BY KAUKAB JHUMBRA SMITH
Heavy hitters turn out for the
National Conference on Media Reform.
T
he little yellow buttons gazed out
from hundreds of shirtfronts.
Demanding What the FCC is going
on?, the small badges captured the in-
dignant spirit bringing 1,700
people to wintry Madison,
Wis., for three days in
November.
Ambitious in a
David-taking-on-
Goliath kind of way,
activists, journalists
and academics had
gathered
at
the
National Conference on
Media Reform to figure
out how to combat an in-
creasingly consolidated media
world and a Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) that seems in bed with it.
How are the national media a Goliath? Ben
Bagdikian, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journal-
ist, explains how in The Media Monopoly, first
released in 1983 and with each new edition
revered as essential background to the current
debate on media control.
According to Bagdikian, the number of
corporations running nearly all daily newspa-
pers, magazines, radio, television, books and
movies in the country has rapidly shrunk
from 50 in 1984, to 26 in 1987 and to 10 in
1996, reflecting an ever-concentrated pool of
control. Today, only six giant corporations
own most national media.
The mayor of Madison, Dave Cieslewicz,
speaking at the conference’s opening event,
compared such conglomerates to invasive
weeds that can kill local diversity and take
over the landscape. “Local media is home-
grown and diverse,” he said. (Incidentally,
people streaming out after Cieslewicz’s ad-
dress found by the exit copies of “A Channel
of Our Own,” Dan Carol’s Nov. 6 Eugene
Weekly column on the same topic.)
Part of the backdrop of the media reform
conference had been painted this summer,
when the FCC voted to loosen the rules on
media consolidation. It’s the job of the FCC
to regulate a media oligopoly in the making.
But the FCC, headed by Michael Powell, son
of Colin Powell, seems to practically encour-
age it. (See EW archives 4/24, “De-Reg
Demons.”)
The FCC voted in June to
allow, among other things,
networks to own TV sta-
tions that reach up to 45
percent of the national
audience, and to allow
one company to own a
newspaper and a TV
station in the same city.
For self-serving reasons,
few national media outlets
covered the buildup to the
FCC’s review of media rules.
FCC Commissioners Michael
Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, who did not
support the new rules, had begun to hold
town meetings across the country in an at-
tempt to increase public awareness. As
awareness rose, so did public outrage.
Although the new FCC rules passed 3-2, the
FCC by all accounts was shaken by the public
response to what was supposed to have been
a quiet action. And then, driven by public
calls, Congress voted overwhelmingly to
freeze the new rules.
Speaking at the conference, Copps and
Adelstein warned that the public’s work is
not yet over. The Senate will not be voting to
freeze the rules until January, they say, and
more activist organization is needed to make
sure the Senate also votes to stop the FCC.
Despite this cautionary note, it was a cele-
bratory crowd who listened to the commis-
sioners in Madison.
Called a liberal “lovefest” by the Madison
weekly Isthmus, the conference was a dizzy-
ing mix of speaker panels, big name
speeches, documentary films and music acts
that left little time for unimportant things like
lunch or sleep. At times I felt I was in a giant
pep rally: from the opening session with or-
ganizers John Nichols of The Nation and
Robert McChesney of the University of
stations receive only 15 percent of funds from
the government with the rest of their budget
dependent on public donations every year. In
their case, public participation directly relates
to the quality of their programming. She’d
like to be remembered, Mitchell said, as the
person who put Bill Moyers on PBS.
Many of these nationally renowned
speakers, often speaking in solo sessions,
moved me by their consistent message that a
democracy is strengthened by a public in-
formed by a diverse media. But when it came
to many of the speaker panels, I left distinctly
uninspired. Several panelists rambled
through their time without noticeable resolu-
tion of the topic at hand.
This may be because however admirably
organized, the Madison conference some-
times seemed to creak under the weight of its
own ambition. Panels addressed sprawling
topics like “How Do We Win? Strategies,
Models and Ideas.” From early morning to
late night, with as many as eight panels and a
documentary film to choose from at any
given time, there were just too many people
to hear, too many things to see.
It was the shuttle ride back to the airport
Sunday afternoon with two others staying at
my hotel that gave me the first relaxed per-
son-to-person contact I’d been craving the
whole weekend. Riding with me were
Ahmed Bouzid, a soft-spoken Algerian pre-
siding over the watchdog group Palestinian
Media Watch, and Naomi Ishisaka, the artic-
ulate editor of ColorsNW, a Seattle-based di-
Although the new FCC rules passed 3-2, the FCC
by all accounts was shaken by the public response
to what was supposed to have been a quiet action.
I watched with interest as Nader’s face visi-
bly stiffened. He levelly asked the man if he
would curtail anyone’s First Amendment rights.
The man replied, very respectfully, “No, sir.” “
Running for public office is a form of po-
litical free speech,” Nader said, telling the
man never to ask anyone to stop expressing
their political views. Ouch.
Pat Mitchell, president of PBS, spoke
early Sunday morning. Describing the finan-
cial limitations of public TV, she said PBS
A Vaudeville
Extravaganza
Featuring
Juggling and Cheap Theatrics
Jim Page - Song singer Amanda Starr - Aerial Artist
Joey Pipia - Magician Extraordinaire
The Fighting Instruments of Karma - Musical Mayhem
...And much, much more!
A N EW O LD T IME C HAUTAUQUA B ENEFIT
Break the Monopoly
Illinois, to Friday night’s kick-off of the Tell
Us the Truth music tour with Billy Bragg, to
Saturday’s keynote with Bill Moyers, Studs
Terkel and Al Franken, attendees were
pumped up to take back the media, help
democracy, fight the good fight. Several U.S.
representatives and senators, the few on
Capitol Hill speaking up publicly about
media reform, showed up in support.
The charismatic 92-year-old Terkel
climbed the stairs to the stage with some dif-
ficulty but then held his own with the micro-
phone. He introduced Moyers Saturday night
by endorsing him for president. Moyers re-
sponded by asking Terkel to be his VP, and in
his graceful keynote speech, made a persua-
sive case for active citizen involvement in the
media. Though the audience cheered him to
continue, Moyers, saying he had run out of
time, obligingly said he would post the rest of
his speech on the conference website.
Ralph Nader, slotted for Friday, met with
a plane delay, and had to be rescheduled to an
ungodly 8 am Saturday. Speaking eloquently
about how most Americans rely on TV news
simply for sports and weather, Nader drew a
number of laughs with his impression of an
eager weatherman.
But my favorite Nader moment came
when a middle-aged guy in jeans stood up
from the audience during the Q&A session.
“Mr. Nader, I really like you. I voted for you
in ’96, I gave you money in 2000,” he said re-
spectfully. “But please, please, don’t run next
year. There’s too much at stake.”
versity magazine. As we chatted over our
conference experience and discussed the U.S.
media’s coverage of the Israeli Palestinian
conflict, I found myself wishing that more of
the weekend had been spent allowing people
to learn by just talking to each other, rather
than listening to a few panelists in a roomful
of many other interesting people.
For more information, see www.mediare-
form.net. You can get your own yellow FCC
button at www.acmecoalition.org
ew
Sunday January 11
7:00 PM
EMU Ballroom
University of Oregon
$15 general
$9 kids, seniors and disabled
Tickets at the EMU Box Office
DECEMBER 31, 2003 7