CHICAGO MEDIA ACTION NEWSLETTER, October 2, 2004 http://www.chicagomediaaction.org In this month's newsletter: * Save the Date for a Town Hall Meeting: Sunday, October 24 * A possible action against the Chicago CBS affiliate * A September educational opportunity at the doorstep of WTTW * Local media victories: CAN TV ordinance passes, Tribune gets rebuffed * Women on the news and in the news (1) ANNOUNCEMENTS OF UPCOMING CMA EVENTS * Chicago Media Action will sponsor a pre-election town hall meeting on the war in Iraq, on Sunday, October 24, 2004, 3pm at The Chicago Temple (77 W, Washington Street). Admission is free, but donations will be welcomed. To open the event, a one-hour documentary "Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear, and the Selling of American Empire" will be shown. This highly acclaimed film, narrated by Julian Bond and directed by Sut Jhally and Jeremy Earp, "examines how a radical fringe of the Republican Party has used the trauma of the 9/11 terror attacks to advance a pre-existing agenda to radically transform American foreign policy while rolling back civil liberties and social programs at home". A distinguished panel of experts will then provide commentary. These experts include John Nichols, Salim Muwakkil, and Cliff Kelley. John Nichols is Washington correspondent for "The Nation" magazine, one of the lead commentators in the documentary "Outfoxed" and a co-founder of the media reform group Free Press. He is the author of "Jews for Buchanan", which examined the Florida recount debacle of 2000, and co-author of two books with Bob McChesney, "It's the Media, Stupid!" (2000) and "Our Media, Not Theirs^? (2002). His new book on Dick Cheney, "Dick: The Man Who Is President" was released earlier this year. Salim Muwakkil is a Senior Editor of In These Times magazine, a writer for the Chicago Tribune and an Open Society Institute Criminal Justice Initiative fellow. Cliff Kelley, the panel moderator, has been active in Chicago's political arena for over 30 years. He is an attorney, political commentator and Chicago radio talk show host on WVON (1450 AM) and V103-FM. Following the panel discussion, there will be a microphone available for the audience to discuss and debate the evening's topic with the panelists. Chicago Media Action urges the public (including the Chicagoland college student population) to come, speak their mind on this issue, and work on solutions to this ever-growing national crisis. We invite other organizations to bring your handouts and flyers for display on the literature table. Please visit the CMA website at http://www.chicagomediaaction.org or call (toll-free) 1-866-260-7198 for more information. * Chicago Media Action is discussing a proposed educational outreach action soon at CBS's Channel 2. CBS Television (owned by Viacom Corporation), will delay an already months overdue '60 Minutes' report on the White House's deceiving the public for the preemptive invasion of Iraq. CBS gives a political, not a journalistic reason for suppressing the report. "It would be inappropriate to air the report so close to the election." Can we expect all of the mighty news companies so easily to cave in to their fear of right-wing ideologues? What other of their news is CBS suppressing? And what news and reports will they never even consider doing, now that their policy is unapologetic protection of the incumbents?! If CMA decides to go ahead with this action it will probably be in mid-October at the company's offices north of the Loop. As proposed, it might be just a few of us flyering the public, or it might include many peace coalition friends to make a bigger statement. Some articles about CBS's self-censorship are at http://www.campaigndesk.org/archives/000957.asp, www.mediachannel.org/news/2004-0927.shtml, and www.freepress.net/news/4790. General information about Viacom, CBS Television, and WBBM-TV is at www.9898.us/mi/miviacomchi.htm. (2) WHAT'S NEW WITH CMA? * CMA organized an educational outreach action right at WTTW Channel 11's studios on Wednesday, September 22. The occasion was a "star-studded sneak preview party" for the new fall season for "Producer's Circle" donors to Chicago's main PBS affiliate. A number of organizers came to the WTTW parking lot to distribute flyers and copies of the executive summary of CMA's study of Chicago Tonight. In all, we probably spoke with some 200 people about issues raised by the study. CMA's study is available online at: http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/pdffiles/CMA_WTTW.pdf * Last year, Chicago Media Action helped create a guide to Chicago's independent media scene. In September, CMA helped create the 2004 Chicago Independent Media Guide, which was published in the September issue of Third Coast Press and is now also available in PDF format here: http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/pdffiles/CIMG2004.pdf (3) WHAT'S NEW IN MEDIA POLITICS? * The fight to help protect CAN TV has paid off with an ordinance proposed at the September 29 Chicago City Council. As CAN TV describes it: "The ordinance calls for CAN TV to receive 5% of the cable franchise fee that is currently paid by cable companies to the City. Funds generated from the franchise fee will make up the loss of operating support from RCN in 3 out of 4 of its cable areas." Read more here: http://www.cantv.org/update.html Thanks for your efforts in this fight. This wouldn't have been possible without you. * The Tribune Company had tried to chip away at part of the court ruling in June which prevented it from growing bigger still. The rule at issue was the cross-ownership rule for owning a newspaper and TV station in the same town. But in early September, the Court sided with the public in rebuffing the Tribune's efforts, as it accused the Tribune of rehashing arguments that the court already deemed invalid. You can read the dispatch from the Media Access Project here: http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/news.php?id=228 (4) QUOTE OF THE MONTH "Newspapermen [sic] spend years in learning how to handle news with moderation and accuracy. It is not a job that can be trusted to anyone who speaks into a microphone." -- J.H. Woods, editor of the Calgary Herald, in a letter written about 1933 to Canadian broadcasting manager Hector Charlesworth (5) FACT OF THE MONTH "Whilst women are increasingly reporting and presenting the news, they are rarely news subjects, according to the most comprehensive overview to date of gender portrayal in the world's media. The study reveals that women account for 41 percent of the presenters and reporters of the world's news, but only 18 percent of news subjects." Source: Who Makes The News? The Global Media Monitoring Project 2000, as quoted in "The No-Nonsense Guide to Global Media" by Peter Steven. (6) RECOMMENDED WEBSITE http://www.9898.us/mi http://www.9898.us/3/tocmi.htm These pages are a collection of links and issues pertaining to media, media reform, and media activism. (7) MORE ANNOUNCEMENTS CMA has organized past events with the Guerrilla News Network (GNN), a video production company and news service. GNN has just completed its first feature film called "Battleground: 21 Days on Empire's Edge", filmed in Iraq, which will get its Chicago debut at the Chicago International Film Festival, on Friday, October 15, at 8:45 PM, at AMC River East 21, 322 E. Illinois, Chicago. Learn more about the film here: http://guerrillanews.com/battle_ground/ *** *** *** *** *** *** *** 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: http://www.chicagomediaaction.org E-mail: cma@chicagomediaaction.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, simply send an email requesting removal to mailinglist@chicagomediaaction.org