of protests. In June 1999, activists who staged a sit-in at Pacifica's offices were arrested and charged with trespassing. In July, a Pacifica veteran was physically removed by guards in the middle of a broadcast. Some 400 staged a sit-in. 53 were arrested. Next, some 10-15,000 rallied and a lawsuit was filed.
Pacifica "s struggle created a governance model of great importance. Today, 2/3 of each Pacifica station board is member elected using instant runoff voting and proportional representation. The remainder are staff appointed. The station boards select the national board. This structure is unique and, on this scale, unprecedented. But virtually no other models of direct action aimed at public media in the U.S. have been found -- to date.
So the early movement to create community controlled public media in the U.S. failed miserably. Then the Ford Foundation, Carnegie Corporation and U.S. government funded and shaped public media to their purposes. Since, corporations have dominated it. Now, some tell us that new funding and technology will fix it.
The rotary press, telegraph, radio, and tv were each proclaimed to be democratic when first introduced; it may be easy to speak in cyberspace, but it remains difficult to be heard. That fact will not change until we win the capacity to shape at least the public part of that system, as it is vulnerable to sustained local organizing in ways that commercial media is not.
To be very clear, social justice movements need a radically re-envisioned U.S. public service media system that would be almost unrecognizable alongside the current version. Public service media's governance could resemble Pacifica's, the French model, public access models, or the publicly elected boards of many public schools, public libraries, community colleges, and public utilities. Gale research says about 94% of Americans living in school districts elect their public school trustees. But 0% of Americans watching or listening to CPB funded outlets -- except the five owned by Pacifica -- have any direct say about the selection of public station trustees.
Public media elites offer us a "partnership" in which they're the parents and we're the children, anxiously waiting with our bibs on for our media to be spoon fed to us. Unless we change this power relationship, we will remain subject to the arbitrary dominance of wealthy, racist, militarists shaping new technologies to sustain their power.
Democratic participation in civic and cultural media production only happens when the powerless can speak to themselves and to wider audiences. The oppressed and marginalized have a rare historic opportunity to wholly re-envision our public service media system. We could use it to create stories, produce culture, and change conditions.
Will we?
(related article by James Owens -- bit.ly/bEmSGD)
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