Thursday, January 31, 2002
Leave It to Canada
Every so often I spin the Internet radio dial around to find some interesting radio news as an alternative to my regular dose of the BBC World Service, NPR, and community radio. Tonight I thought I'd check out Radio Canada Int'l, and hear another anglophone nation's take on the world. First I got to hear the second half of As It Happens, which only airs in Canada -- the first half airs on public radio in the US via Public Radio Int'l.
Then came a program called Dispatches. I was surprised to hear a very critical and penetrating look at the World Bank and first world loans to third world countries. Most remarkable was a piece looking at a hydroelectric dam in Mali built with World Bank loans. Thousands of villagers were displaced from ancestral tribal lands to create the dam, only to have it lie unused for years. Now the power it creates goes to major cities throughout the region, but not to the local villages. You can listen to this program in RealAudio here.
As I listened, I thought to myself that this is type of programming I'd wish for from public radio (or from any radio, for that matter), and it's too bad that in the US most of Canada's radio programming is virtually unknown. Unlike NPR, RCI and the CBC are completely noncommercial, meaning that they don't have quasi-commerical underwriting from ADM or any other major corporation. I argue that it takes complete indpendence from this type of funding to really do radio programming that can take an honest look at the world. Our neighbors to the North seem to be doing at least a little bit of it and broadcasting it across their nation and to the globe. Can we trade them for NPR?
posted 1/31/2002 12:59:32 AM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Wednesday, January 30, 2002
RaisetheFist.com Is Back Up
And they're trying to restore from an archive of the site from before the raid. The webmaster of RaisetheFist posted an update to Los Angeles Indymedia today. And NYC IMC has this compliation of info and links on the raid.
posted 1/30/2002 10:32:19 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
NYC, WEFT, Protestors and the Media
Things are gearing up in New York City for the World Economic Forum. As I noted yesterday, it seems the local media already has it in for the protestors, and they haven't even hit the streets yet. On Free Speech Radio News today they did a segment on this, and interviewed a Daily News reporter who said that the papers were primarily covering the police ramp up because the protestors hadn't yet had a press conference and the press didn't know who to contact. Of course, the question is, did they bother to try and find someone to contact? It's not for nothing that corporations and other large organizations employ public relations people to spoon feed the press. The NYC cops have spokespeople who are accessible to the press and who are making their views about the protestors well known -- reporters just don't have to work very hard to cover that angle. Yesterday a group of WEF opponents did hold a packed press conference to give their side of the story to the press, which apparently received some coverage in local papers, including the New York Times. Of course, that's only after weeks of the NY Police sending out the message that the protestors are actually terrorists. A lazy press is a cop's best friend.
Luckily, the NY IMC has been busy preparing itself to cover events from the citizen's perspective from the streets. They've set up live audio streams that are also being rebroadcast by micropower radio stations. You'll also want to check the NYC IMC for periodic updates from citizen-journalists all over the city.
posted 1/30/2002 10:27:30 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Feminist Rap Artist Sues FCC
According to the NY Times Sarah Jones, whose song "Your Revolution" garnered an indecency violation from the FCC for community radio station KBOO, has filed suit against the Commission, charging that her song is not indecent and that fining KBOO for playing it is a violation of her first amendment rights. This is quite a bold and unprecedented move, but I think it highlights another way in which independent artists are squeezed out of the mainstream, especially since fighting an FCC violation ruling is an expensive proposition which most small non-commercial stations and independent artists cannot easily afford. If playing a particular song gets one small station fined, then other small nonprofit stations have little choice but to avoid it, not being able to take the financial risk, which means an effective blacklisting of that song, and maybe even that artist. By comparison, when the FCC finds an Eminem or other major label artist's song indecent, the hefty weight of the music industry and radio conglomerates comes to bear down on the FCC, hence the FCC reversing itself on having found an Eminem song indecent.
Previously:
Community Radio Fined for Indecency 5/17/01
posted 1/30/2002 04:25:27 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Tuesday, January 29, 2002
FAIR: NYC Newspapers Smear Activists Ahead of WEF Protests
"In a few days, the World Economic Forum will hold its annual meeting, an elite gathering of what the WEF calls the world’s “top decision-makers”-- in other words, big business leaders and government officials. The event usually takes place in Davos, Switzerland, but will be in New York City this year (January 31- February 4), ostensibly as a gesture of solidarity after the September 11 attacks.
Many globalization critics identify the WEF as a nerve center for neoliberal economics, and past WEF meetings have been the focus of significant protest. This year’s meeting promises to be no exception, and local media are serving up some of the same distortions that have greeted past globalization protests. Mainstream New York City newspapers have tended to frame discussion of the demonstrations in terms of their status as a security problem. A search of the Lexis-Nexis database (12/1/01 - 1/28/02) found that most articles in the New York Daily News, New York Post, New York Times and Newsday mentioning the WEF have focused on police preparations for the protests. As a result, the political debate over the WEF has been obscured, as have concerns about police brutality and civil liberties..."
All I have to say is that since Sept. 11 the mainstream media--especially in the New York area--has become a propaganda tool of the state of a type arguably unseen since WWII. This press coverage has nothing to do with informing the public and everything to do with galvanizing opinion in favor of the power elite. Disgusting.
posted 1/29/2002 03:11:07 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Attacking the Nation's Largest Radio Giant
Attorneys for M&M Broadcasting have filed a petition with the FCC urging the commission to investigate the business practices of Clear Channel, the nation's largest radio owner, with 460 stations. The petitions allege that Clear Channel "uses front companies to buy and hold radio stations for itself until the FCC’s rules change in its favor."
It doesn't surprise me to hear these allegations, since Clear Channel has developed a well-deserved reputation for being one of the dirtiest players in the broadcast industry. Of course, Clear Channel is allowed to continue its evil ways due to the lack of real oversight by the FCC, which apparently is more concerned with loosening regulations than actually enforcing the law. They're the clearest evidence I've seen that you don't get to be the nation's largest broadcaster by following the rules and being a good corporate or local citizen. If you have a Clear Channel station in your area that fails its service, you should consider filing a complaint with the FCC.
posted 1/29/2002 01:53:13 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Monday, January 28, 2002
Study Says TV News Is "Pro-[Bush] Administration" -- We Need Indymedia TV!
Despite the mainstream media's current love-affair with the accusation of its liberal bias, Electronic Media reports that a new study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism finds that, unsurprisingly, TV News especially is less likely to challenge the gov't than print media. Contrary to hype and conjecture, the study also finds that there's "no appreciable difference in the likelihood of CNN [as opposed to FNC] to air viewpoints that dissent from American policy." Which is to say, they both fall in lockstep with the US Gov't like good soldiers, where "fair and balanced" really means "won't challenge our viewers to think or question their preconceived notions." Anyway, it's easier and cheaper than dissenting or doing investigative reporting, don't you know, requiring less actual fact-checking and research. No well-paid news producer worth his weight would want such hard work to get in the way of bucking for position in the White House press room.
Unfortunately, there is less of a indpendent and progressive presence on TV than in any other media. At the moment, your best bet is the (very) occasional PBS documentary, public access and Free Speech TV. Of which the latter two require cable or satellite TV. And yet, TV is where the majority of people get their news and information. Any wonder, then, why our president has an absurd approval rating in polls? Because TV doesn't let most people in on the fact that there is a reason to dissent, or that there are dissenters in their midst. Or if they do acknowledge the fact, dissenters are protrayed as fringe, rather than normal people living right next door. For all it's merits, Indymedia just can't reach most of the population, becuase it's not available on TV or AOL.
It just goes to show how much further there is to go in building a truly alternative media that can make actual inroads to most people's homes. Tragically, FOX News continues to prove what every good dictator and fascist knows -- if you repeat a lie often enough, people will come to believe it. How else can CNN be reasonably thought of as liberal? I will not be surprised if the results of this study go under or unreported in the mainstream media, only demonstrating how truly unimportant actual facts or challenges to the received wisdom are to them.
posted 1/28/2002 11:56:47 AM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Interview with RaisetheFist.com's former webmaster, Sherman, at the Urbana IMC.
posted 1/28/2002 12:08:55 AM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Saturday, January 26, 2002
San Francisco Indymedia has confirmed the FBI raid on RaisetheFist.com:
INFORMATION OBTAINED BY SF INDYMEDIA FROM LOS ANGELES FBI FIELD OFFICE
On Thursday, January 24th, around 4pm, the Los Angeles FBI served a search warrant to the owner of raisethefist.com. The search warrant was based on charges around "computer fraud and abuse" as well as "distribution of information related to explosives, destructive devices, and/or weapons of mass destruction." When asked if they had raided raisethefist.com, FBI spokesperson Cheryl Mimura from the FBI Los Angeles Field Office confirmed that it "was shut down." The warrant was served by the Los Angles Task Force on Terrorism, but the FBI denies that this warrant is related in any way to the September 11th attacks. Ms. Mimura could not confirm that law enforcement entered raisethefist.com owner's house with "machine guns, shotguns and hand guns" as reported in the original notice about this raid.
posted 1/26/2002 04:20:25 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Friday, January 25, 2002
Federal and Police Raid Independent Journalist
Reports have shown up on Indymedia that the home of the founder of RaiseTheFist.com, an anarchist web site, was raided by the FBI, Secret Service and LA Police on Wed., Jan. 23. According to the first story posted:
Heavily armed with high-powered machine guns, shot guns, and hand guns, the FBI, Secret Service, and Los Angeles Police Department sorounded the founder of raisethefist.com in his house. The founder was currently asleep, woken up by a relative who said FBI, police and undercovers were currently up and down all of the streets, with they're eyes focused on the premises. Raisethefist.com founder aproached the door were 2 FBI agents demanded that he step outside. Within seconds a swarm of FBI raided the house with automatic weapons and shot guns. Additional police and fbi also stayed on the front lawn, around the house with a door baracade and additional weapons. "armed and ready".
FBI and secret service entered the house, seizing all servers and political liturature. Raisethefist.com was currently being ran within the founders room of the house, over a computer network. The room was literarly ransacked, and all equipment, disks, cd's .. etc. were boxed up, loaded into a truck and seized until further notice.
Since 1999, raisethefist.com has been under extensive government monitoring. At times, Raisethefist.com has recieved over 100 hits from the U.S Department of Defense in a single day. The FBI, police department, NSA (and who else) continuously monitored the site on a daily basis. Even governments from the UK, Canada, Lavtia, Belgium, Egypt, Finland, and Australia monitored the site continuously. The FBI had also previously intercepted all packets going through the DSL line hosting the site, and have seized additional accounts being used by the site.
The website is down, but you can see archives of the site at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
Although the site's webmaster was not arrested, the content is what is important, both to viewers and the gov't. This harkens to the FBI visit and subpoena to the Seattle IMC last April during the Summit of the Americas. Nobody was arrested then either, but an almost immediate chilling effect was evident at the IMC, where because the court order prohibited the IMC volunteers from even talking about the visit or subpoena, users of the site were left to wonder what was going on and to worry if they're posts and reading behavior at the IMC site was logged and now monitored by the federal government. In a land where most of us are lucky enough to have experienced little direct and personal harrassment (note I didn't say "repression") at the hands of the state, it doesn't take to much pressure to effectively chill speech and information that helps us understand our situation and recognize that nonetheless the world could be a better place and our own lives could be better. When the police have the authority to cart away your equipment and files, it turns out that "free speech" wasn't actually so free. The question is, what do we do about it?
Related stuff on mediageek:
mediageek file: pirate/free/micropower/low-power radio
More on Seattle IMC, the FBI and the Gag Order 5/2/01
Indymedia Kicks Ass -- the government has dropped its court order to obtain its web server log records 6/14/01
It's Happened Again: Ohio Valley IMC Served Subpoena 5/10/01
More on Ohio Valley IMC Subpoena 5/14/01
Wired News Finds the Guy Who Posted a 'Threat' to Cincinnati Cop on OVIMC 5/15/01
Poster Who Prompted Ohio Valley IMC Subpoena Arrested in Australia 6/4/01
posted 1/25/2002 06:01:37 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Last Sunday's edition of Radio Free Conscience is on-line now, featuring news headlines, John Anderson talking about the Workers Independent News Service and news about Pacifica. Click here to listen (30 minutes in RealAudio). Download it in mp3 at Urbana IMC.
posted 1/25/2002 02:35:45 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Thursday, January 24, 2002
The Radio Enron?
Danny Schechter, Mediachannel's News Dissector, almost compares Pacifica to Enron, taking note of the financial monkey business that apparently went on at the network prior to the formation of the new interim Nat'l Board. The full scale of the network's debt and financial blood letting is just becoming known, along with the hefty severance package deals made for Pacifica management by the previous administration. Some details can be found in this Jan. 16 update from Democracy Now co-host Juan Gonzalez.
Previously: More Pacifica Movement 1/14/02
posted 1/24/2002 11:22:15 AM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Zines on Tour
I picked up a cool punk 'zine called War Against the Idiots at Quimby's (an excellent read, by the way, look for review soon) and happened on an interview with some volunteers from the Bookmobile Project, which is a traveling bookmobile of zines treking across the US and Canada. I sent them an e-mail hoping they can swing by Urbana on their 2002 tour. I think it's a great way to get the independent press out to folks who might not otherwise know it exists or how to access it. Unfortunately, since they rely on local sponsors, it's clearly difficult to get out to more remote, conservative or rural places since somebody there has to know about it. Yet those places could really use to be exposed to that trailer full of literature. That's more of an observation than a criticism, understanding how difficult it is to pull off such an adventurous project. So, if you live in one of these smaller or more conservative towns, why not consider shaking things up by hosting the Bookmobile?
posted 1/24/2002 12:14:56 AM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Tuesday, January 22, 2002
Browsing the Small, Independent and Underground Press
I was up in Chicago on Sunday and finally got a chance to drop into Quimby's bookstore, which is well known for stocking lots of underground, small press and independent publications, with a pretty good stock of 'zines. I dropped only about $30 on a stack of diverse periodicals, which maybe I'll attempt to review here, along with a $2 "grab bag," which turned out to be mostly month-old mainstream magazines, but not bad for 2 bucks anyway. One zine I picked up is the excellent Reader's Guide to the Underground Press, a great place to start in surveying the world of independent 'zines. I must've spent at least and hour or two browsing there with a friend, as the store is very browser friendly (even in the erotic art and fiction area) and truly chock full of stuff that's otherwise hard to get a hold of. While I have no truck with buying books and such on-line, there's still no substitute for being able to read a little of what you're considering purchasing, or browsing into something you never knew existed.
Completing the day's zine experience I met up with the loose gathering of local 'zine makers at Cafe Paradiso (a cool coffee shop and video rental place) for what's turning into an annual informal roundtable. There were some new faces, whose names and zines I forgot to jot down, so it does seem that zine making is alive and possibly growing in our little burgh of Champaign-Urbana. Since 'zine-ing can be kind of a personal and individualistic enterprise, it's tough to know if or how to coordinate zinesters together, but there are always issues like printing, distribution and such that it helps to share ideas and experiences on.
The Urbana Independent Media Center Library has a 'zine collection and is also trying to be a place where people can get 'zines. Letting the local zinesters know about this resource is one reason why I go to the "zine summit," but I also go because zine makers are cool folks and I really love and support any type of independent media making. In fact, I'm contemplating getting mediageek into print with a mediageek 'zine, both for fun and to reach people who still prefer reading actual paper. There'll be more details if and when the project comes to fruition.
Previous 'zine stuff on mediageek:
Last year's 'zine caucus 2/5/01
Jason Pankoke's articles on 'zines 2/14/01
Stay Underground 7/27/01
Micro-Film v2n2 11/6/01
The Revolution Will Be Photocopied 12/17/01
posted 1/22/2002 05:27:10 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
When You're FCC Chair You Can't Make Everyone Happy
Electronic Media has a short article on how FCC Chair Michael Powell is taking things more slowly than originally expected, not pushing deregulation as hard and fast as hoped by the industry and feared by us mere mortals. The article quotes the director of the Center for Digital Democracy who says that Sen. Fritz Hollings, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, "is keeping Powell honest." Hollings is critical of deregulation, though isn't exactly an enemy of the culture industry, either. Apart from Hollings' counter-pressure, Powell has also annoyed the broadcast industry by not forcing the cable industry to carry their new digital signals. Strangely, at least that decision is consistent with his supposed deregulatory agenda. Of course the communications industry really isn't anti-regulation -- they're in favor of regulation that furthers their own agenda and against regulation that keeps them in check.
In a related note, the Center for Digital Democracy is warning that the Bush Administration is secretly working to transfer oversight of anti-trust matters in the media industry from the Federal Trade Commission to the Justice Department. This would essentially kill any real scrutiny of mass media mergers, since Attorney General Ashcroft is about as pro-monopoloy as they come. The plan hit a snag when Sen. Hollings got wind of it and "flagged the pair for 'illegal procedure' and quickly brought a halt to the signing ceremony and press conference." The CDD is asking concerned citizens to contact Sen. Hollings and other members of the Commerce Committee to urge them to stop this plan.
posted 1/22/2002 04:48:30 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Saturday, January 19, 2002
The Online Journalism Review reports on "Modern Day Muckrakers, The rise of the Independent Media Center movement." Focusing on the Philadelphia IMC, which just recently purchased a building to house their activities, the article is a nice and fair profile of IMC. Unlike a lot of mainstream journalists, the author doesn't seem to feel the need to justify herself as a professional journalist by getting a counterpoint quote from some journalism expert saying that the IMC undermines credibility or some such thing.
posted 1/19/2002 02:06:18 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Friday, January 18, 2002
FCC Stuff
Washtech reports that "Lawmakers Urge Stronger Telecom Act Enforcement From FCC" -- the focus of attention is local telcos, like SBC/Ameritech, opening up their networks to competitive carriers for all sorts of digital services. Lest anyone think this is an example of pernicious regulation being imposed on free enterprise, it's important to recall that the telecom industry was instrumental in writing the Telecomm Act, and while they may not have gotten everything they want, they sure as hell made out like bandits nonetheless. Make no mistake, the industry loves regulation because it can be manipulated for their advantage, as long as they can suck it up occasionally. In the real world regulation is just back-room horse-trading, and it's really those who aren't invited to the back room -- like you and me -- who actually lose.
In other FCC news, the Commission announced that it approved a reorganization of its bureaus, including putting all media related responsibilities, like broadcast and cable television, together into a new Media Bureau. Previously cable TV came under a separate Cable Services Bureau. Congress still has to sign off on the plan.
posted 1/18/2002 04:41:21 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Wednesday, January 16, 2002
Laura Flanders says "After years of focusing on issues of personnel and policy, it's time for Pacifica to refocus on programming.
posted 1/16/2002 03:38:00 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
...and then, after all that finger-tapping rumination about blogging I stumbled on (thanks to blogdex) Blowback, self-described as "dedicated to elevating mediocrity to modest heights, which is harder work than it sounds. It takes elbowgrease and browsweat to cobble recycled news and ill-formed opinion together into an appalling package; a formidable challenge to mount a blemish on the stately edifice that is blogspot." Damn, this guy's got a smarting wit. I especially appreciate the quoted scathing critique of Geraldo Rivera juxtaposed with fan pictures of Geraldo posing with various adoring ladies. I smirked for fifteen minutes. It's an example of a well-done smart-ass blog with a point.
posted 1/16/2002 02:15:27 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Blogging, "Warblogging," and Punditry. Is There an Effect? Is There a Point?
Criticizing the "Warbloggers" -- I found this heated article that takes to task "libertarian" webloggers who take snide shots at prominent commentators and fellow bloggers who dare to raise a voice in objection to the undeclared war in Afghanistan. Ironically, I found this article on the site of one of these "warbloggers," who patronizingly qualifies his link to it thusly:
"I almost didn't post on it, since he's probably just trolling for hits. But although one reader called it 'offensive beyond words,' I find it mostly amusing. Apparently, despite all the Chomskyite ranting about manufactured consent, the folks at antiwar.com find it offensive when people they disagree with criticize the Big Media."
Even funnier is that I stumbled on that site from a short blog entry covering a mini-debate over whether or not weblogging actually represents a serious or significant challenge to the mainstream media. I must note that all of the bloggers in this "debate" can be reasonably labeled pundits, whose professional life is centered on offering supposed informed opinions to the mainstream media. Damn, they'd better hope that blogging doesn't tear too effectively at the mainstream media, or they'll be out of work.
My own opinion (since you didn't ask), is that blogging cannot be singular force easily summed up as a challenge to the mainstream media anymore than college radio can be declared an outright challenge to commercial radio--many are, but just as many unforunately just mirror the style and playlists of commercial stations, just without the commercials. The important quality is use -- what bloggers do with the medium is what matters. The act of editing and compiling links that a particular author finds interesting or important is useful, but still really depends on the existing mass media apparatus for the content. Such a blog scores a minor hit against the mainstream when it calls attention to the truely obscure and alternative, but only if it manages to reach an audience not already aware of the sources of its links. This isn't to say that I think such a blog is otherwise useless if it can't do this--I find many such blogs useful because I don't have the time to troll and scan all the diverse sources myself on a daily basis. I do mean to point out that there have been indices and reviews of alternative and non-mainstream media for quite some time (such as the excellent Alternative Press Review) and they have not necessarily scored huge gains against the mainstream media.
I think weblogs become more powerful when they're used to not only post links but also used a forum to comment on these links, current events and other issues. And many webloggers do just that. Indeed, that's what "warbloggers" do, even if I tend to disagree with their point of view. Pundit Virginia Postrel, a participant in the aforementioned quasi-debate on weblogging, makes an interesting evaluation:
"It's the latest example of what the web has always been good for: links and specialization.... Blog writers don't have editors; they are editors."
When it comes to the "mostly links" kind of weblog I just discussed I have to agree with Postrel. Editing is a useful and powerful process that has always been available to people in some form -- what's a scrapbook, afterall, but a edited compendium of items around a particular theme. What weblogging adds to the mix is an audience much larger than what the average scrapbook can reach.
But I don't think this accurately describes those bloggers who invest much more time in commentary and original content. I like to think that my own blog here is more than just links to interesting content, though you'll find that in it. I often put my effort into writing little "mini-articles" that often comment on the item that I link to, or the event or issue at hand. I also try to combine links together in a hopefully coherent narrative, taking advantage of hypertext to provide avenues for further explication that are similar to citations in academic texts. It's no coincidence that I am an academic in training--a Ph.D. student in Communications--and so I think of myself more as a researcher than journalist or editor. My intention is to add information to my links, to provide some synthesis and context to existing information -- something I believe most journalism does an inadequate job of. Whether or not I'm successful at this is an open question.
As to effect, that's difficult to gauge, no? All of mediageek.org gets about 100 - 115 hits a day -- not exactly a landslide. But that's quite a few more people than I can talk to on a daily basis (I hope I talk to more on my radio show), and that's why I do it. Alone, I don't think my blog makes significant inroads in the challenge to mainstream media, but if it's one of many then the challenge mounts. Thus a key strength of weblogging is it's very populism -- it's a tool accessible to millions of people if they should choose to use it. Yet even as a popular movement weblogging doesn't represent a major revolution until those voices drown out the mainstream consolidated commercial media. I think many more significant changes are necessary for that to happen.
Although I claim that I want to avoid too much meta-blogging, nonetheless I've commented on this topic before. Read up, if you like:
Meta-blogging? Intertwining Grassroots; Connecting the Blogging World 12/13/01
Blogging as a Form of Journalism? 5/25/01
posted 1/16/2002 01:32:27 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Small Market Consolidation
Broadcasting & Cable reports that the FCC just issued a waiver for TV station duopolies in New Haven, CT and Asheville, NC. A duopoly is where one company owns two properties in a given media market, and are generally prohbited for TV stations by FCC rules. Waivers for the duopoloy rules can be granted in markets where there are more than eight owners or in cases where "one of the paired stations suffers either very low ratings, poor financial condition or inability to fetch a fair price from out-of-market buyers."
This waiver condition, however, is ignorant of how the poorer station comes to be in that situation. While one cause could be mismanagement, it can also be the result of anti-competetive practices on the part of other stations and companies in the market. This sort of situtation is very common with newspapers, where the owner of one paper may lower ad rates to such a point that they take a loss but also drive a competing paper out of business because they can't compete nor afford to be in a loss-leading price war. Such tactics are also seen in radio--especially when a given owner has more than one leading station--and, of course, was pioneered in retail by Wal-Mart, which uses its economic might to afford losses in new stores in order to drive smaller competitors out of business. Of course, I'd have to do a little more research into these two markets and waivers to say for sure if it looks like such a situtation.
These waivers come on the heels of the FCC granting Rupert Murdoch's News Corp a second waiver in New York City last year, allowing the company to own two TV stations and a daily newspaper. The FCC is currently reviewing ownership rules under the auspices of a Media Ownership Working Group. As I expressed before, I'm suspicious of Powell's objectives with this group, since he has gone on record as being very critical of ownership restrictions, believing that ownership does not affect diversity in broadcast.
posted 1/16/2002 12:11:03 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Monday, January 14, 2002
The Corporate Accountability Project has a really nice annotated compendium of links and resources on media reform on its Media Reform Information Center. I like the logical organization, clean layout and spiffy graph showing the rapidly consolidating oligarchy of media owners.
posted 1/14/2002 10:34:56 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
More Pacifica Movement
At this past weekend's Pacifica National Board meeting the new board majority of reformers made more progress in restoring the progressive radio network as a packed house audience looked on and participated. Amongst the resolutions made during the meeting, the board decided to appoint fired former Pacifica news director Dan Couglin as the interim executive director of Pacifica, it endorsed a recommendation to fire the current station manager of Pacifica's NYC station WBAI which has seen mass firings of staff and volunteers in the last year, while deciding to rehire those who had been axed, and the majority decided to fire the law firm retained by the former Pacifica Board majority. For more coverage:
Savepacifica has a complete run-down of the meeting's happenings.
Democracy Now covered the weekend's events extensively -- click to listen in Real Audio.
Free Speech Radio News aired a report on these decisions on today's program. Free Speech Radio News is the daily national news program produced by former Pacifica reporters and stringers who are on strike from the network over allegations of censorship by the network.
An interesting element of this weekend's meeting is that several members appointed by the previous board majority--those whose mismanagement is widely believed to have imperiled the network--were not in attendance, which was a decisive factor in so many radical resolutions being passed. What's also interesting is the role the general public was allowed to play in the meeting, being allowed to speak extensively and even clap and cheer, whereas previously the public was denied all but a symbolic role resulting in frequent tensions between the Pacifica National Board and listeners during meetings.
I'll be curious to see how well these resolutions hold up if the board minority decides to challenge them in front of the Judge overseeing Pacifica's reconciliation. Unfortunately, it may not yet be smooth sailing for these needed changes. There is still a great deal of contention between the new board majority of reformers and the current board minority, as well as with the management of the Pacifica stations in Los Angeles, Washington and New York. These stations' management was put in place by the former Pacifica administration--whose major players have all resigned in the last few month--and who were generally loyal and in sync with that administration's program. This continuing animosity is evident in that WBAI initially refused to air Pacifica's daily one-hour public affairs program Democracy Now, which returned to the Pacifica airwaves on Jan. 7, despite the fact that the program originates from the WBAI's studios. The program has since returned to the air in NYC.
Previously: Democracy Now Returns to Pacifica 1/6/01
posted 1/14/2002 10:28:00 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Thursday, January 10, 2002
Declan McCullough's Politech list offers the following warning about the Bush Admin's scary fight to allow Congress to take works that have lapsed into the public domain and reinstate copyright (via machination.org).
posted 1/10/2002 04:44:37 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Some Quick Links
Blogger was off and on yesterday (mostly off), so I couldn't publish most of the things I wanted to. But now a day later there's more in my queue, so I'm just going to put quick links to yesterday's items w/o my usual enrapturing commentary.
On intellectual property: Kuro5hin has an article explaining the "Economics of Intellectual Property," and Business Week features an interview with Princeton Prof. Edward W. Felten, the master cryptographer who cracked the RIAA's copy protection scheme, and who asserts that technology is not the answer for protecting intellectual property.
Law professor Lawrence Lessig--author of the currently popular book The Future of Ideas--asks "Who's Holding Back Broadband" in a op-ed to the Washington Post, and focuses on the pervasiveness of copyright.
posted 1/10/2002 12:19:22 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Wednesday, January 09, 2002
There's been some activity over on the DIY-Files recently. Check it out.
posted 1/9/2002 01:58:54 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Tuesday, January 08, 2002
The New York Times says that Satellite Radio Shows Growth. Maybe I'm wrong in thinking that it costs too much. Or maybe the Times is just rolling along in that usual tech "journalist" hype mode (all cool new technologies are great, until they turn out to be losers. Come to think of it, there is very little actual journalism about technology, mostly it's just rewriting press releases and bucking to get sent stuff to review.)
According to the Times 25,000 to 30,000 people have signed up for XM satellite radio since mid-November. That's about how many people listen to the top rated radio station in New York City in a given quarter hour, so I guess it's not a bad start. And you can get the BBC (one of my favs) and NPR, which is a plus (how about RFPI?). But, as I noted before, you won't get any funky, eclectic local radio. I'm also curious to see how eclectic or off-mainstream the music channels get.
I'm really of two minds on this thing. On the one hand I like the idea, but on the other, the execution looks like just more of the same: the same big corporations and networks regenerating, repurposing and "synergizing" the same content in a new form. If you take the same 100 CDs, put them in two changers on random, that's the same as two different channels right? Somehow, I don't have big hopes that satellite radio will equal greater diversity. Unless you see a big difference between ABC Family and Disney.
Of course, missing from this article is any actual evaluation of what programming XM radio spits out. That wouldn't be "tech journalism," now, would it.
posted 1/8/2002 04:03:56 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Year-end Wrap-up Now On-line
Last Sunday's RFC program, a year-end discussion with John Anderson of About.com's radio page, is on-line in the Audio Archive.
posted 1/8/2002 10:44:44 AM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Monday, January 07, 2002
Corp. Censorship happens in Canada too: Columnist quits paper in Canada's largest chain over charges of editorial censorship. (via mediachannel.org)
posted 1/7/2002 04:35:25 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Congress Asking Questions about Copy-Protected CDs
CNET reports that Rep. Rick Boucher, Democrat from VA, is asking the recording industry about the legality of making copy protected CDs, in light of the 1992 Home Recording Act which specifically allows consumers to make personal-use copies of music they've purchased. The Act stipulates royalties be paid on blank recording media which goes back to the recording industry to compensate them for supposed lost sales. This is why audio CD-Rs, which work in home CD-R decks, cost a bit more than data/computer CD-Rs, which won't work in home decks. Rep. Boucher questions if copy-protecting CDs will make the recording industry ineligible to continue receiving royalties on blank media.
I agree with this line of questioning, since the Home Recording Act came about over the recording industry's (successful) effort to stall the introduction of Digital Audio Tape (DAT) to consumers in the US. The Act was Congress's effort to strike a compromise between the recording industry's hysterical fears of lost profits from consumers using DAT to make perfect digital copies of CDs and the desire to bring digital recording technology to the US. I would never put it past the recording industry to belly up to the table to double dip on royalties.
However, there are a couple of possible gaps in Rep. Boucher's concerns. It is my understanding that the new copy-protected CDs are made to work in standalone CD players, but not work quite right in DVD or CD-ROM drives, making them very difficult to rip for copying. Most home CD-R decks use a regular CD player as the source for the recording which should provide an uncorrupted digital audio data stream that can be recorded. This is because home CD recorders don't really read or "rip" the data like a CD-ROM drive in your computer. The process of copying CDs using home decks is more analogous to copying to DAT or minidisc from a CD player with a digital bitstream output, which I believe the copy protection scheme does not affect. Thus, if copying is still possible using home CD-R decks, which only use royalty-paid blank audio CD-Rs, then the Home Recording Act is not violated. Since plain data CD-Rs are not royalty paid, then the inability to use them to copy CDs using a computer does not violate the Act.
Still, this is hypothetical, since I don't have a home CD-R deck to try it out on (if someone does and can confirm or correct me on this please e-mail!). I do, however, have a CD/Minidisc combination deck that I could test copying a copyprotected CD to MD on. That would at least test my supposition that the digital audio data stream remains intact.
Whether or not this legal loophole might exist, I nonetheless think that the CD copy protection scheme stinks. It's a sad but unsurprising act of bad faith on the part of the recording industry which has profited more off people sharing their music than it's lost. But it's a horrifically conservative industry that steadfastly clings to established models and approaches, even when they show signs of failing or were never even good to begin with, calling upon government intervention to save its shitty business models. Like any major corporation, the recording industry only hails the free market when it provides a significant advantage in exploitation -- such as singing naive young artists to slave-labor contracts. It's my hope that copy protected CDs ends up being just a techno-cat-and-mouse game, with the hackers staying closely ahead of the industry.
Resist the control of your culture.
Previously:
Copy Protected CDs and Unintended Consequences for Radio, 11/13/01
List of Corrupted CDs, 11/12/01
Copyright, Fair Use, Free Speech, 11/2/01
Digital Media Distribution: Is the Honeymoon Over?, 10/10/01
posted 1/7/2002 12:13:16 AM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Sunday, January 06, 2002
Link-back - or - the mediageek virus spreads (slowly)
I check my webserver logs every so often and see who's visiting and where they're linking from. I noticed a couple of new and interesting sites linking here to lil' ol' mediageek that are worth a look or a few:
action figures sold separately is a weblog of "news, culture, politics, links" from eli and amanda. eli does "strategic and tech assistance for grassroots movement building," and their domain is grassrootstech.org -- all very cool.
misnomer is where Dru Oja Jay blogs his thoughts, observations and links, mostly with a lefty/progressive bent. There's a nice mix of links and comments on tech, media and politics.
posted 1/6/2002 11:33:19 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Democracy Now Returns to Pacifica
At its Dec. 29 meeting, the new Pacifica interim National Board voted to return the network's (formerly) most popular news program to its five network-owned stations and its satellite network. Part of the agreement to return entails giving the Democracy Now staff back pay for the time they were in exile off the network -- since August. For more on this, read a post I made to the Urbana IMC website, which also contains the press release from the DN! staff on the return.
Previously: A Pacifica Resolution (again) 12/13/01
posted 1/6/2002 11:22:19 AM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Saturday, January 05, 2002
On Sunday's Radio Free Conscience: 2001 Year-End Wrap-up
Considering how much effort I put into it, I'm astonishingly bad at putting up any info about my radio show--which, incidentally, spawned this website in the first place. On Sunday's edition I'll talk for a half-hour with John Anderson, the guide for the radio page at About.com, an avid pirate radio researcher and, most recently, labor radio program producer. We'll discuss the various events of last year as they relate to grassroots media and low-power radio, and look to see if we can figure out what their impact might be. That's Sunday 10am on WEFT 90.1 fm in Champaign, IL. I'll have the program posted in RealAudio in the audio archive in a couple of days.
Also: See John's most recent piece on the impending disaster that is digital radio.
posted 1/5/2002 09:07:52 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Friday, January 04, 2002
The Progressive magazine is keeping tabs on political repression with their McCarthyism Watch.
posted 1/4/2002 05:30:08 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Satellite (?) Radio??
I haven't yet really commented on the emergence of nationwide satellite radio like XMRadio, mostly because I haven't heard it, wasn't sure it would actually come to fruition, and really hadn't yet given it too much thought. But lately I've been getting questions about it and it seems as though the service is for real, with recievers now available for around $299 (just $289 more than my last AM/FM radio).
I still haven't heard it, but the idea is intriguing -- having just taken a 2000 mile round-trip drive between Urbana and the Denver-metro area, I've found much of radio in between can suck pretty hard. Having one good radio station (or several) for the entirety of the trip is not a bad idea. Of course, this is at the expense of local radio and local service, which can be very good -- I enjoyed Columbia, MO's KOPN for the 30 miles or so that I could hear it, and last year I found High Plains Public Radio. And since it's early in XMRadio's lifespan, the cost is somewhat prohibitively high.
The Washington Post reports that satellite radio providers and wireless phone companies are clashing over interference issues. It seems that satellite radio isn't always broadcast over satellite. In some cases it's broadcast by terrestrial repeaters using the same frequency range, because satellite reception requires very good, focused line of sight to the south sky, which can be difficult to maintain in a moving vehicle. Of course, this means that satellite radio is a partial misnomer, since it's also partially broadcast radio, except that it has the exact same programming nationwide.
While the fight between sat radio and wireless is really just a pissing contest, the issue of a satellite radio provider needing terrestrial broadcast spectrum space (just like conventional TV and radio) shouldn't be forgotten, especially since this is radio that costs $10 a month. On top of this charge XMRadio still has commercials -- you'd think the $10 a month charge is there to make up for lost ad revenue. Conventional broadcast stations don't charge you a dime (at least not directly -- how much of $1 you paid for a Pepsi funds their gargantuan ad budget?).
Until I actually have a chance to hear the service I'm reticent to pass final judgement. Though from the facts I know I think it's not quite ready for prime time -- it costs too much without offering something radically different than broadcast. The fact that it uses terrestrial repeaters bugs me, but that might also be the system's achilles heel, depending on how the battle with wireless companies goes or how much deploying that level of infrastructure ends up costing.
And remember, on a good night, you can still listen to the same clear-channel AM radio station for hundreds of miles. The ionosphere makes a good satellite, no?
posted 1/4/2002 05:26:24 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Thursday, January 03, 2002
I'm back, but still getting up to speed. Meanwhile:
The Deal reports that Senators urge FCC to block EchoStar-DirecTV deal
posted 1/3/2002 04:57:11 PM [link
to this entry] [respond]
[top]
Click
here for news archives...
|
|
