United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.

Earlier this month the 2008 National Conference on Media Reform was held in Minneapolis. -- UFPPC's Marilyn Kimmerling was there, and wrote this report last week for the Tahoma Organizer.[1] -- Her analysis not only describes what transpired in Minneapolis but explains why media reform is an essential sine qua non if real progressive change — which can only come if there is strong pressure on leaders from the grassroots — is to be realized in the United States....

TACOMA, Washington -- The problem is simple: increasing suppression and deliberate distortion and ignorance of legitimate news and investigative reporting in the corporate-owned and -controlled newspapers, TV, and radio over the last ten to twelve years. The results of this, along with the corporate land-grab for low-powered FM public radio and TV, are increasingly obvious -- an ill-informed public blindly believing the lies they have been told, or, alternately, a cynical citizenry who feel they have no power to effect real change in this country. This is a formula for a country well on its way to a fascist state. The results of this assault on information can be seen in every aspect of the U.S. today.

This year hell would have to freeze over for me to miss this conference and yet I almost did when the plane finally landed over two hours late. After a turbulent ride and many delays I was finally at the dorm at the University of Minnesota at about 1:30 a.m. on Friday, June 6. The next three days were exciting, cram-packed with information, networking, lectures, forums, and inspiration. It was exhausting and I'd do it all over again.

The basic premise of the conference was that mainstream media's failure to inform our communities and represent the diverse voices in our communities on the most pressing issues of our time poses one of the greatest threats to our democracy: that without an informed citizenry there can be no real democracy.

First the statistics. The conference offered over 250 speakers and sixty-two panels and workshops to choose from in three days. That doesn't include the films, opening plenary talks, keynote speakers, and closing plenary. There were over 3,500 attendees from all fifty states, from teens to folks well into their eighties. Some had Ph.D.s, and some had not gone past the eighth grade and had worked in coal mines all their lives. Participants included people of all faiths and atheists, Greens, Trade Union members, Democrats, Independents, Wobblies, Communists, and Anarchists -- just about everything but Republicans! -- and every imaginable ethnic group.

Many (perhaps most) participants were already involved in public access TV, radio, newspapers, blogs, and websites. There were also singer-songwriters, film-makers, hip-hop artists, and people involved in community action, alternative education, the environment, living wage jobs, universal health care, the peace movement, labor, minority identity, immigration reform, and people working with an overwhelming variety of social justice issues. Everyone is looking to find ways to communicate -- to get the word out to folks who may not know what's going on in their community, since the corporate-controlled media aren't doing the job. Some were just plan concerned citizens. The most well-known speakers included Bill Moyers, Dan Rather, Arianna Huffington, Naomi Klein, Amy Goodman, Van Jones, Rev. Romal Tune, and many, many more -- too many to list here. All were excellent.

The five theme tracks into which the sessions or forums were assembled were Media Policy, Civil Rights, Social Justice and Media, Journalism and Independent Media, Media Reform Activism and Movement Building, and Media and Democracy: The Next Frontier.

The following is a list of the forums I attended, which were the less internet-technical ones and also not generally forums devoted to professional journalists: Corporate Media Confidential, Media and the War, Media and Elections, Media Reform and Social Change, Grassroots Lobbying 101, When Media is the Second Issue, The Minnesota Model: Countering Corporate Media, What About the Big Picture, and Everyday Heroes. The opening plenary was called "Media at a Critical Juncture," the Keynote Address was "Media Reform Begins With Me," and the closing was "Taking It Home." In a nutshell, here is the gist of what I came away with.

The framers of the Constitution made a special point of naming only the press (which in this era means also the media system in total) as a protected profession. They realized that an independent press was crucial to an informed public which then could exercise their own governance, and that without independent journalism and an informed citizenry, as Jefferson said, "a democratic society cannot sustain itself." Bill Moyers echoed and amplified this thought by saying, "As journalism goes, so goes our democracy." Is it really a concidence that as the corporate media become less and less informative, the American electorate allows the least informed president ever to steal two elections in a row?

I also now understand what net neutrality is and why it is absolutely IMPERATIVE that we preserve this last bastion of the free exchange of ideas in our society, and why the corporations are trying so hard to privatize this, too. The principle of net neutrality is that equal access to the Internet’s “last mile” of infrastructure is crucial to preserving our rights and access to freedom of speech and information. I learned that some broadband carriers are lobbying to be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications and /or content, that just as a telephone company is not permitted to tell its users who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control online activity, block information, or institute a two-tiered pricing index favoring the largest carriers.

An independent press is not our only problem, or maybe not even the most important one, but the health of our independent media affects our ability to understand and react to all of the other problems needing our attention as citizens.

I learned that for the progressive movement to be successful we had better stop excluding those who don't fit our definitions of what it means to be progressive. The blue-collar working class may lack a "formal education" but they know when they're being looked down on. The progressive movement needs to reach out, and by that, I mean really listen, hear their issues, and respond accordingly.

Finally, I already knew that even if Barack Obama wins the presidency we will have to be very vocal in stating what we want and holding him accountable, but I also learned this extremely crucial and well-stated fact, as presented by David Sirota: No president has ever been responsible for giving the American people progressive changes in our society.

The New Deal and advances in civil rights didn't happen by magic. In 1932, 1964, and 1980 we were at turning points in our history.

* In 1932, following World War I, we were ready for revolution due to joblessness, poverty, real hunger, and the Dust Bowl during the Depression.

* In 1964 Lyndon Johnson didn't give us civil rights, and there was, again, the Vietnam War, rioting in the streets, and the real specter of revolution.

* In 1980 things went the other, darker, way and we got a conservative backlash and Ronald Reagan.

We all can sense that we are at such a turning point in time again. Barack Obama will probably only be a one-term president due to the stagflation that has developed, the erosion of our credibility in the world due to our rampant imperialism, our pathetic lack of initiative in tackling our dependency on oil and addressing climate change -- unless we are so vocal that he has to go to Wall Street and tell them: "Look, if we don't accomplish these things -- universal health care, end the war now and bring the troops home, take care of climate change -- there is going to be a revolution." In that emergency case, if Wall Street and the corporations are truly afraid of the people rising up in revolt, he could see to it that money is provided for green-collar jobs by the millions to spur development of sustainable ways to develop our country's infrastructure and to retrofit every house in the nation with sustainable conservation technology.

If this occurs, we actually could move forward toward the dawning of a truly progressive society, instead of merely gaining back what has been lost over the last eight years.

And how does media reform tie into all this? We must have access to real information about what our government is doing either to solve problems or to exacerbate them in our country and in the world. We must know our real choices and options in electoral politics and in grassroots movements. We must be able to share with others what we individually and as groups, movements and affiliations are discovering and doing to promote peace, fair elections, a healthy environment, universal single-payer health coverage, humane and reasonable immigration policy, and all the other issues that are important and worthy of our energy and attention. Media reform means fair and balanced news on radio, TV, and mainstream papers, net neutrality on the web, and an extensive network of vibrant low-powered FM radio and TV programming across the nation for local news, alternative points of view, and to educate the public about our culturally diverse nation. Media reform is vital to ensure educated and involved voters -- a necessary underpinning that we need to promote and succeed in effecting for any truly positive change to be realized in our society.

--Marilyn Kimmerling never gives up and is a member of United for Peace of Pierce County (WA).