A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Last week's Media Reform Conference in Minneapolis may have been the last in a series of such gatherings to occur under a Republican administration. Resembling mass meetings of progressive political activists with access to alternative media, the conferences have been uniform in opposition to Republican rule, which has relentlessly sought to deliver the nation's means of communication into mega-corporate hands. Should Barack Obama win the presidency, and fail to measure up to progressive standards, media activists will confront a challenge many have never faced: how to do aggressive reporting on erstwhile friends.
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How Will Media Reformers Treat President Obama?
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
"What happens when the Democrats move to Pennsylvania Avenue?"
The best-ever Media Reform Conference just ended, in Minneapolis. Let's hope there will never be another one like it.
That's because one hopes Barack Obama, the Democrat, will occupy the White House 18 months from now, when the next Media Reform conference is scheduled. Obama will have had about a year to show what kind of "change" he's planning, or is capable of achieving - and that alone should make for a very different kind of conference. George Bush and his Republicans have been in power during the entire history of Free Press, an organization founded in 2002 that initiated periodic media conferences. In 2003, Bush's Black chairman of the Federal
Communications Commission, Colin Powell's son Michael, attempted to impose regulatory changes that would have allowed Big Media to gobble up much of what's was left of the radio and television spectrums. With Free Press in the lead, a massive public awareness and citizen action campaign successfully resisted the media grab, and elevated media reform to a priority among progressives.
The thousands that attended media reform conferences in St. Louis, Memphis and Minneapolis might best be described as the political Left equipped with communications gear. They are not, for the most part, media professionals, but political activists armed with media tools. As corporations bought up radio and television stations and newspapers, freezing the Left out of broadcast and print coverage - out of the American political conversation - progressives found the price of media equipment becoming dramatically cheaper. They colonized the various islands of expression made possible by the Internet and low cost equipment and computer programs.
"Jones urged the crowd to ‘hold this new president accountable.'"
The Left lives largely on "alternative" media, and to be without some form of media is to hardly exist, at all. It was logical that media conferences like the one just concluded in Minneapolis would be uniformly opposed to the regime in Washington. But what happens when the Democrats move to Pennsylvania Avenue?
If Barack Obama is really a closet progressive, then the possibilities to put media at the service of the people, will be vastly enhanced by one year into his term. On the other hand, if Obama is a captive of the money that put him in office, that will become manifested in media matters very early in his term, with his appointments to the FCC. There will be very concrete things to talk about, real evidence of where Obama is going, and how folks involved in media can help or hinder his getting there. The same logic applies to the Left in general, most of whose political tendencies are represented in media reform circles.
Van Jones, of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and the Internet organization, Color of Change, closed out the Minneapolis conference. Jones urged the crowd to "hold this new president accountable" and to "do it in a loving way."
Well, exactly how is that done, especially if Obama doesn't love Blacks and progressives back? Hopefully, we'll soon have a chance to find out - and to spread the discussion far and wide, through a freer and more effective media.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected].
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