All the organizing in the world won't amount to a hill of beans, however, unless there is something tangible to fight for, and to win. That's why we need reform proposals that can be advocated, promoted and discussed. Media reform needs its equivalent of the Voting Rights Act or the Equal Rights Amendment--simple, basic reforms that grassroots activists can understand, embrace and advocate in union halls, church basements and school assemblies. And there has to be legislation to give the activism a sense of focus and possibility.
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Election Tea Leaves
John Nichols: What did we learn from the off-year elections?
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Left Turn in Jersey
John Nichols: By embracing the left instead of running to the center, New Jersey's Democratic Governor Jon Corzine has revitalized his once-troubled re-election campaign.
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The World and Pittsburgh
Corporate Responsibility & Accountability
John Nichols: At the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, activists will push the United States to back proposals to regulate CEO compensation and require corporate responsibility.
Ultimately, we believe, the movement's legislative agenda must include proposals to:
§ Apply existing antimonopoly laws to the media and, where necessary, expand the reach of those laws to restrict ownership of radio stations to one or two per owner. Legislators should also consider steps to address monopolization of TV-station ownership and move to break the lock of newspaper chains on entire regions.
§ Initiate a formal, federally funded study and hearings to identify reasonable media ownership regulations across all sectors.
§ Establish a full tier of low-power, noncommercial radio and television stations across the nation.
§ Revamp and invest in public broadcasting to eliminate commercial pressures, reduce immediate political pressures and serve communities without significant disposable incomes.
§ Allow every taxpayer a $200 tax credit to apply to any nonprofit medium, as long as it meets IRS criteria.
§ Lower mailing costs for nonprofit and significantly noncommercial publications.
§ Eliminate political candidate advertising as a condition of a broadcast license, or require that if a station runs a paid political ad by a candidate it must run free ads of similar length from all the other candidates on the ballot immediately afterward.
§ Reduce or eliminate TV advertising directed at children under 12.
§ Decommercialize local TV news with regulations that require stations to grant journalists an hour daily of commercial-free news time, and set budget guidelines for those newscasts based on a percentage of the station's revenues.
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