The National Conference for Media Reform focused on media reform, media policy and media activism. It was an opportunity to strategize, network, share skills, swap information and inspire one another during three days of workshops, panels, caucuses, keynote speeches, meetings and parties in Boston.
This post was as close as I could get to Boston. I have provided as much relevant information about the speakers in the videos as I could find but there are many videos out there without credits and tracking the info down is time consuming. I’ll update as time allows.
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Journalism and Public Media
Free Press’ Josh Stearns talks about the “Journalism and Public Media” section of the program for the National Conference for Media Reform April 8-10 in Boston.
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Malkia Cyril at NCMR Opening Plenary
Center for Media Justice Executive Director at the Opening Plenary National Conference on Media Reform 2011.
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Amy Goodman at NCMR 2011
Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, delivered a rousing speech about the power of the people to change the media.
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Josh Silver at NCMR 2011
Josh Silver, the out-going president and CEO of Free Press, talks about the influence of money and power in politics and the media.
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Craig Aaron at NCMR 2011
Free Press incoming president Craig Aaron spoke about media, net neutrality and showing up.
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More Community Radio Channels Thanks To Low-Power FM
Representative Mike Doyle (D-Pennsylvania) thanks the many people who helped pass the new Low-Power FM act that will create thousands of new community FM radio stations across the country.
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NCMR 2011 Opening Plenary – Full (nearly)
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Democracy NOW! (full broadcast here)
Comcast merged with NBC in January, and last month AT&T announced plans to purchase T-Mobile, a deal that could leave the country with just three wireless carriers. Meanwhile the Federal Communications Commission faces increasing criticism for its lack of progress on expanding the nation’s broadband system. DN! hosts a media roundtable with Craig Aaron, incoming president of media advocacy group Free Press; Sascha Meinrath, director of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative; and Malkia Cyril, the executive director and founder of the Center for Media Justice. (Two videos have been removed but one segment remains.)
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The Solution To Crumbling Media
You are the solution to the problems with media says Josh Stearns of Free Press.
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NCMR 2011
Building a People Powered Movement for Internet Freedom
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Jake Shapiro’s Podcasting Advice for Documentary Filmmakers
After leading a panel on The Future of Public Broadcasting at The National Conference for Media Reform, PRX CEO and founder Jake Shapiro offers advice for documentary filmmakers interested in telling stories through podcasting. PRX has a history of producing successful podcasts including the addictive series The Moth.
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FCC National Town Hall: Comments by Mignon Clyburn (introduced by Amalia Deloney)
Mignon Clyburn was nominated for a seat on the Federal Communications Commission by President Barack Obama on June 25, 2009. She was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on July 24, 2009, and sworn-in as Commissioner on August 3, 2009.
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NCMR Plenary with FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps
The panel discusses whether or not internet is a human rights issue.
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Building a People Powered Movement for Internet Freedom
CMJ’s amalia deloney gives introductory remarks during a media justice panel at the National Conference on Media Reform 2011.
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Amy Goodman moderates the Wikileaks panel at NCMR2011
Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow introduces the Wikileaks panel at the 2011 National Conference for Media Reform in Boston Massachusetts. Video by Erich Vieth of Dangerous Intersection.
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Glenn Greenwald Discusses Wikileaks
Glenn Greenwald discusses Wikileaks at the 2011 National Conference for Media Reform in Boston Massachusetts. Video by Erich Vieth of Dangerous Intersection.
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Wikileaks, Journalism, and Modern Day Muckraking Plenary – Full
Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! facilitates this plenary with Greg Mitchell, author and blogger at The Nation, Micah Sifry, co-founder and editor of Personal Democracy Forum, Christopher Warren, Federal Secretary of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance in Australia, Emily Bell, Director, Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School, and Glenn Greenwald, author and contributing editor at Salon.com.
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Following the Money: Journalism and the Economic Crisis
Anya Schiffrin, director of the media and communications program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia University Professor, winner of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, and lead author of the 1995 IPCC report, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, Dean Starkman, chief of “The Audit,” the business-press section of the Columbia Journalism Review, Chi Chi Wu, staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, a nonprofit focusing on marketplace justice for low-income consumers, and Vanessa Perry, associate professor at the George Washington University School of Business.
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Plenary: Egypt, Afghanistan and Beyond.
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Plenary: The Next Communications Act Moving Beyond Silos
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Plenary: Media and Corporate Power
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Plenary: Journalism and Democracy
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Interview with Janine Jackson, Program Director, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
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Kari Lydersen, In These Times contributing editor and former Washington Post staff writer on new media and old-school reporting.
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NCMR Closing Plenary: Taking It Home
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Tons of individual interviews from NCMR 2011 available at the Free Speech TV YouTube channel.
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Steve Katz, publisher, Mother Jones
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Excerpts by Sarah Cortes for CCTV and NeighborMedia
Following Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s address yesterday, US Representatives Ed Markey, D-MA, and Rep. Donna Edwards, D-MD, were among tonight’s keynote speakers at the National Conference for Media Reform at the Seaport Hotel.
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Molly Stentz on the power of Community Radio during the Wisconsin Protests
Molly Stentz, a national leader in community-based media–who serves as the news facilitator at WORT-FM community radio (www.wort-fm.org) in Madison, Wisconsin–offers her inspiring reflections about how community radio led the way during recent worldwide newsmedia coverage of the Wisconsin Capitol Protests.
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John Bonifaz – Free Speech for People at National Conference for Media Reform
At a session titled “Media and Corporate Power: Beating Back the K Street Juggernaut,” John Bonifaz, co-founder of Free Speech for People discusses how to proceed in light of Citizens United.
[Editor's Note: The reason this video is relevant has to do with the increasing conflation of "speech" and "press" rights in the media. Freedom of speech protects liars. Freedom of the press protects truth-tellers. Commercial media is already blurring those lines enough. If speech comes to be recognized as an institutional right, the last thin membranes between press and propaganda will dissolve completely.]
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Rootstrikers
8 April, 2011: Lawrence Lessig presentation at National Media Reform Conference, calling for rootstrikers, and launching a project of Fix Congress First: rootstrikers.org. FixCongressFirst is a nonprofit organization founded in 2008 by Lawrence Lessig and Joe Trippi to fight the corrupting influence of money in politics.
[Editor's note: This is obviously about politics more than journalism but there is a strong connection to the main Journo Watch mission, which is to determine the viability of a global, commercial-free, subscriber-funded TV news channel -- survey. Just as Mr Lessig ties all the problems with America's political class to their funding, which isn't nearly as partisan an issue as many believe, the same is true of our media class. As long as commercial interests dominate the revenue stream, the public interest will be nothing more than a quaint afterthought. TV is still the dominant voice in civic debate, like it or not. And that isn't going to change any time soon, especially with net neutrality on the ropes.
The army that chooses the battlefield is usually the army that wins. The medium is TV but the battlefield is the Overton Window. In commercial media, moneyed interests choose the battlefield -- the acceptable range of options as defined by Overton. Even public broadcasting depends on large donors and political favors, ensuring that the acceptable range of options in any debate reflects the choice of the money class. Nearly all televised news in America is compromised in this way. And then there's the follow-the-leader mentality. Fox News is the leader so everyone follows their narrative, despite it's grounding in something akin to a bad acid trip. But the people have the power to blow all of that away if we're willing to pay a nominal fee to support a service of global scale and local value.
For further reinforcement on these points, watch Robert McChesney's presentation below. He is, of course, absolutely right about the "massive public subsidy" required to properly finance real, authentic journalism in any democracy. But there are two problems with depending on public financing. One, it's a tough sell in any political climate and in America today, well, insert your own joke here. Two, even if the public was on board, the dependence on political favor is still a recipe for self-censorship, no matter how bland the sauce, and the financing can always be pulled anyway, leaving journalism high and dry again. The history of publicly financed media in America has already demonstrated that vulnerability. A massive public subsidy on an opt-in basis is all a subscription service really is. It's the scale that is possible with emerging technology that lowers the subscription fees and makes the service accessible to even the poorest of communities. And that scale would also make it the new leader very quickly. New leader, new narrative. No commercials. It's possible and the model already exists on paper. Will people pay for it? You tell me, here.]
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Robert McChesney discusses the need for public-supported journalism
At a session titled “Journalism and Democracy” Robert McChesney, co-founder of Free Press, discusses the need for a public-supported journalism, based on current needs, comparisons with healthy representative governments and the historical record.
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GRITtv covers the NCMR 2011
This weekend, GRITtv headed to Boston with lots of our favorite media makers, activists, and thinkers for the National Conference for Media Reform. Laura was the emcee for the opening plenary, and then stuck around all weekend, talking about money, media and politics with movers and shakers. Check out some of what we saw at the conference! Distributed by Tubemogul.
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The Uptake:
Corporate Media Missing The Stories As Corporations Quash Coverage
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True Power of Independent Media is Trickle-up Journalism
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Craig Aaron: Free and Open Internet a Non-partisan Issue
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“If You Hate the Media, Be the Media”
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Making Media More Responsive, More Reflective of Life
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Start Looking at Cell Phones as Political Devices
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More video available at The UpTake YouTube channel.
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Hakim Bellamy at NCMR 2011
Poet Hakim Bellamy was represented by this video at the National Conference for Media Reform in Boston on April 8.
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dan bloom
April 14, 2011
To err is human, to make a typo is typical ..AND…..PAul, can you blog or comment on this
re media reform? DANNY in Taiwan
What do Frank Rich of the New York Times, Ann Wroe of the Economist
and James Gleick appearing
in the Boston Phoenix have in common? They all either perpetrated typos
or content gaffes or were grossly
misquoted in published interviews, and none of the mistakes have been
corrected yet where they appeared
online. [UPDATE: Ms Wroe is correcting the gaffe in her piece right now.] Internet posterity will look back and say, perhaps: Why did
nobody ever bother to correct those online mistakes
even when they were pointed out by readers and comment posts? Was
everyone asleep at the wheel when those
typos and gaffes were committed?
Well, not all typos go uncorrected. Many websites will correct mistakes
that are pointed out to them, and will do so
gladly — thanking readers for taking the time to write in as well.
But for a growing number of online news sites, from the
New York Times to the Boston Phoenix, from the Economist to the
Guardian, many typos are allowed to stay up — forever! — without
ever being
corrected. This is not the way the internet was supposed to be.
The internet was supposed to be responsive, user-friendly, utopian.
But it turns out that in many cases the
internet is turning out to be unresponsive, user-cold and dystopian.
Item: When Frank Rich wrote a column in the New York Times last August
– and Rich is no longer a Timesman, it should be noted here for
accuracy’s sake, he wrote an article that spoke of some information
”ekeing” out to the public, when in fact, he meant to sy “leaking”
out. Alert readers at the Language Log blog noted the typo and even
wrote in to the Times, asking that the online
archive containing that particular commentary piece be corrected.
Almost a year later, the Times webmasters have not changed it at all.
Item: When Ann Wroe in London wrote a very good piece recently about
the King James Bible, she inadvertently wrote that the popular song
“To Every Thing, There is a Season” was recorded by Simon & Garfunkel.
Readers were quick to write in to the comments section of the website
where her article appeared and tell her, politely, that it was the
Byrds who covered that song
and made it so popular, not Simon or Garfunkel, and that it was Pete
Seeger who first wrote the lyrics and sang the song. When we reached Ms Wroe
by email, she was kind enough to reply: ["Dear Dan,
I think the answer is that you should tell the author. I had never heard about this but, now I have, I will get it changed (and now you tell me, of course it was the Byrds. All those drony melancholic sounds tend to merge into one haze now in my head).'']
Item: When author James Gleick of New York state was interviewed by
Boston Phoenix editor Peter Kadzis recently, Gleick was quoted as
saying something or other about Adolph Hitler’s infamous book, titled,
in the Boston Phoenix version online now, “Mien Kampf”. Again, despite
emails to Gleick, Kadzis and the Boston Phoenix, Hitler’s book is
still called “Mien Kampf” by author Gleick.
What can be done about the internet’s seeming refusal to let typos lie
and not fix them? What can be done about websites’ seeming refusal to
let errors and mistakes and misquotes remain online, even when readers
take the time to report them in the hope that they will be later
corrected?
When thisblog asked Steve Myers, a news editor at Poynter.org in
Florida, about these issues, he replied:
“The proliferation of typos
on professional sites bothers
me, too. I attribute it to people being overworked and trying to keep
up with the rapid-fire nature of online publishing. But I don’t excuse
it. But I’m a bit old-fashioned, I guess.”
“In many cases, I think the author doesn’t know about the typos. Often copy
is not carefully edited before publication. (Our content at our
website is.) But as
to why other sites and other editors don’t respond, I guess your
emails and others, they all just go to the bottom of the list.”
“For an old post, I wouldn’t drop everything to fix an error, but I
would have someone fix it.”
Journowatch
April 16, 2011
Let me put it this way, Dan — the operation I would like to build would run corrections at the top of every hour. And if there are no corrections, we’ll say that. Typos happen but when a mistake alters the facts, there’s no excuse for letting it stand.
Danny Bloom
April 16, 2011
Thanks, JW, for your comment. And I love the idea of your future news op, re:….” the operation I would like to build would run corrections at the top of every hour. And if there are no corrections, we’ll say that. Typos happen but when a mistake alters the facts, there’s no excuse for letting it stand.”
BRAVO! Yes!
My little campaign is not going viral yet and prob never will, but I am building it step by step. Steve Myers at Poynter Org is aware of this and might blog on it later, as a follow to earlier pieces he has done on corrections, and I just heard from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat in California where Chris Smith, reporter and columnist there says: “Hello, Dan. Thanks for your note. The PD’s policy is to correct errors quickly, online and in the newspaper. I don’t doubt that because we’re still getting accustomed to online publishing that we have missed or delayed corrections in the versions on pressdemocrat.com. ”
Chris makes VERY IMPORTANT point here: “I believe we’re aware that faulty online information that gets picked up and repeated far and wide is difficult or impossible to trace and correct.”
So, JW, this is what I am concerned about: the way typos and incorrect info can get picked up inadvertently by other news outlers and then sent wide and far carrying the same disino or misinfo or typos that are just wrong wrong wrong. A small typo, who cares? But calling Mein Kampf as Mien Kampg makes James Gleick look bad, and the Bostn Phoenix as well. And the NYT not correcting Frank Rich’s August 2010 typo gaffe of EKE OUT instead of LEAK OUT….is just plain terrrible! I rust my case…. DB
Journowatch
April 17, 2011
There should also be some room to allow for alternative spellings and phrasings to account for colloquial speech. Or, as Charles Barkley would say, “it’s just plain turrible.”
Danny BLoom
April 17, 2011
RE “There should also be some room to allow for alternative spellings and phrasings to account for colloquial speech. Or, as Charles Barkley would say, “it’s just plain turrible.” …
Agreed. There should be room for alternative spellings and phrasings to account for colloquial speech. Sure! In quotes for sure. In quotes one can say anything, except F*CK!”