Media Reform's Moment

The national campaign by Consumers Union, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Christian Coalition and dozens of other groups to prevent AT&T from colonizing the Internet has much in common with the fight by a 28-year-old disabled veteran named Valerie Walasek to keep her favorite radio station on the air. For one thing, both are part of a broad media reform movement that is transforming the debate over communications policy at the national, state and local levels. For another, both scored significant victories in December.

After collecting 1.4 million signatures on petitions, gaining support from musicians such as Moby and the Dixie Chicks and building alliances with key members of Congress, the SavetheInternet.com Coalition forced AT&T to respect network neutrality--the principle that all Internet users must have equal access to all websites--as part of a deal to allow the telecommunications behemoth to acquire BellSouth. Around the same time, radio giant Clear Channel gave in to a noisy petitioning and picketing campaign by Walasek and other fans of the Air America affiliate in Madison, Wisconsin, and reversed a decision to do away with the affiliate's liberal talk format.

A decade ago, when Bob McChesney and John Nichols began arguing in these pages for the formation of a grassroots media reform movement, following the passage of a sweeping giveaway to the corporations known as the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the notion that people power could tip the balance back seemed a bit fanciful. But as 3,000 activists from across the country gather on January 12 in Memphis for the third National Conference for Media Reform, this movement has come of age. Federal Communications Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein will address the conference, as will Ed Markey, the new chair of the powerful telecommunications subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

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