Jan
11
Speaking truth to power, 101
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[photopress:moyers.jpg,full,pp_image]Watching the pre-game on President Bush’s Iraq speech yesterday, nearly every TV journalist found it necessary to say something about how the president will be judged as a success or failure by the outcome in Iraq and that this is his last chance to preserve his legacy. (That train left the station long ago.) While it’s true that right now his presidency is inextricably defined by the complete and utter mess he’s gotten us into in Iraq, there is a possibility that history will judge him more harshly and for another reason: his head-in-the-sand approach to climate change.
The warnings from scientists are clear and unmistakable–the earth is warming and it’s because of human activity. There is some uncertainty on the rate of change, but as more data comes in the question is answered by “faster than we thought.” Increasingly climate scientists say we have a very small window to make the changes necessary to effect global warming.
Yet President Bush and (some) Republicans in Congress refuse to talk about climate change–attempting to silence the voices of real experts while trying to introduce doubt through the promotion of junk sciene. It is, as Bill Moyers said yesterday, “mind-boggling.”
Speaking at a forum in Virginia, Moyers said the President was more concerned about pacifying the Christian right and big corporations than taking care of the environment.
“Without the Christian right, the corporations that now control Washington would not have had the votes to eviscerate our environmental protections.”
Bill Moyers–one of the featured speakers here in Memphis this week at the National Conference on Media Reform–in many ways is the complete antithesis of the type of people the Bush Administration has surrounded itself with. The interests of big corporations and the power they wield are never influence his commitment and dedication to finding the truth in a story. His deeply held faith doesn’t, for a single moment, lead him to be dismissive of the beliefs of others. And his love and respect for our society ought to be a lesson to those in Washington about how to lead a life as a public figure.
Jan
9
A threat to cultural diversity.
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Yesterday I found myself surrounded by some very, very smart people. I was at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York rubbing elbows with top scientists from around the world. It was inspiring to watch these people exchange ideas freely, often passionately, as they debated their disciplines.
On more than one occasion I found myself talking to someone about the free exchange of ideas and how it was for not just students and professors, but the public in general to be able to ask questions and challenge assumptions. That free flowing discussion, unfortunately, is being threatened.
One man who recognizes the danger is Mark Emmert, the president of the University of Washington. Speaking at an FCC hearing on media consolidation, Emmert warned that the “lack of diversity that comes from that homogenization of opinions is completely antithetical to the creation of new knowledge.” The problem, he said, is that much of our culture is created in the media, and as the media becomes homogenized, so does the culture.
I have had the opportunity to go to universities in nations where homogenized opinions are, in fact, the only opinions that go forward. You can find students there who are very good at math. You can find students who are very good at reciting the scientific facts of the day. But, you will not find students who are creative. You will not find students who are pushing forward new scientific borders. You will not find students who want to debate issues with their classmates, let alone with their faculty. In short, you will not find the makings of democracy in those places.
President Bush likes to talk about spreading democracy around the world–but maybe he should pay a little more attention to keeping it robust and thriving here in the US.
Jan
9
[photopress:radio.jpg,full,pp_image]I think one of distinguishing characteristics of the internet–maybe THE distinguishing characteristic–is the way it combines nearly pure democracy with a nearly pure free market of ideas. Just about anyone can get on the internet and if their product–an idea, a piece of art, an opinion–is a good one it can succeed. There is a threat to that accessibility in the issue of Net Neutrality and I’ll write more about that soon–but right now I want to draw a comparison between the old media of TV and radio and the new media of the internet.
Last month musical icons George Jones, Porter Wagoner, Naomi Judd and others told the FCC that the consolidation of radio station ownership has made it very difficult for new artists to break through. They complained of corporate-dictated playlists that are identical from one market to another, and are weighted heavily toward artists that the big radio companies consider “safe.”
Most people, I think, still believe that a disc jockey can choose a record or take a request–a concept that is considered quaint inside the business. I worked in radio for 20 years, and during my years on a music station I never chose a single record. Relatively small playlists were chosen by auditorium testing–a hundred people listening to snippets of three hundred songs and rating them. The records were scheduled and rotated by a computer and the disc jockey just showed up and followed the list. And media consolidation makes it even worse.
If you turn on a music station in your city today there is a very good chance that none of the announcers you hear are actually in the studio. The company I worked for had five radio stations in one building, and after 9am there wasn’t anyone in any of the studios. Most of the music stations were “voicetracked”–an announcer would spend 20 minutes in a studio recording intros to records that would then be played, along with the music, by a computer. The talk stations were all running satellite-delivered programming with, at best, a minute or two of local news every hour.
Media consolidation is the driving force behind the de-personalization and de-localization of radio. One announcer can do shows on two or three different stations (using different names) in Boston, then record a show for the corporation’s stations in Columbus, Boise and Tuscon.
The FCC under the Bush Administration hasn’t met a merger or acquisition it didn’t like. Beholden to big corporate interests and fanatically devoted to the concept of deregulation, the FCC is happy to let fewer and fewer companies own more and more of the media in America. It’s not good for media consumers and it’s not good for the general public–generally it’s not even good for the employees of those companies–but it is good for the corporate executives, and that, apparently, is all that matters.
Jan
9
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Starting Thursday I’ll be reporting for CommonDreams.org from the National Conference for Media Reform, held this year in the shadow of Graceland (because deep down inside, Elvis was really all about media reform.)
What needs to be be reformed in the media? Plenty.
Consolidation of ownership is one of the biggest problems. More and more TV and radio stations are being owned by fewer and fewer big companies. The Bush Administration, through its appointees at the FCC, is all for consolidation. Last year, the administration tried to quietly slip through new ownership rules which would allow one company to literally take over the media in a city. The rules would have allowed a single company to own eight radio stations, three TV stations, Internet portals and a newspaper in a single market. Thanks to the work of grassroots activists that idea was stopped dead in its tracks, but it is sure to surface again. (Watch former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps talk about it here.)
That’s just the tip of the iceberg–there are issues like net neutrality, fake news releases from the federal government, an attack on public broadcasting…and a lot more. Jesse Jackson, Bill Moyers, Danny Glover, Geena Davis and Jane Fonda will be there–and I will, too, blogging each day from the floor of the conference.
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