For the past two days, I’ve been reporting from the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis.  This conference is being sponsored by Free Press.

Here is a link to the inspiring speech Bill Moyers delivered yesterday.  I’ve sketched some notes below, as well, but there is no substitute for seeing the video of the speech.

Moyers spoke of the “plantation mentality” that has developed among those corporate that deliver the media.  They tell us what to believe, repeating it as necessary. What has resulted is a plundering of most of us by the corporate elite, and “none of this is accidental.”   In order to really understand what’s going on with media, we need to keep asking ourselves “who wags the system?”

Moyers asked:  What kind of nation do we want?  Do we really want the kind of nation where the “rich get richer and the poor get poorer?  Do we want the kind of nation where patriotism means “blind support?”

If big media won’t tell us our real story, “we have to tell the story ourselves.”  In fact, “Freedom begins when you realize that someone else has been writing your story.”  We are, after all, “a nation of story tellers,” and the corporate media “no longer owns the copyright to America’s story.” 

This is largely thanks to the digital revolution.  Throught the internet we can share our stories.  We don’t have need the permission of corporate media.  “Two people can keep each other sane.” 

But we can’t take the Internet for granted.  Corporations took over radio and TV and they now have their sights on the Internet.  You see, big media is “ravenous” and “imperial.”

Moyers capped his speech with an announcement that, in April, he will be returning to the anchor chair at PBS with Bill Moyers’ Journal, leading to extended and enthusiastic applause from the audience of more than 3,000. 

Here’s more on the speech from Free Press.

As the conference opened, SavetheInternet.com Coalition unveiled the “Internet Freedom Declaration of 2007,” which sets forth its plan not just for winning Net Neutrality in the next Congress, but establishing faster, universal and affordable broadband for everyone.  Read the Declaration at http://www.freepress.net/docs/netfreedomdeclaration-front.pdf