MOLLY LIVES

I am dedicating this blog today to the memory of my personal friend and our collective inspiration Molly Ivins, the syndicated columnist and real yellow rose of Texas who died of breast cancer at age 62 in bed at her home in Austin. Remember her advice and try to practice it: “RAISE MORE HELL!”

The NATION obit:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070219/molly_ivins

REMEMBERING FEB 1, 1960 AND FEB 1, 2000
HONORING THE STUDENT SITS
AND THE BIRTH OF MEDIACHANEL.ORG

My own immersion in activism started on this very day, February l back in 1960, 47 years ago today. It is a story I tell in my new film on my own media work called A WORK IN PROGRESS that was shown at the Media Reform Conference.

Http://www.newsdissector.com/workinprogress

I was a High School editor then at the mighty DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx when the first student sit-in in Greensboro North Carolina sparked the civil rights movement into a decade of activist and action. I was inspired by their courage and the fact that one of the four students who stood up by sitting down came from my High School. I wrote about it and ended up joining what we then called the Movement because of it.

That event also inspired my immersion into independent journalism when I later co-founded a student magazine at Cornell University with another former NYC H.S. editor Ken Rubin.

I later wrote about it in essay for my book News Dissector.

Ken and I would be branded young pups when, as freshmen, we decided to launch our own campus publication. We mimeographed it at the religious center, the Cornell United Religious Work, with the encouragement of a philosophy professor, a southern-born preacher, and a few friends we picked up along the way. We saw it as a forum for debating the issues of the day, and as a way to encourage the campus to get involved with the protests then stirring students worldwide.

We called it Dialogue. Our first issue was eight pages. We gave it away for free. It was my first step into independent journalism. Listen to the language of “Outlook and Insight” that we published as a lead editorial on the front page in November 1960.

Kenny set the tone: “A man is a poem of action and intellect, not merely an outpouring of words or an expending of energies.” After some philosophizing about the social contract, we issued a call for direct action. “ . . . we have been called the silent generation; we have been accused of apathy and indifference . . . students elsewhere are not paralyzed into abstract theorizing. In Japan, in Turkey, in Korea, they have demonstrated successfully and effectively. In increasing numbers in the United States, Negro students ‘sit-in’ for their rights. Yet most of us are just too ‘fat.’ We feel somehow that simply because we eat well, live comfortably, and enjoy “a convenient amount” of civil rights and liberties, there are no more barriers to crash.”

“At its outset, Dialogue pledges a serious attempt to stimulate a free clash of opinion and a concern for discussion. It will offer a medium for thought of all persuasions, from the faculty, from public figures, and most importantly from students.” It was signed, Editors in Chief Dan Schechter ’64, Ken Rubin ’64

FROM DIALOGUE TO BLOGALOGUE

That magazine outlasted my days at Cornell. What I didn’t know then was that forty years later, on the same day, Mediachannel.org would launch in New York on February 1.

I had issued a call for a Mediachannel in my book The More You Watch the Less You know first published ten years ago. I recent told the story what happened in my media world after that:

Let me pick up where the book left off ten years ago—following up on the call it made for a Media Channel to watch all the other channels, a network through which media savvy groups could come together and showcase their concerns. When that fantasy “balloon” went up, it was conceived as a potential TV channel on the cable dial, an outlet for films, programs and criticism, themed around the role our media plays. The idea was to provide a platform for an ongoing critique and counter-narrative the news as it was being reported.

Wouldn’t it be cool, I thought, to be able to deconstruct, comment upon and analyze media in real time, not, as so many academics do, years later after it had become forgotten or part of an unread historical record? We wanted to intervene in the ongoing media debate, deepen it and organize around it.

It was in that period that my partner Rory O’Connor and I looked out of our Globalvision offices in Times Square and saw the transformation of our neighborhood into a mecca for media and a physical epicenter of media concentration with all the big networks and ancillary businesses clustered in a ten block area, or at least represented with signage, studios and other symbols of the power of their “brand.”

As if to symbolize the interdependence of finance power and media power, the NASDAQ exchange and an investment bank positioned themselves at each corner of the square. In the middle, a Toys R’ US shopping mall opened across the street from the new MTV store, with a bevy of other brand-name outlets that market their wares through broadcasting. The legendary “crossroads of the world,” “the aptly named “Great White Way, ” for all its ostentatious lighting, had a new mission as the epicenter of media empires.

Watching this transformation in front of own eyes led to another insight: our aspirations for producing independent media about the problems of the world would be forever limited unless we could somehow tackle that “beast.”

We had to recognize that one of the big problems of the world, the Media, was right in front of us and barely acknowledged as a problem. Its legendary “gate-keepers” were there to dumb down the content, commercialize all messaging and keep our kind of progressive content off the air. It wasn’t exactly a conspiracy but similar templates, ways or working and market logics operated to sanitize news and suppress more critical fare. Most of the time, programming was not rejected explicitly on political or content grounds. It was always rather “good work, but its not for us.”

We were media people with some knowledge and insight into the way the industry works—and doesn’t work in terms of deepening our democracy. This was our issue if there ever was one.

We were just a handful of people, but we hadn’t shied away from tackling big problems. For three years, we produced weekly programs exposing apartheid in South Africa and the fight against it. Our South Africa Now series won awards and helped support the fight for democracy in that “beloved country.” Our follow-up series “Rights & Wrongs: Human Rights Television” with Charlayne Hunter Gault did the same for under covered human rights abuses worldwide. Many of our films also broke ground in raising issues that others shied away from.

Tackling the media, in the way we wanted to do it, was no small task. How do you even get a handle on a problem, which is so well financed and so deeply accepted, in our culture? What’s the “way-in” and how can you have any impact at all.

First we had to abandon the idea of a TV channel. It was far too expensive to even contemplate. Most channel start-ups back in the 1990’s were in the $50-75 MILLION dollar range. And even if you somehow come up with high-quality alternative programming, who would air it? Not the media monopolies controlling the cable systems. If there’s one thing that media companies hate more than on target criticism, it’s having those criticisms turn up on their own airwaves.

Next, we had to find a model for what we could do. If we couldn’t get on-air, we could, we thought do it on-line. As an internationally oriented company, Globalvision always had an eye on what was happening overseas.

It was then we found the fledgling One World network in England, which first launched in 1995. Its organizer Peter Armstrong, a former TV producer like ourselves, realized that content from NGO organizations concerned with the issues of the South could be aggregated and brought together on one website, a ‘supersite” or portal that could bring a world of concerned people and organizations together in the same virtual space to offer news and information about shared hopes and problems.

The Omidyar Network would later describe it this way:

One World encourages people to discover their power — power to speak, connect, and make a difference — by providing access to information, and enabling connections between hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of people around the world.

The people drive the One World network and organizations it supports — people write the news, provide the video clips and the radio stories. Through this network, individuals have access to information previously unavailable to them — information that can broaden their world view and enable them to make better decisions.

I went to London, actually to Peter and his family’s farmhouse in the rolling fields outside Oxford, to see for myself. I was impressed. A new world of media was functioning in the English countryside.

A Media Channel could be built along those lines. Peter was supportive and welcomed us to become a One World Affiliate. A colleague went to Oxford in 1999 to build a prototype that we would later use for funding what became our not for profit network.

We now had a way to realize our big idea. One World’s technology was a bit clunky and it worked. Some funders saw the potential. One funder gave us computers and even sent over a crack team of Chinese technicians to wire it up and help us get online.

The core of the idea was to build partnerships with like-minded organizations worldwide so that readers would find a wide range of diverse views. As we struggled with the technical challenges that would later support more than 1300 affiliates, not always smoothly., we hammered out a mission statement and plan of action:

MediaChannel.org is a nonprofit, public interest web-based network dedicated to raising awareness and promoting citizen action around global media issues. We seek to do more than encourage structural reforms and regulations; we seek more responsibility, accountability and transparency within media organizations and seek to defend media freedom while encouraging better journalism to serve the public interest.

Media channel aspired to become a robust internationally respected on-line media platform for an informed non-partisan and post-partisan discourse about the critical link between media and democracy featuring solution-oriented media analysis, education, research, criticism, debate and activism.

We report on the media but also inspire citizen engagement by participating in industry conferences, speaking out on radio and television, producing books and encouraging films, while campaigning to challenge and change media practices.

What We Will Do

Media Channel is concerned with the political, cultural and social impacts of our media system, large and small. Media Channel exists to provide comprehensive news, information and diverse perspectives to inspire collaboration, action and engagement through citizen journalism and reform. Making sense of the steady stream of info-tainment requires background, context and interpretation. It demands outreach and inspiration.

Media Channel is unique in offering news, reports and analysis from our editors and an international network of contributors, media-issues organizations and publications, as well as original features from contributors and staff. Our highly visible and diverse team speaks widely at universities and events worldwide, organizes well-attended public events and appears on radio and TV.

Our slogan: “While the media watch the world. We watch the media.”

THE NEXT STEP

Once we had a prototype, we began to reach out to organizations and individuals we thought might join us. Since we saw media as a global force, we needed to involve colleagues overseas. We were not just interested in recruiting from the progressive community. As media makers, we wanted other media professionals to join us. If were to be taken seriously as more than advocates on the fringes, we wanted to engage with as many media people and institutions as possible. From our own experience we knew that change has to take place on the inside often with pressure from the outside.

As I began to reach out for people who might be interested in helping us, I spoke with Lewis Lapham, the former editor of Harpers, a brilliant thinker and writer. Lewis told me about an Italian publisher who was very outspoken on the issue but also very busy and hard to reach during his infrequent visits to America.

His name was Leonardo Mondadori, the scion of the famous publishing company that had been taken over by the Berlusconi media interests. Some in Leonardo’s family had connived with Berlusconi while Leonardo resisted the takeover. In the end, the company was acquired but Leonardo remained in charge at least nominally. This experience raises his consciousness about the dangers of media consolidation and he vowed to fight it.

I dropped the names of Lapham and an Italian supporter of ours, Marialina Marcucci. who ran our Rights & Wrongs series on the Superchannel she once owned in Europe. He agreed to see me his penthouse apartment at the posh hotel on New York’s East Side. He was friendly, charming and interested and checked me out quickly by calling Marialina on her cell phone in Italy to see if she really knew me. He put her on the phone. After a few ciaos and some personal back and forth, he was was ready to hear my pitch.

He loved the prototype and “got” the idea and its value at once. He offered to help, and eventually did with advice, active support and money. Here was another lesson in the power of positive contradictions. A wealthy Italian in the top ranks of that country’s media elite wanted to change the media as much as we did, and he had the means to help us do it.

With Leonardo’s help and a few foundation grants, we launched Media channel on February 1 2000. The date had a special significance for me because it was the anniversary of the first student anti-segregation sit-in at the Woolworth’s store in Greensboro North Carolina. That dramatic action sparked the civil rights movement of the 60’s and drew me into the civil rights movement.

We were at the beginning of a new century and we had a new project. Our February 1 launch event drew prominent journalists and an endorsement from Walter Cronkite who couldn’t make it but sent a message on video. We were thrilled when the newscaster called the “most trusted man in America’ agreed to bless our insurgent effort to try to reform an industry which was, as he noted, was urgently in need of change.

He agreed to send a video message to our launch event. So there we were, activists and advocates turning to a big screen for the man who had represented the best and often the limits of network news for so many years. He said:

“Good evening, I’m Walter Cronkite. I really wanted to be with you in person tonight for Globalvision New Media’s launch of the new Internet site the Media Channel, but unfortunately I was called out of the country. Yet the issues that led to the creation of this unique global resource, and the crisis that’s facing all of us who work in and care about journalism and the media, are so profound that I simply felt compelled to tape this message so that you would know that I am with you in spirit at least.
As you know, I’ve been increasingly and publicly critical of the direction that journalism has taken of late, and of the impact on democratic discourse and principles. Like you, I’m deeply concerned about the merger mania that has swept our industry, diluting standards, dumbing down the news, and making the bottom line sometimes seem like the only line. It isn’t and it shouldn’t be.

At the same time, I’m impressed that so many other serious and concerned people around the world are also becoming interested in holding media companies accountable and upholding the highest standards of journalism.

The Media Channel will undoubtedly be worth watching and taking part in. I am intrigued by its potential, and its global reach….”

That was a heady endorsement. Media channel was up and running. Some funding was in place as we began our work amidst many internal debate about what we should do and how we should do it.

And so here I am and we are still doing or trying to seven years later. Internet years are like dog years and so we may be a lot older than we think. Our challenge – and your challenge if you support this work - is to help us survive because there is no guarantee that we will. Our funders express fatique or move on to the newest and trendiest ideas. We will carry on until we can’t do it anymore, so don’t say you have not been warned.

At the same time on this our anniversary we want to thank all of the people who helped get MediaChannel going and steered it through our early years Most have moved on but we value their contribution. The list of staff members, webmasters. advisors, funders, writers, editors, fundraisers and writers is too long to list here but they know who they are and and so do we. We honor the memory of Leonardo Mondadori who left us some years ago and that kindred spirit Molly Ivins who left us yesterday. Both left us with legacies to honor.

Happy Anniversary to us, to my partner Rory O’Connor who is blogging the Liddy Trial in DC and everyone who is hanging in and trying their best. We need help—and we need it now—from interns to money raisers to donors to more friends.

If you are able and willing to stand with us, write dissector@mediachannel.org. I am breaking format today but do want to give some space to a friend on the Oregon Coast :

Dau’d X Mohammed on the Death of Molly Ivins
Remembering 1962

Besides my own mom and dad, no death in recent history, maybe since President Kennedy, Malcolm, MLK, Bobby Kennedy has so shocked me as hearing Molly Ivins died. When I read your (interpreted as) “prayer list” note about her the other day, I didn’t think much of it. One day my closest friend at the time asked me to visit him at the hospital. He said, “I’m dyin’, man.” I didn’t think much of it. I was busy and he was only 62 when he died a week later without my having visited him.

Molly Ivins was only 62. For those of us who write the comedy she couldn’t take with her, the “shock” is a call to action. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough writers left to pick up her slack, and even if there were, most of them who remember what 1962 meant, are around 62, which for some ain’t such a lucky number.

Share your thoughts with us about Molly and Mediachannel.

I will try to get to some of today’s letters and news on Friday morning. And then I am off to Yale to take part in a conference on Film and Iraq. I will be showing WMD. Please see the ad on Mediachannel with more info and think about what events you would like to promote on Mediachannel.org.

We need to sell more ads….Can you help?

PS. The book News Dissector: Passions, Politics and Polemics was published in November 2001 by Akashic Books. It sort of got lost because of certain events in September of that year.

This blog was written by Danny Schechter and posted Wednesday night at 9:54 PM