From the incredible accounts of on-the-ground reporting from Tahrir Square during the internet and cell phone blackout by Democracy Now’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous, to inspiring victories like an expansion of Low Power FM radio stations over the course of the next year, the conference was packed with individuals and institutions breaking through what Amy Goodman calls “the static.”
Some conference video is available here, here and here. Below are some of the things from the conference that stood out to me.
Free Press co-founder Bob McChesney calling for significant public funding for independent public interest media:
Professor Lawrence Lessig presenting on his new RootStrikers initiative on money and politics:
The Prometheus Radio Project’s Radio Summer campaign to maximize the number of Low Power FM community radio station applications that get filed in the coming year.
Jason Pramas of Open Media Boston and Libby Reinish of Free Press organizing a session for a Boston media reform network.
This was a very promising roundtable discussion, and there are plans in the works for a May meeting to kick things off.
All in all, if we can’t communicate, we can’t challenge the dominant narratives that bind us to destructive systems. We will be swept aside as the prevailing forces for greed and self-interest out-organize us and keep us on the defensive, consistently divided and conquered. The time for complaints is over. “The media” is us now. If we accept the challenge, we can indeed change the world.
and Alex Jones, well that’s a good thing.