Followup on the National Conference On Media Reform

Well, the media reform conference and there’s a round of reportbacks and followup. On the indymedia US list there’s bht , josh, and betsy who talked about the struggles of indymedia and media making vs lobbying reform movements. On the imc-audio list Amoshaun has put together a link to all the audio and video archives of the conference.

It’s interesting to see the continued tension between the small professionalized media reform ngo’s and participatory social movements like indymedia. On some level i agree with what Betsy said, “[I] refuse to get upset with the reform conversations because it was a reform conference.” She’s right, it’s a reformist conference by reform minded organizations with fundamentally reformist goals. That’s ok, they don’t want to tear down the system. It’s good that indymedia and other radicals are engaging and participating in that process while acknowledging that it’s a process lead by free press and the other ngo’s. We’ve got the Allied Media Conference after all.

There are to issues which stick out to me. First the media reform movement has organized itself as a small professional cadre in suits which comes to it’s annual conferences to preach the reforming the FCC gospel. Their stated goals include building a social movement to push forward media reform. To build a movement you need organizing and struggles in which people can participate. Sure, inspiring speeches and leaders can be a major part of it. By my mom’s account, the Bill Moyers’ speech was truly inspiring. But we also need space to talk. The caucuses were supposed to be that space, but they failed to be anything more than a report back. That’s a shame. The suits may be a necessity in Washington, but they put people off when it comes to grassroots organizing.

The other major issue was the media reform NGO’s looking at independent and indymedia activists as outlets for their message. They are locked out of the corporate media they are trying to reform, so they see the radical / participatory / grassroots / alternative medias as a place to get their message out. While we find the issues that the ngo’s are talking about to be compelling, and do cover their work, that’s not our job. We’re here about creating a space for people and social movements to participate in the media, to have a voice, to create a space for radical discourse. In short, we want you, the media ngo’s, to be making media. We’re not your PR agency, we’re your fellow activists in struggle. It’s funny, because we’re talking about a really small number of people, maybe less than 35 people who are actually employed in media reform ngo’s in the US. That’s enough that we could invite each of them individually over to dinner to debate this. We want to help the media reform movement, but not be stenographers to the ngo’s carefully prepared press releases.

It’s funny. One of the major goals which emerged within indymedia was to re-awaken the need for non-profits, ngo’s, activists, and social movements to use the media as a tactical tool. Creating media shouldn’t be divorced from the rest of their tools for social change, rather it needs to be central in a world which has become so transformed by communications technologies. Going back to Martin Luther and Thomas Paine, when you wanted to organize radical change, your most powerful tool can be the media. It’s not the end, the media doesn’t make the revolution, but having the media makes the revolution possible. The great irony is that most of the media reform ngo’s don’t get this. They aren’t making their own media.

There are exceptions, Sut Jhally, a media and communications professor, quit writing academic books on media reform issues and started making videos. His Media Education Foundation has been very active in creating media as well as critiquing it. There is a lot of overlap between MEF and the FreePress folks. Why can’t freepress take up some of those tactics. The EFF and others have been using online media such as actively updated blogs to engage a community and help build a movement. It’s time for the media reformers to take up the means of media production and distribution in their struggle. I’m sure local indymedia centers would be happy to help organize workshops and training’s for them.

Update: It’s not like the media reforms haven’t had major and sucessful ventures in to media production, such as Out Foxed an expose about Fox and News Corp.