Why we won’t solve any other major problem confronting the U.S. without media reform.

The following remarks were delivered by Bernie Sanders to the National Conference for Media Reform. Sanders is the junior United States Senator from Vermont.  He is an independent, but caucuses with the Democrats.  Amy Goodman describes Sanders’ speech as an “alternative State of the Union.”

The full text to Sanders’ speech can be found here.  Video of his presentation can be found here.  Here are excerpts of Sanders’ speech to the NCMR in Memphis:

[W]e will not succeed unless you are there, unless there is a strong grassroots media, which demands fundamental changes in media today and the end of corporate control over our media. We’ve got to work together on that.

Now, you are going to hear from a lot of folks who know more about the details of the media than I do, but what I do know a lot about is how media impacts the political process, what media means for those of us who day after day struggle with the major issues facing our country and a goal of trying to improve the quality of life for all of our people.

And I want to spend just a minute in telling you what I suspect most of you already know. If you are concerned, as been said, about healthcare, if you are concerned about foreign policy and Iraq, if you are concerned about the economy, if you are concerned about global warming, you are kidding yourselves if you are not concerned about corporate control over the

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Alas, poor York

There is a risk to knowing more than a little history (or religion or politics).  Learning more than the popularized cartoon version of traditional history lessons has a way of contaminating comforting myths.   See here and here. Take, for example, the story of William Clark of Lewis and Clark.  Everyone…

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Bill Moyers: “Big Media is Ravenous. It Never Gets Enough. Always Wants More. And it Will Stop at Nothing to Get It.”

Here, courtesy of DemocracyNow.org, it the written text of Bill Moyers' plenary speech during the Nation Conference for Media Reform. Where is the movement headed? Read this part of Moyers' speech: SO I'M BACK WHERE I STARTED WITH YOU, AND WHERE THIS MOVEMENT IS HEADED. The greatest challenge to the…

Continue ReadingBill Moyers: “Big Media is Ravenous. It Never Gets Enough. Always Wants More. And it Will Stop at Nothing to Get It.”

Are Victims Evil?

I’ve written before about how banking laws are for sale (some would say I’ve ranted before).  In that post I discussed payday lending.  I often hear that payday lending is not predatory and that such lenders must be offering a service, else why would people borrow money at 300%, 400%, 500% or even more?

I also hear people blame the victims of payday lending.  Others say the borrowers are at fault for borrowing money at horrible interest rates.  Even borrowers hold themselves at fault.  When (if) they get out of the trap (and make no mistake, it is a trap with a cycle of borrowing the same money repeatedly, because the costs are so high people have great difficulty paying the debt without borrowing to do so) they still blame themselves for getting into it.

Many borrowers blame themselves for being stupid or taking the ‘easy way’ out.  One person I know, when faced with the choice of becoming homeless or getting some money, said she thought the loan was an answer to prayer.  “As I prayed for help,” she said, “an ad for payday loans came on tv.  I thought God was answering my prayer.”  Hundreds and hundreds of dollars later in interest, she thinks it was the devil.

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Bloggers: Welcome to the downside of journalism!

A few days ago, I was at the Memphis Convention Center waiting for Dennis Kucinich to enter a large room to begin his press conference.  The reporter sitting in front of me noticed that I was wearing credentials bearing the word “press,” credentials granted by the National Conference for Media Reform.

She asked me about “Dangerous Intersection.”  I told her that it is a blog created in March 2006.  I mentioned that we have a dozen participating authors and that we get about 1100 unique visitors each day. 

She asked, “Would you have ever believed back in March that you would be sitting here covering a press conference of a person running for President of the United States?”   It didn’t cross my mind back then. This blogging experience has taken lots of unexpected twists and turns.  I jokingly told her that she was making me nervous by making the press conference seem more important–and reminding me that I am merely a citizen journalist.  

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(Here I am in Memphis, Citizen Journalist.  The bottom of my badge reads “Press.”)

One of the main points stressed throughout the Media Reform Conference, however, was that journalism is changing rapidly.  Corporate media is struggling (often because its corporate owners are muzzling its reporters) and citizen journalists are stepping into the void.  Though the citizen journalists range in quality, they do include many highly qualified reporters who are having lots of fun contributing to the public discourse.  Prior to this movement, most of these people …

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