I’m just back from St. Louis, where Free Press staged its second National Conference on Media Reform. Bringing together more than 2,000 of the country’s most dedicated and innovative media activists and content producers with dozens of bold-face progressive names for three days of panels, meetings, strategy sessions and parties, the conference showed both the strengths and weaknesses of what now must be called an actual media reform movement.
The most obvious problem was the lack of significant representation of the vibrant non-white media movements in the US. But this conference was better on that front than the last, and the paucity of black and brown faces at the confab made it difficult for attendees and organizers to avoid this elephant in the room.
Other than the composition of the crowd, what most struck me was everyone’s seriousness. Not just the panels and seminars but even the conversations in the hallways and bars spoke of fervor and conviction. People really care about creating independent media. The range of innovative projects on display and up for conversation was awesome. I could pen a year’s worth of ActNow posts just by highlighting all the great ideas I heard over drinks on my first day in St. Louis.
On my first morning I was lucky to meet Brad deGraf of Media Ventures, who detailed his Books We Like project, which was supported early by Alternet and Chelsea Green publishers.
DeGraf describes the idea as “collective intelligence and activist e-commerce” (and made a good pitch, along with his collaborator Jennifer Nix of CG, for The Nation to come on board). As his site explains, “it is something we (the users) are building together, an open resource on books: which are great, why, on what subjects, in whose opinion.” It’s also “a way to use online shopping to effect change. BWL collectivizes online book (actually any product at Amazon, Powells, etc.) purchases, maximizes the resulting sales commissions, and pools them to fertilize progressive independent media.” Click here to learn more.
Later that day, I met some local St. Louis activists who operate a website called TrueBlueLiberal which seeks to make clear the strong presence of many so-called “blues” living and fighting in the so-called “red” states.
That night, I saw a brilliant presentation by Kim Spencer of LinkTV and Paul Jay, a Canadian visionary intent on creating the world’s first global independent news network. Operating online and on TV, the idea is to deliver independent news and real debate–without funding from governments, corporations or commercial advertising. Jay convincingly argued that internet fundraising makes it possible, as he laid out the details of his Independent World Television project. In a few years, IWT could be big. (And LinkTV is already on the air in 25 million homes in America. Click here for info on how to sign up.)
Much later, way past when I thought I’d still be learning things, I heard about microbicides, which could be the most important innovation in reproductive health since the pill. No effective microbicide is yet available to the public but ultimately, an inexpensive gel or cream could be produced which could be used by either men or women to prevent the sexual transmission of STDs, most importantly AIDS. The problem is that the economic self-interest of pharmecutical companies is not served by investing in necessary microbicide R&D. So click here to help support the campaign to press for a massive infusion of government investment to fill this R&D gap.
Apologies to all the many great ideas on display in St. Louis unremarked on here. I will try to get to them. And check out the Free Press site for coverage of the conference and info on how you can get involved in the fight for a more democratic media system.
