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TechnoratiIt's all about the numbers. THREE. That's how many attended the June 6 to 8 National Conference on Media Reform in Minneapolis from Rockford. How sad. The theme, MEdia Reform, begins with ME. So here I am. I guess it does begin with me.
I hope you, the reader, will wake up and become involved with freepress.net, StopBigMedia.com and SaveTheInternet.com. I had asked local media to send someone. None did. So, dear reader, please get involved. Your life depends on it. I'm not exaggerating. Well, maybe a little - but hey! Fear-mongering works!
Bill Moyers' passionate speech electrified the audience and blew me away. He said, "What you don't know can kill you." He quoted his son, author of the book, "Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption." Even if the media is broken, "Nothing is ever broken that can't be fixed." Ahh. Some hope.
Last year, Moyers came out of retirement, compelled by his passion for our rights. Watch NOW (8 p.m.) with David Broncoccio, which Moyers started, and Bill Moyers Journal (WHA 21 Friday 8:30). Careful. You might get hooked!
"Media Reform was born on my show five years ago," said Moyers. When he interviewed the founders, Bob McChesney and John Nichols, they "were so intense that they just melted the screen." PBS's CEO bought a hundred copies of their book "Our Media, Not Theirs."
Moyers said: "Our dominant media are accountable only to corporate boards.
"We'll lose that fight without you; the only antidote to organized money in Washington is organized people at the roots."
Catch his speech at freepress.net/conference/video.
Dan Rather praised our enthusiasm, saying, "Make your enthusiasm viral." So, dear reader, I hope you'll spread the healing "virus" I'm sharing - information crucial for your freedom.
See Rather on Comcast Digital Cable 928, 10:30 a.m. Fridays.
One theme was Net Neutrality, Internet Freedom. Do you really want Big Business (Comcast, AT&T, Sprint, etc.) to be gatekeepers of your access to the Internet, getting richer and bigger at your expense - and I mean EXPENSE - taking away the freedom of the press guaranteed by our Constitution? This is real. It threatens all of us. Our freedoms are under attack.
Moyers said Comcast (which just raised our rates and reduced our choices) packed a Senate hearing with strangers they hired off the street! The Vigilance of Free Press, the national nonpartisan organization that sponsored the National Conference on Media Reform, countered this cynical tactic.
The two FCC commissioners dedicated to preserving our rights, Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, both spoke, and Senator Byron Dorgan (D N.D.) said the three other FCC commissioners tried to take away our Internet freedom. Adelstein appealed to the Senate. In a bipartisan action they voted overwhelmingly to nullify the FCC's act. The House needs to follow suit. Please call Rep. Don Manzullo. Hold him accountable.
The second theme is the need to reverse the monopoly Big Business has on TV, radio and newspapers.
Did you notice the departure of beloved columnists, through voluntary buyouts by GateHouse Media, new owner of the Register Star? Fritz Jacobi says GateHouse ownership wasn't a factor. He said the buyout is intended to increase profits for the Register Star. Hmm. For big business, profit and stockholder dividends are all that matter.
Sen. Dorgan spoke of a deadly chemical spill in Minot, N.D. Six commercial radio stations all played homogenized music originating from over a thousand miles away. No one at home. No warning!
Sen. Dorgan asked, "If owned by six different people, do you think they might have gotten somebody out of bed" to alert the public? Two companies own all six Minot radio stations.
He quoted Natalie Maines who said, "We are ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas." That's all she said!
Suddenly, the Dixie Chicks were boycotted and banned by 1400 radio stations! A mass uprising. But wait! These stations are ALL owned by TWO companies: Cumulus (WROK, WZOK, Q98.5 and the Eagle) and Clear Channel, with nineteen stations in Chicago, Madison, Wis., and Milwaukee. Reminiscent of Nazi book burning, both giant companies held rallies. Cumulus smashed CDs with giant tractors! This is about free speech. Even if you love George Bush, I hope you are shocked by what the owners of our "local" radio stations did.
Your very life - your future - depends on restoring the freedoms being taken away from us. We can do it. Go to freepress.net, StopBigMedia.com and
SaveTheInternet.com. Browse the videos and audios of workshops.
Finally, visit vanjones.net/. Van Jones' amazing closing speech wasn't released. Too partisan. NCMR practiced SELF-CENSORSHIP as a nonpartisan organization! Let's bring Jones to Rockford. His ideas will help our Cool City with its Freedom Field to really make a difference.
Harlan Johnson is a consultant to human systems, marriage and family therapist, member of the Alliance for Nonviolent Communication, and video producer.
12 Comments so far
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Billjv, I couldn't agree with you more! Very well put.
Here is a link to a video that brings all the pieces together for anyone who will take the time to watch it. Everything from the chips to religion and the fed -
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197
Just in the interest of disclosure, I work for one of the big media companies - not in news, but entertainment. Having said that, I do agree with the article. But, this and many other issues around the current state of the U.S. and the world seem to want to put a lion's share of blame on the citizenry for what is happening. This is unfair and shortsighted.
What is going on here is nothing less than a complete takeover of our world resources by corporate interests. This has been in the planning stages for over 100 years - actually probably since we won the Revolutionary war. The oligarchy that controlled world money and power then are still in control now. They just changed their tactics after America declared itself free. They bought us instead of shooting us. We are, especially regarding our political system and media machine, slaves to our corporate masters.
People may be dumb, but I believe most people are just misinformed and purposely kept that way. But even if we all were as informed as possible, the vast majority of us cannot stand up to this type of organized power/criminal monopoly of the world's resources. They have huge armies, they have control of our income, they have control over the courts and the IRS, and can absolutely crush any normal human without even laying a hand on them through government intimidation or even corporate threats.
The little people have been checkmated, which I immediately saw at the 2000 election. That was when I saw the last vestige of democracy die. It's not coming back any time soon. The only way I see out of this horrible, frightening state of the world is for the people to take back their world from corporations - which will probably happen violently as corporations get bigger and bigger and seize more natural resources til there is no other choice.
While I know the sad state of things, my Mother still believes in the system, and is, for all practical purposes, one of the un-enlightened masses. I do not blame her for this - she only knows what the "trusted news organizations" on TV tell her. She's not Internet saavy, she's not doing her own research, and yes, that's scary but it's what she knows. She (and millions of others just like her) still wants to trust the friendly television news. She still wants to trust our president. She still thinks that good prevails. She comes from a different time when men actually kept their promises and when the news WAS a source of generally truthful information.
We are looking at a war against people that is of GLOBAL proportions. It was ignited on 9/11, and is fueled by greed, power, religious bigotry and superiority complexes, and a desire to capture the entire world's resources in the hands of a few. The idea is to turn around and sell it back to us while forcing us to pay for it at whatever price. This includes oil, water, food, and healthcare. Anything that humans need is right now being monetized and then foisted back upon us, at horrible markups.
The public isn't to blame, at least in majority. This corruption has been seeded many, many years ago, and has only now really become the global threat they have always worked toward. They have thought of everything. They know where people get their information. They know how to control information. They know there will be truth-seekers and they are ready to squash them as soon as they become effective in spreading truth. They know the real state of world affairs and politics, not the whitewash we get in the states. They know that the global war against them will eventually come, and they are preparing for it. They are hiring Blackwater-type security in third-world countries to "protect their interests" and they will soon do the same on a global scale.
The major media is completely bought out, and they won't tell you about the wars already happening against little people all over the globe trying to protect their communities, farms, water, food, and other resources from these greedy fucking worms. They won't tell you that this war is spreading, and will reach fever pitch when it is declared that all good people must be chipped or be considered a terrorist (and if you don't think that's not coming, just go on and laugh - some companies have already tried to implement it for "security reasons" and luckily the local courts struck them down). It's only going to take one major "terrorist" event to "convince" the masses to do this, and then you and I and everyone else forced to get one will be trapped in this system of control.
10 - 15 years ago I would have considered all of this to be a bit on the paranoid side. But now, it's not hard to put the pieces together and see where it's going. The pieces are all being put into place. And there isn't much that us normal people can do in the short term (and there never really was, once the plans for global dominance started to be inacted by these few elites).
If FAIR was serious about media reform they would move to a visibility campaign. WHAT THEY ARE DOING RIGHT NOW IS NOT WORKING. DO WE NEED TWENTY MORE YEARS OF EVIDENCE? It only reaches niche markets, and does not get the masses who actually watch the Corporate Sewage to question it.
It is therefor not a CHALLENGE to Corporate Media in the public sphere, but rather a diversion into segmented niche markets that cannot shape electoral vocabularies and truly public disourses.
Translation: Ford Foundation, fake left.
Correction-- the fight for media reform was started in 1986 by Jeff Cohen when he founded FAIR, Fairness in Accuracy and Reporting. Others who joined him and supported him and his organization also deserve much credit. That's at least how I have to interpret it if what is meant here is holding the media accountable for its actions and inaccuracies.
I and many others have gladly supported since way back.
Yes Jacob, and the media is making us dumber and more adicted to stuff.
In addition to the sites listed in the article, everyone should watch this short animated video -
www.storyofstuff.com
This is yet another article about how everything will be okay if only the public gets a lot smarter and a lot more committed to truth, justice, and the American Way, but the public just gets dumber and dumber, and more and more committed to gadgets, rags, and greasy food.
We have laws that say domestic TV and radio can't be owned by foreign individuals or corporations. We need to introduce a series of new laws aimed at (1) breaking up the monopolies,
(2) disentangling mainstream media from large corporate interests, and
(3) prohibiting any TV, radio or newspaper to be owned by a corporation that has ANY contracts with the US military.
Right now, GE owns NBC. Imagine the kind of bias that a major TV network might have regarding an impending war if the parent corporation stands to profit from the war. Those strings have to be cut.
But more than any individual laws such as these, we need constant vigilance. Most TV, newspapers and radio are too beholden to their advertisers, in spite of professional journalistic and editorial codes of ethics that prohibit bias in favor of advertisers. We need viewers, citizens and voters to hold the media and the politicians accountable, and keep their feet toward the fire.
Lets say "I pulled off a big heist!",,, and some friends found out about it. Lets make the amount 50 million bucks for example.
Would it be fair to say that they "would want a cut of the fifty million dollars"? Or turn me in?
Before 9/11 the media was fair in political reporting. After 9/11 all bets were off. Did you notice that no matter how bad the Neocon administration became, with the lie after stinking lie (infinity!), no mention of it, or even showing any resemblance of concern of holding anyone ever accountable.
Well the week prior to 9/11 was the mission Trillions, TOP News Story! After 9/11 the story was never mentioned again.
Someone got their cut!
Coffee
the problem is perception. A lot of people go to the supermarket (or Wallmart food section) and SEE a lot of "selections" so it does not occur to them, that much of the food is rendered "food" by the same "industrial food corporations," or that food is a euphemism today for faux filler, empty calories, denatured content dressed up for sale.
It's similar with media. People see a lot of magazines and a lot of TV stations and due to this seeming abundance of "alternatives" those who have never learned to think outside of the constructs created for them by the diverse streams of authoritarian programming TRULY do not see any cause for alarm. Yes. These are the same ones who say if you have done nothing "wrong" then you have nothing to fear. Honestly, they do not SEE it! Therefore they do not recognize that their freedom is under siege. For quite a few of this ilk there is probably even the conscious or unconscious premise that someone else DECIDE for them, someone who knows better, like the political "leader," or church "authority," or Oprah-endorsed "expert," etc. Fear of not going along is the greatest fear for many, and it keeps them in a state of intellectual suspended animation. THAT population is what we are up against. Like the ding bat who left a posting today about our need to 'trust' Bush, that he is a 'Christian." Can you imagine anyone still seeing any viability in such an argument given the mountain of calamitous evidence that Bush and his enablers have amassed through action absolutely unworthy of a poisonous snake?
www.votestrike.com
It may be unwise to say so, but if ordinary Americans ever hope to regain any control whatever over their own country, it's going to require some kind of revolutionary action IMO. That may not necessarily involve an old-style armed rebellion, but it will definitely require some means for informing fellow citizens and bringing them onside. One can look to almost any past example for confirmation of the critical importance of "capturing" at least a part of the mass audience communications structure.