I find it a cruel irony that at the same time I am planning to wrap up these newsletters, my internet service provider informed me that it is shutting down the email announcement service that I've been using for the past three years for these newsletters.

This marks the 24th and final regular newsletter in these (almost monthly) newsletter essays since I resurrected the Chicago Media Action mailing list in November 2022. What I mentioned in an earlier essay largely still stands: "I've made the decision to end these newsletters as a regular monthly project, in early [now the middle of] 2025. Let me also say, however, that I reserve the right to write and publish again in the future, if I feel the itch to do so. I still maintain this mailing list and the CMA website, so that if I want to write again I have a platform ready to go. I just don't think that I have enough grist for the mill to keep this effort ongoing.

"I will [now] shop around for publishers [for a book largely comprised of these newsletter essays]. Should my efforts to find a publisher prove unsuccessful, I will, as I mentioned earlier, publish the darn thing myself. Regardless what should transpire, I reserve the right to send out updates in this endeavor to this mailing list and to the CMA website as events warrant." And I now know, this mailing list will not be preserved with my ISP which is shutting down its announcements mailing service, but I will preserve the list in another form.

In this essay, I want to share some remarks on Chicago Media Action itself, as well as on grassroots organizing more generally.

Considering the inauspicious and frankly random circumstances that led to the formation of Chicago Media Action, I still find it extraordinary that Chicago Media Action came to being, never mind that it lasted as long as it did, nor that it was as impactful as it was, as these newsletters bore witness. If Chris Geovanis hadn't reacted as she did in the 2002 Chicago Media Watch conference, if CMW had no conference, if I felt like I needed to keep my promise to Chris, not to mention so many more chance contingencies -- none of what I chronicled would have happened, never mind enough stories and adventures to literally fill a book.

All the more astounding given that grassroots organizing is never easy, and particularly so when working with on a difficult-to-understand topic, and with others who don't always agree on everything. That was keenly apparent after the Chicago Media Watch conference which spilled out into public view, leading to the collapse of the conference and ultimately of Chicago Media Watch.

CMA has had its own share of internal difficulties during the decade-plus when CMA was most active. I never discussed these difficulties publicly because, frankly, I'm more keen on the point of the organization -- to build popular power and awareness on media issues -- than on the difficulties involved with organizing folks in enormously uneasy struggles. I thought about discussing some of those internal disagreements in this final essay, but upon further reflection I've opted not to.

That's not to say that such disagreements don't happen -- quite the contrary, they may well be endemic to organizing on the left and in a perpetually unfavorable environment. This was also one of the many, many points in the book "Organizing Occupy Wall Street" by Marisa Holmes, which I recently read. (Disclosure: I worked with Marisa many years ago when we worked together on Chicago Independent Television.) It can be enormously difficult to get people to agree, particularly when being attacked on all sides, as was the case Occupy Wall Street. It is made even harder when you're trying to live the positive values you want to embody, like openness and antiracism and transparency, and you're facing infiltrators and agents provocateur and fraudsters inside your group, in addition to armed police and federal troops and the billionaire mayor of New York attacking from the outside. And that's the case of arguably the most successful radical organizing effort in recent memory.

There's the saying, quoted often by Bob McChesney: The only thing that can defeat organized money is organized people. I believe that's true, but organizing people is damn hard, as laid bare by the examples of Occupy Wall Street, Chicago Media Action, and yes, Chicago Media Watch. Also: it becomes harder when the systems in which people live their lives -- capitalism, the state, racism, sexism, the media, among others -- also serve as schools that teach people. The systems work to perpetuate themselves.

And yet. There are victories that have been won, and tremendous potential still residing in grassroots activism, even though it may not seem like it at the current time. Yes, in one sense Occupy Wall Street didn't succeed, but in another sense Occupy Wall Street succeeded so well that it had to be, and was, destroyed by violence. After all, the enormous popularity won by Occupy Wall Street, and the multifarious Occupy examples wihch spanned the globe (including Occupy Chicago) speaks to the potential of grassroots activism. The potential remains, and I think the potential is still ripe, waiting to be unlocked (you'll forgive the mixed metaphor) -- with the right work, the right approach, and a bit of luck.

Yes, in one sense, Chicago Media Action didn't succeed. But in another sense Chicago Media Action succeeded so well, particularly since its emergence was so improbable and was able to win success after success during its time. May its example live on and inspire others, in working on making a better media system and a better world.

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I once wrote in a post on the CMA website: "Hey, Hollywood! I've got a great idea for a TV series pitch; it's set in Chicago, and involves one plucky media activist groups's fight against the media giants of our time!"

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