[Seattle-editorial] FEATURE PROPOSAL: NAB (x4)

Fri Aug 30 21:45:29 PDT 2002

Hi everybody.
So here's the Biggest Feature Proposal Ever! Some unusually long, some 
short--all related to the upcoming NAB events. I suggest displaying them in 
the order shown here...

NAB1

subtitle: BREAKING THE SPELL OF MEDIA CORPORATISM
title: Reclaim the Media! Upstaging the NAB, Sept 10-15

Six years of the deregulatory "reforms" of the 1996 Telecommunications Act 
have brought unprecedented concentration of ownership to our broadcast and 
print media industries.  Most of the media Americans watch, read and hear 
every day is controlled by fewer than ten massive conglomerates. While the 
corporate captains celebrate their "freedom of the press" by covering the 
Earth in advertising and pandering to the priorities of US power elites, 
current FCC leadership has made clear its allegiance to the Love of Money 
rather than to the Public Interest, and is clearing the way for still more 
media consolidation, threatening to make the Internet and print media as 
uniformly outfitted as today's commercial FM radio.

Given the extent to which the national media are controlled by a few 
powerful owners, it is little surprise that media industry regulatory 
issues (such as ownership limits, implementation of digital broadcast 
technologies, press freedom and Internet open access) get little coverage 
in the corporate press. In the shadow of these institutions, however, a 
grassroots media democracy movement is growing in numbers and developing 
strategies to restore citizen control of publicly-owned media resources.

Show your support for a more democratic media and find out about the 
issues at <a href="http://www.reclaimthemedia.org">Reclaim the Media: a 
Community Media Convergence</a>, in downtown Seattle Sept. 
10-15, timed to shadow the National Association of Broadcasters' annual 
corporate radio conference. Major events include a day-long Media and 
Democracy Teach-in (Fri. Sept. 13); Thursday/Friday/Saturday afternoon 
rallies, with bands, speakers, street theater and informational tables, in 
Freeway Park on the doorstep of the NAB conference; and IMC-hosted events 
(see inset box), as well as <a href="http://www.democracynow.org">Amy 
Goodman's</a> keynote address, Independent Media in a Time of War. 
Get more information and a <a 
href="http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/schedule">complete schedule of 
events</a> from <a 
href="http://www.reclaimthemedia.org">www.reclaimthemedia.org</a>.

Thanks to the judicial repeal of Seattle's <a 
href="http://seattle.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=16795">poster 
ban</a>, the utility poles of Seattle are ripe for flyering. Help beaufity 
your neighborhood by copying and posting these fine Reclaim the Media 
notices (pdf): <a 
href="http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/images/Sakolsky-Flyer.pdf">Ron 
Sakolsky</a> (Sept 10); <a 
href="http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/images/Hosler-Flyer.pdf">Mark 
Hosler/Negativland</a> (Sept 12); <a 
href="http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/images/TeachIn-Flyer.pdf">Media and 
Democracy Teach-In</a> (Sept 13); <a 
href="http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/images/Goodman-Flyer.pdf">Amy 
Goodman/David Barsamian</a> (Sept 13); <a 
href="http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/images/CultureJam-Flyer.pdf">Culture 
Jam</a> (film, Sept 15)

NAB 2

subtitle: RECLAIM THE MEDIA
title: Community Media Convergence in Seattle

As <a href="http://www.newsguild.org">newspaper</a> and <a 
href="http://www.aftraseattle.com">broadcast</a> employees' unions struggle 
to protect <a 
href="http://seattle.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=11639">local 
accountability, journalistic integrity and diversity of content</a> in 
today's blighted corporate media landscape, increasingly broad technology 
access enables a flowering of independent and community media: xeroxed 
zines, microradio and low-power FM stations, public-access TV, community 
newspapers and websites. The <a href="http://www.indymedia.org">IMC 
network</a>, launched with this site less than three years ago, has now 
expanded to over 100 sites worldwide, demonstrating that the <a 
href="http://seattle.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=2">resistance</a> 
to corporate media controls is truly global as well as local. Community 
organizing on behalf of community media is on the rise as well, most 
notably the successful campaign to save Pacifica Radio, and the Low-Power 
FM movement, in which <a href="http://www.prometheusradio.org">community 
activists</a> faced off against the combined corporate lobbying might of 
the National Association of Broadcasters and <a 
href="http://seattle.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=3526">NPR</a>.

The NAB holds its annual <a 
href="http://www.nab.org/conventions/radioshow/2002/">corporate radio 
conference</a> in Seattle this month, and as in <a 
href="http://sf.indymedia.org/features/nab/">San Francisco</a> two years 
ago, community media activists will come together to celebrate media which 
is in the hands of the people rather than under the thumbs of corporate 
masters. Scores of community media heroes will share their knowledge at <a 
href="http://www.reclaimthemedia.org">Reclaim the Media</a>'s Media and 
Democracy Teach-In (Friday, S13, 10-5pm, Town Hall), including <a 
href="http://deedeehalleck.tripod.com/">DeeDee Halleck</a>, <a 
href="http://www.alternativeradio.org">David Barsamian</a>, <a 
href="http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/stories.php?story=02/08/31/6144861">Davey 
D</a>, <a href="http://www.fsrn.org/">Deepa Fernandes</a>, <a 
href="http://www.clamormagazine.org/">Jen Angel</a> and many others.

<p><a href="http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/schedule">Reclaim the Media 
Schedule</a> | <a href="http://seattle.indymedia.org/localmedia.php3">local 
community media</a>| <a href=" 
http://www.tabletnewspaper.com/politics/">Tablet counter-NAB coverage</a>

NAB 3

subtitle: (LOW) POWER TO THE PEOPLE
title: Mosquito Fleet of Microbroadcasters Provide Soundtrack to NAB

 From the 12th to the 15th of September, Seattle will play host to 
thousands of commercial radio broadcasters, hundreds of independent media 
makers and community radio afficianados, and a small but highly audible 
swarm of license-free microbroadcasters who say that it's giant 
conglomerates like Clear Channel and Infinitynot themselveswho are the real 
Pirate Broadcasters.

The National Association of Broadcasters, arguably the most powerful 
corporate lobbying organization in the country, convenes its annual radio 
conference in Seattle from Sept. 12-14. The NAB, representing the interests 
of a concentrated and wealthy elite group of broadcasting owners, has 
worked hard to prevent public access to the airwavesmost infamously in its 
attacks on FCC plans to license LPFM community radio stations two years 
ago, when it suvvessfully lobbied Congress to enact the industry-written 
(and euphemistically titled) <a 
href="http://www.mediageek.org/2000_04_01_archive_index.html">"Preservation 
of Broadcasting Act."</a> With entertainment provided by keynote speaker 
and Fox News spin-surgeon <a 
href="http://www.fair.org/extra/0205/oh_really.html">Bill O'Reilly</a>, the 
NAB has themed their conference "Radio Promotes. Radio Provides. Radio Has 
Power." The NAB wants to ensure that radio "promotes" corporate America's 
products to American consumers, and "provides" both for the media moguls 
whose pockets are lined by advertisers, and for the politicians whose 
pockets are lined by the NAB. They're working hard to make sure that 
radio's "power" stays in the hands of the privileged few, not the public 
who, incidentally, own the airwaves.

During the week of NAB (and the counter-NAB <a 
href="http://www.reclaimthemedia.org">Reclaim the Media</a> 
conference), local microradio mosquitos will take back the power of radio, 
fielding broadcasts on <a 
href="http://www.microradio.net/upcoming.htm">eleven available 
frequencies</a> currently left vacant by the FCC's frequency allocation 
rulesobsolete rules which would have been overturned but for <a 
href="http://www.kyes.com/engineering/linklist/boscom.txt">the NAB's (and 
NPR's) crusade</a>.

<p><a href="http://www.microradio.net">Microradio.Net</a>

NAB 4

subtitle: CREATIVE MEDIA RESISTANCE
title: Radical Art and Radical Politics Meet at RTM Convergence

Several events taking place as part of this month's <a 
href="http://www.reclaimthemedia.org">Reclaim the Media</a> conference 
highlight happy meetings of art and politics. On Sept. 10, author 
and visionary community radio activist <a href=" 
http://seattle.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=17417">Ron Sakolsky</a> 
introduces "Surrealist Subversions," his new anthology of American 
surrealist art and writings. He calls the book " a sustained attack on the 
institutions and idelogies that maintain human misery" and "a manual of 
cultural/political sabotage."

On Sept. 12, <a 
href="http://seattle.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=17419">Negativland's 
Mark Hosler</a> hosts <a 
href="http://www.ttpixels.org/features/Negativland8217sMarkHosl.php?sec=features">Creative 
Media Resistance</a>, a video-lecture illustrating the creative projects, 
hoaxes, pranks and "culture jamming" that have typified Negativland's work 
since 1980; 9pm at the Rendezvous. Reclaim the Media events wrap up on 
Sept. 15, where Jill Sharpe's new documentary <a 
href="http://www.culturejamthefilm.com">Culture Jam: Hijacking Commercial 
Culture</a> premieres at the IMC (7pm). The film focuses on the activities 
of San Francisco's Billboard Liberation Front, performance artist Rev. 
Billy, and "media tigress" Carly Stasko, and includes soundtrack material 
by Negativland (who coined the term <a 
href="http://dmoz.org/Society/Activism/Media/Culture_Jamming/"> culture 
jamming</a>). Negativland also produced audio for the documentary <a 
href="http://www.negativland.com/ad_and_the_ego/">The Ad and the Ego</a>, 
which screens at the IMC Sept. 8 at 7pm.