CHICAGO MEDIA ACTION ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER: December 1, 2003
http://www.chicagomediaaction.org

(1) ANNOUNCEMENTS: UPCOMING EVENTS 

Chicago Media Action has learned that FCC chair Michael Powell will
be making a visit to Chicago on Thursday, December 18, 2003, to give 
a speech before the Economic Club of Chicago.  Plans for a hearty hello
(read: protest) are still in formation.  Watch your email for further 
details soon.

Chicago Media Action will be co-presenting (with Andersonville 
Neighbors for Peace and Chicago Filmmakers) the film "Plan Colombia: 
Cashing-In on the Drug War Failure".  The screening will take place
Saturday, December 6, 8:00pm, at Chicago Filmmakers, 5243 N. Clark St., 
2nd Floor.

And Chicago Media Action is planning a film and forum for Martin Luther
King Day weekend, to be held Sunday January 18, 2004 (the Sunday immediately 
before the official holiday).  The forum may become part of a city-wide 
grassroots film festival scheduled for that weekend.  More details to
come.

(2) WHAT'S HAPPENING IN MEDIA POLITICS?

A sneaky "compromise" to one of the FCC's ownership rules has evidently 
wound itself through Congress.  The compromise refers to the percentage
reach of a network's potential audience--the vaunted 35% rule.  The FCC
voted in June to increase the rule to 45% (though a loophole for owning 
UHF stations could make the limit upwards of 70%).  The "compromise" is
to set the limit to 39%, even though (1) two networks, CBS and Fox, just 
barely fit under the 39% limit and would have been forced to sell off
stations under the 35% cap, and (2) despite this "compromise", media
moguls were nonetheless able to win pretty much everything they asked for.

To read more about the matter, including what's to come and what we can 
do next, please visit:

http://www.mediareform.net/congress/updates.php?id=27

But remember, the game isn't over yet, not by a long shot.  There's 
still the Senate rollback bill (S. 1046), a new measure to put the 
Resolution of Disapproval against the FCC to a House vote, and the 
lawsuit against the FCC which won a successful rules stay on September 3.  

Meanwhile, the FCC is trying to enact another shady giveaway, this
pertaining to the digital spectrum.  The Center for Digital Democracy 
is on the case and launching a campaign against the giveaway.  To read 
more, and to act, please visit:

http://www.mediareform.net/news.php?id=1655

http://www.democraticmedia.org/getinvolved/mustCarryAction2.html

(3) WHAT'S HAPPENED LAST MONTH WITH CMA?

Members of CMA participated in the National Conference on Media
Reform, which took place in Madison, Wisconsin on November 7-9, 2003, 
and which has aired on CAN TV.  The conference proceedings are archived
here:

http://www.mediareform.net/conf/recordings.php

CMA also co-presented (with Neighbors for Peace) a rescreening of GNN's "Aftermath: Unanswered Questions from 9/11", and
launched a rapid response campaign against WTTW-TV, channel 11 (Chicago's main PBS affiliate).  
To learn more about the campaign, and to take part, please visit:

http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/index.php?link=rapid_response

(4) MEDIA FACTOID OF THE MONTH

To quote from a Scientific American article (February 2002, p. 77) on 
television and videotape: "Many people never return to much of the 
material they have videotaped."

(5) MEDIA QUOTE OF THE MONTH

"I wasn't trying to predict the future.  I was trying to prevent it."
 -- Ray Bradbury, on writing the book "Fahrenheit 451", as noted
    in the Wall Street Journal's Opinion journal, May 14, 2003

(6) THIS MONTH'S WEBSITE

http://www.newcollegenews.net/mediaactivism.html

The New College of California News maintains a news and information
portal on media activism.  

(7) MORE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Because of the upcoming holiday season, CMA is rescheduling its meeting 
schedule for December.  The next CMA meeting will be on Tuesday, 
December 2, at 6:30pm, with a subsequent meeting two weeks afterward, 
December 16, also at 6:30pm.  Both meetings will be held at 3411 W. 
Diversey (corner of Diversey and Kimball, near the Logan Square stop 
on the CTA Blue Line).  All are invited.

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***

This is an email from Chicago Media Action, a Chicago activist
group devoted to media issues.

Chicago Media Action, P.O. Box 14140, Chicago IL 60614-0140  
Call toll-free: 1-866-260-7198  
Web: www.chicagomediaaction.org
email: cma@chicagomediaaction.org

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