Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiThis Way to Better Media
"This way to better media," read the floor sign directing people through a skyway to the Minneapolis Convention Center. Thousands of people gathered there for the fourth National Conference for Media Reform, hosted by freepress.net. They came from all walks of life and all ages to address a central crisis in our society: our broken media system. I was one of the invited speakers.
Despite increasingly complex digital-media offerings and hundreds of channels, we see the diversity of media ownership shrinking, along with the diversity of voices that are broadcast. People are fighting back, organizing, creating alternatives and holding the corporate media giants accountable. The corporations are pushing back. With life and death, war and peace, at stake, hinging on an informed and engaged populace, the stakes have never been higher, the media never more important.
Prominent traditional journalists with decades of experience mingled with the emerging generation of new media producers. Journalist Bill Moyers, who has won more than 30 Emmys, authored four best-sellers and currently hosts the popular PBS weekly news program "Bill Moyers Journal," opened Saturday with a plenary address, saying:
"Our dominant media are ultimately accountable only to corporate boards whose mission is not life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the whole body of our republic, but the aggrandizement of corporate executives and shareholders." Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is the poster child of media conglomerates. Murdoch's media empire spans the globe, with 35 TV stations in the U.S., the Fox News Channel (so-called) and many other cable channels, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, HarperCollins, 20th Century Fox movie studios and a slew of interrelated sports and entertainment properties.
Moyers' outspoken critique of the corporate media has provoked Murdoch's chief attack dog, Bill O'Reilly. Last week on his Fox show, O'Reilly said of the media reformers, "These people are crazy ... real nuts!" Josh Silver, Free Press executive director, responded: "He's a mouthpiece for the largest media corporations. And that kind of omnipotent power that these large networks have, taking control of that and taking that power back from them is what this conference is about."
As Moyers finished signing his latest book, "O'Reilly Factor" producer Porter Berry and his camera crew pounced. Dan Rather was at the conference but eluded the Fox stakeout. Moyers turned the Fox ambush back on Berry:
Moyers: "Rupert Murdoch said the best thing that will come out of the Iraq war will be [oil] at $20 a barrel. Now, today, when I came here, I looked, and it was $130-something. When is Rupert going to explain why the war didn't give us $20-a-barrel oil?"
Making the link between media conglomerates and militarism, Moyers questioned Berry further about Murdoch:
Moyers: "Does Bill O'Reilly work for Rupert Murdoch?"
Berry: "He works for Fox News."
Moyers: "But who owns Fox News?"
Berry: "News Corp. ..."
Moyers: "Rupert Murdoch is the boss."
Indymedia videographers crowded around the two, and the video clips soon found their way onto the Internet. O'Reilly ran a heavily edited clip of the exchange, with none of the above included, but had a "body-language expert" on his show, attempting to smear Moyers. The fact that Murdoch producers were at the conference trying to discredit prominent participants demonstrates the need for honest, strong, countervailing media outlets.
Sen. Byron Dorgan also addressed the conference. On Monday, he and Sens. John Kerry, Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg introduced a bill that would end Pentagon use of funds to spread propaganda and charged both the Pentagon inspector general and Congress' Government Accountability Office to investigate allegations that retired generals were used to push for war with Iraq.
Elected officials will not solve our media crisis alone. The grass-roots movement for media reform is growing, and with mass layoffs in newspaper and broadcast newsrooms, critical elections, burgeoning military budgets and multiple wars and occupations, and with emergent and accessible digital-media tools and networks increasingly available to most people, there is no better time to join it.
Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 650 stations in North America. Her third book, "Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times," was published in April.
© 2008 Amy Goodman
19 Comments so far
Show AllCorrection to the FreeSpeech URL (no comma) should be http://www.freespeech.org
Bill OReilly is a dirty rotten filthy stinking rich slut
Electing more democrats is not the answer, and certainly it isn't electing more pro-corporation republicans. The answer lies in either electing "third" parties, to start, for local offices. Or we could just have the next revolution, because it is certain that neither conservatives nor progressives will allow a Constitutional Convention to take place for fear that the other side will try to dominate and take over to permanently "legitimize" their respective agendas. Though, I wouldn't mind a vastly more progressive mind-set to government and society, just the very idea is probably enough to give right-wingers like billo nightmares and you can bet they will do everything, up to and including murder, if necessary, to save their "precious."
Moyers for FCC chief.
Democracy Now can be irritating.
It has devoted too much air time to trivial subjects-celebrity sit downs etc.
TV is like cars.
We live without them for a while, and then, epiphany! we wonder how we EVER lived with them.
like guns and bombs and tanks might be if we tried living without them for a year or two; just might be tolerable. World might not actually implode upon itself...
Its not just the news content that's been downgraded since the Vietnam era, when the major networks had correspondents throughout the world. There used to be musical entertainment with major stars as well as original drama. Now it seems the proliferation of "reality" TV is a search for the bottom of the barrel in terms of costs.
There is no taking back of existing media but the development of the Internet allows independent video reporting. This must be protected by maintaining net neutrality as a common carrier and not allowing corporate control to stifle the net.
Good for Bill Moyers! Just keep in mind that whoever owns the storytellers also gains king and queen ownership rights to the narratives of the storytellers. And since stories frame how we as indiviuals and a society come to see reality -- these self-appointed kings and queens also get to shape realities for listeners and viewers.
Now, about those long-held notions of an independent press and free speech? Wasn't that once one of the grand ideas behind America?
It's an emotional experience seeing Mr. Bill O'Reilly perform on the Fox network. He's shameless; he's a wealthy journalistic anarchist; he's a a smarmy wanker. It's frightening that many American people believe & applaud his extreme & dangerous theatrics.
His enemies (oddly) try repeatedly to engage him in rational discussion, though clearly he'll disconnect from such shenanigans.
Simple namecalling ("Bill O'Reilly is an asshole.") won't likely impress him. Turn the other cheek -- he's sure to bite it. But he trades on his good name, and making fun of it as "Billow" is cute and observant: he is a windbag, he likes the short sound bite. The name is soft & lovable as an obnoxious little dog can be. Sic 'em Billow! We love you Billow!
When will the Maine press, mainly the Blethen
newspapers, The Waterville Sentinel, the
Kennebec Journal, the Portland Telegram,
do an investigative newspaper story on the
Political front? For example, how much are the
lawfirms getting paid by Plum Creek for their
Political Connections?? After all, the northern
Maine Woods are about to be destroyed..
Don't get rid of your TV. Just make sure it's connected to Free Speech TV, which broadcast gavel to gavel coverage of the conference. Free Speech TV is independent, non-commercial, broadcasting daily news like Democracy Now and Grit TV with Laura Flanders. You don't have to decide between reform or creating media, you can do both (Watch FSTV on DISH Network ch 9415, www.freespeech.org, and on over 170 cable access stations).
This was my post yesterday which I resubmit since subseqent posts have shown even further the way in which the liberals, Moyers et al., convelute an already sad politic
of matching the so-called progressives against the right wing Nut-jobs. Screaming at each other about a sad and worn ideology which I think all of you call democracy:
Frankly ALL OF IT is a reflection of a seriously pathological societal bent which thrives exclusively on Pop Culture and Celebrities. Pop culture, of course, meaning that which we are fed as information and entertainment that sells in the marketplace called the Media (as an example). Celebrity-ism is Pop Culture brought to its obvious result of an elite of so-called professionals who have the last word and are always and without exception, apologists for the pathogoly we could call (if we were Marxists anymore) bourgeois society .
It is all the reflection of a society which has profit and vain-glory as its motive and orientation. And nothing stands apart, rises above, this corporate capitalist scheme of things. Liberals out there and so-called progressives buy into the scheme except if they entertain and inform us according to the only thing that is necessary in these times, which is mass organization of angry people sick of ALL of the Bullshit. And liberals and progressives won't do that. All of them are hanging by a thin hair by which they will feign intelligence and objectivity in order to avoid the call for real change.
Bill Moyers said: "Our dominant media are ultimately accountable only to corporate boards whose mission is not life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the whole body of our republic, but the aggrandizement of corporate executives and shareholders."
I don'k now why progressives let Moyer's off the hook. Moyers too excludes American Indians from his broadcasts. Moyers participates in the continuing genocide by doing so. Does his Christian religion prohibit him from recognizing American Indians as human or are we just savages to him?
I challenge Bill Moyers to invite Steven Newcomb to his public television show. He won't do it. Moyer's has a hole in his soul and progressives should recognize that.
It is good that we have alternatives and the time and will to check them out. The problem is that when the news is controlled by the corporations who don't want us to know things, this nation becomes a lot less like a democracy and more like a fascist state. When Jane Average American can't go home from her job and plop down and get basic information uncovered with partisanship, she will be unable to participate in any way and may become either cynical or apathetic. As an example, in the 2nd largest city in Indiana (the "heart" of America), there was not one mention of Dennis Kucinich's Impeachment Articles. NOT ONE. How are my "regular" mom friends (yeh - I'm irregular) going to be able to decide if they want impeachment if no one tells them in that little time during fixing supper when the news is on in the kitchen and the kids are busy elsewhere? I am truly concerned about our nation...in too many ways to even think about in one sitting.
Bill Moyers is my hero!!!!
Amy is good. But no one can make sense of:
"Elected officials will not solve our media crisis alone. The grass-roots movement for media reform is growing....
Except via elected officials THERE IS NO REFORM POSSIBLE.
Elect your Democrats and a lot of them if you want your media "reformed". No one (NO ONE) else is going to do it.
As a matter of interest, I keep seeing this reasoning:
"make this a partisan issue when they throw around terms like "far left" and even calling us "fascists"
Whats the difference when I hear "far right, fascists, Nazi's thrown around from our side of the media?
Air America and Amy can get wound up sometimes themselves.
JaneM,
Exactly. That's how the rightwing came to power. In the 1960s, after they lost very badly, they took time off the tubes to build an infrastructure and taking advantage of people enjoying the TV-free nature, found ways to REPROGRAM the airwaves and the cable networks. By 1968, the rightwing engine was ready to rumble. Now, the 1970s was not favorable and the Demos got a break because of Nixon's scandal but they were wise to use that decade to fine-tune its engine. By 1980, the rightwing engine was 10 TIMES POWERFUL and in that decade, America witnessed and accepted the rise of rightwing activism even as the progressives and liberals allowed themselves to languish with or without realizing it. The cons were building more think tanks and getting ready to invade and takeover justice and education. They were careful in the 1990s to do it "silent and safe" and by 2000, things were even worse. So you see, rightwing fascism didn't occur overnight. They took advantage of we the sheeple and took the time to FRAME and PROGRAM the media and government to its ideological liking.
We the sheeple will just have to take plenty of time off the TV, radio, and even the Internet to some degree and build a better media and government that actually represents us.
I'm thinking seriously of giving up my TV altogether and just watching the news and downloading programs on my computer. Why bother?
Great analysis as always Amy. The conference provided for a fantastic weekend for myself and many others who deeply believe in media reform.
O'Reilly and others try and make this a partisan issue when they throw around terms like "far left" and even calling us "fascists", but all he need to do is actually speak to an organizer or attendee to get the real story. Then again, factual information doesn't always drive ratings so they are not inclined to do any REAL journalism.