CHICAGO MEDIA ACTION NEWSLETTER: April 8, 2008 http://www.chicagomediaaction.org In this newsletter: * Register your disapproval * Ads in children's school books? * Media Networking Party - Saturday, June 14 * NPR News: National Pentagon Radio? * Youth media in Chicago * Net addiction (1) ANNOUNCEMENTS AND UPCOMING EVENTS * The FCC is requesting comments for a proposal to have community advisory boards for U.S. TV stations: http://www.benton.org/node/9258 * Save the internet! Support net neutrality. http://www.savetheinternet.com/ * Register your disapproval of the FCC's Media ownership rules Senate Joint Resolution 28, introduced by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), would rescind the Federal Communications Commission's December 2007 rule regarding broadcast media ownership. The FCC decision allowed newspaper-broadcast combinations in the nation’s top 20 markets and made it easier to win waivers for newspaper-broadcast combinations in smaller markets. Text of JR 28 - http://www.freepress.net/files/sjres28.pdf Learn more - http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=sj110-28 * Please ask NPR's ombud to investigate how NPR determined the lowest and highest estimates for Iraqis killed in the Iraq War. Find out more and take action: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3326 National Pentagon Radio? - Norman Solomon http://tinyurl.com/44xgua * Keep Disguised Ads Out of Children's Books HarperCollins Children’s Books recently announced plans to publish a new series of books targeted at 8- to 12-year-olds featuring a character called “Mackenzie Blue.” Although touted by the publisher for teaching kids about protecting the environment and promoting global understanding, the Mackenzie Blue series actually aims to be a vehicle for delivering commercial messages. Take action here: http://tinyurl.com/58f2oa Support the Parents Bill of Rights! http://tinyurl.com/4jtqlt * SAVE THE DATE - Media Networking Party Saturday, June 14, 2008 - 3:00 to 5:00PM Metro Chicago Progressive Media Network and Chicago Media Action are sponsoring a Media Networking Party, Saturday, June 14, 2008 to follow up on the event of February 9, 2008. Location TBA. Come for more fun, videos, good snacks, conversations - and media networking. Let’s get together in order to make the most of our resources to get the progressive message out. For more information and/or to volunteer, call Beverley Walter at 708/447-1546. * Film: War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning us to Death - Saturday, April 19, 4 pm - Open University of the Left, 1300 N Western Ave., at New World Resource Center. Narrated by Sean Penn, based on the book by Norman Solomon. www.openuniversityoftheleft.org/ Penn’s War: Media Lap Dogs Backed Iraq Mess Susan Donaldson James, ABC News http://tinyurl.com/4t2p22 (2) WHAT'S CMA BEEN UP TO LATELY? * CMA participated in, and co-sponsored, the big March 19th Chicago march for peace. * A CMA member appeared on WCIU Channel 26 this month to discuss digital literacy and digital activism. * CMA has been researching biased local coverage of both Iran and the Easter service protest at Holy Name Cathedral. (3) WHAT'S NEW IN MEDIA POLITICS? * Sam Zell: A Tough Guy in a Mean Business Richard Perez-Pena - April 7, 2008 With the newspaper industry going through an unexpectedly sharp contraction, Tribune is struggling under $12.8 billion in debt, and its financial condition has deteriorated, creating what specialists say is a very real risk of credit default in the next year or so. http://tinyurl.com/5tnvog * The Grave Dancer: Sam Zell and Tribune’s fate Ryan Chittum and Hannah Fairfield Colombia Juournalism Review - March / April 2008 When the Tribune Company went private in December, Sam Zell completed a deal that many had said he couldn’t get done. Now comes the hard part—staying solvent. http://www.cjr.org/feature/the_grave_dancer.php?page=all * The multi-billion dollar auction of the public's 700 MHz spectrum band just concluded -- with consequences more dismal than not: http://www.wetmachine.com/totsf/item/1123 http://www.wetmachine.com/totsf/ (scroll down to the bottom) * More Funding Needed for Transition TV Technology.com Technical challenges remain for over-the-air viewers in the DTV transition and there’s no federal funding for the solutions. http://www.tvtechnology.com/pages/s.0014/t.12470.html (4) OTHER MEDIA NEWS * Chicago youth media: “Hoops High” At Jeff McCarter’s Free Spirit Media video production program at North Lawndale College Prep, students produce the insanely popular CAN-TV television show “Hoops High,” which features play-by-play game coverage of Chicago high school athletic events. The students are responsible for all aspects of production: they shoot, edit, and announce all of the action themselves. The students even conduct sideline interviews. Brags freshman Daryl Jackson. “Most kids’ programs are run by adults where they control the final project, but here we are in charge.” http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/one-class/ * Chitown Daily News Your neighborhood, your city, your news. The Daily News is an online newspaper covering Chicago. A non-profit organization, most of its content is written by volunteers covering the neighborhoods they live in. http://www.chitowndailynews.org/ * Uniting for Peace Vickie An, Time for Kids, April 2, 2008 Thirty teen leaders from around the world came together in New York City this week. The youths represent 18 countries on five continents, and come from a diverse range of cultures and backgrounds. Despite their differences, they all share one simple message: Just Peace. http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/kids/news/story/0,28277,1727445,00.html * PBS’s Frontline: Too Timid, Too Little, Too Late On Iraq Consortium News, by Ray McGovern, former analyst for the CIA The White House, and especially Cheney’s swollen office, exert enormous pressure over what we are allowed to see and hear. The fear they instill in the corporate press, and in what once was serious investigative reporting of programs like Frontline, translates into programs getting neutered or killed outright-and massive public ignorance. http://tinyurl.com/4dtv4f * Did only two papers feature 4,000 Iraq deaths across their front pages? Katharine Zaleski, Huffington Post It’s a sad day for America’s media when the tragic milestone of 4,000 soldiers’ deaths is reported and it appears that just two papers — yes two — place it across their front pages. http://tinyurl.com/4ehu6p * News Dissector Takes on CNBC on financial crisis coverage Danny Schechter, MediaChannel http://tinyurl.com/6pns2c (5) WEBSITE OF THE MONTH WIMN’s Voices: A Group Blog on Women, Media, AND… http://www.wimnonline.org/WIMNsVoicesBlog/ WIMN’s Voices, the women’s media monitoring group blog, features a diverse online community of fifty women blogging on media coverage of women and a range of social, cultural and political issues every day. (6) QUOTE OF THE MONTH "We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late." -- Dr. Martin Luther King (from the 1967 Speech by MLK: Beyond Vietnam--A Time to Break Silence The Real News) A year to the day before his assassination, King gave this speech at the Riverside Church in New York: http://tinyurl.com/4hcg69 (7) FACT OF THE MONTH In South Korea, which has the greatest use of broadband in the world, 10 people died from blood clots from remaining seated for long periods in internet cafés and another was murdered because of an online game. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/23/news.internet See also: http://www.netaddiction.com/ *** *** *** *** *** *** *** Chicago Media Action meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month at 6:30PM. All are welcome. Contact us at: cma@chicagomediaaction.org This is an email from Chicago Media Action, a Chicago activist group devoted to media issues. This newsletter is edited by Scott Sanders and Mitchell Szczepanczyk. Chicago Media Action, P.O. Box 14140, Chicago IL 60614-0140 Call toll-free: 1-866-260-7198 Web: http://www.chicagomediaaction.org E-mail: cma@chicagomediaaction.org