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January 2004

Volume , Number 0


Activism

There are no articles.

Commentary

There are no articles.

Culture

There are no articles.

Features

Music Review
John Zavesky


The Military
Stefan Wray


Quiddity
Z Staff


Omissions
Stephen R. Shalom


Special Report
Jeremy Scahill


Mideast
John Ryan


Free Press
Daniel Mcleod


Commercialism
William Macdougal


Polemics
Sonny Laymatina


Organizing The Military
Ellen Hinchcliffe


Fog Watch
Edward Herman


Foreign Policy
A.k. Gupta


Media
Diane Farsetta


Gay & Lesbian Community Notes
Michael Bronski


Conservative Watch
Bill Berkowitz


Anti-War Organizing
Hans Bennett


Immigrant Activism
Ricky Baldwin


Zaps

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NOTE: Z Magazine subscribers and sustainers have access to all Z Magazine articles here and in the archive. The latest Z Magazine articles available to everyone are listed in the Free Articles box at the top of the table of contents, and are starred in the list below. Questions? e-mail Z Magazine Online.

Wisconsin Media Conference

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M edia scholars, reporters, and activists converged in Madison, Wisconsin from November 7 to 9. The big draw was the National Conference on Media Reform, organized by Free Press (www.mediareform.net) and UW- Madison’s A.E. Havens Center. As Free Press cofounders Robert McChesney and John Nichols stated, the turnout of more than 1,600 far surpassed their initial estimates of a few hundred attendees. But the national conference wasn’t the only game in town. A free parallel meeting of marginalized voices greatly enriched the conversation. In all, three not-mutually exclusive visions were advanced: be the media, reform the media, and radically transform the media. 

Be the Media 

C oncerned by the national conference’s registration fee, emphasis on big names, and focus on “reform,” Madison Indymedia, Infoshop, and WORT community radio organized a free parallel meeting called Be the Media! 

Be the Media! opened Friday evening with the film Independent Media in a Time of War , by the Hudson Mohawk Independent Media Center, and a discussion with Juan Gonzalez, Jeremy Scahill, and Amy Goodman of “Democracy Now!” Although many in the packed auditorium likely came to see Amy Goodman, local activists also spoke. Volunteers at the community access TV station warned of a threat by city council members to cut their funding (a cheap political stunt that, fortunately, failed). El Salvador and Palestine solidarity activists gave updates on their work. “Being informed is only the first part,” Madison-Arcatao (El Salvador) Sister-City Project member Marc Rosenthal stated. “We also need to organize.” 

Saturday was devoted to hands- on, action-oriented workshops on subjects ranging from making bilingual media to starting a microradio station to performing political theater. Attendance was on the small side, though participants included both national conference attendees and local activists. Workshops assumed knowledge of the issues and a desire to put information gained to use with local media projects and in the streets—assumptions which seemed pretty accurate. 

In the same DIY spirit, and correctly guessing that “any corporate media coverage of the conference will be perfunctory (if at all),” activists launched a Be the Media! Blog (www.wisconsinite.net) to report on the weekend’s events. The Bloggers also pulled off the impressive feat of webcasting many national conference events with “less than a month’s worth of planning, a budget of $0, a handful of volunteers, and a whole lot of donated time/resources.” 

Reform the Media 

T he National Conference on Media Reform’s stated aims were to strengthen grassroots and national coalitions, develop unified plans for immediate and long-term reforms, and generate policies and strategies that will structurally improve the media system. Though it was impressive in many respects, the conference, in my opinion, failed to meet the last two of its goals. 

Perhaps because of the overwhelming participant response, the conference relied on an “expert” to audience one-way flow of information. Only one hour at the end of the conference offered a more interactive structure. These “issue salons”—on issues including hyper-commercialism, media ownership, and democratic governance —used a speed dating format in which people talked in small groups for six minutes and then changed groups. It was fun, but any in- depth discussion was impossible. 

In the plenary sessions and workshops I attended, little time was devoted to policies, strategies, or plans. Instead, well-known people talked about topics that, for the most part, media reformers could safely be assumed to already be familiar with. “Big media is invested in the socioeconomic status quo.... We have underestimated the impact of media control on our [wider social justice] struggle.... How are we different from a society where [images of war] are banned?” 

Although it fell short of its admittedly ambitious goals, the conference did an excellent job at building community among independent journalists, policy activists, nonprofit leaders, and even some policy makers. The large turnout and all-star speakers’ roster, including Naomi Klein, Ralph Nader, Bill Moyers, and FCC commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein (who played a mean harmonica during Saturday night’s performance), were exciting. The energy and camaraderie generated will be important to the long-term struggle for media reform. 

Transform the Media 

T here was only one workshop that discussed media and communities of color and it stood in stark contrast to the rest of the national conference. “We ain’t fighting to take back the media, because we never had it in the first place,” stated one of the media justice presenters. 

Groups organizing in communities of color, working with youth of color, and women of color media collectives are working together under the banner of media justice. One core principle is that access to media is a human right. Another is that mass media—through its racist, sexist, heterosexist, and classist language and images—is an instru- ment of genocide. 

The media justice approach “depends on base-building and community organizing—not lobbying.” Another presenter highlighted the media reform/media justice divide with an anecdote: Philadelphia organizers door-knocking to register people in opposition to the FCC plan relaxing media ownership rules encountered many people of color unwilling to give their names and addresses to any government agency. 

Realizing that they had almost completely ignored issues of race, class, and gender, Nichols and McChesney asked the media justice coalition to speak at the closing plenary—ten minutes before it started. Malkia Cyril took the opportunity to inform the audience, “We won’t stay at the margins of the media and events like this much longer.” The coalition is planning its own conference in 2004 (www.media justice.org). 

The best evidence from the weekend that the media democracy movement is thriving is that there was no single event or single answer to the question of what needs to be done. Hopefully the conversation will continue, with an increased awareness of and respect for the range of strategies and actions.


Diane Farsetta is a radio journalist, freelance writer, and research director at the Center for Media and Democracy. 

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