BLOG POSTED THURSDAY NIGHT FOR FRIDAY. A LACK OF CONNECTIVITY MADE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO POST FROM POLAND. YES, THERE ARE STILL COUNTRIES THAT ARE NOT MAC-FRIENDLY.

ONE MAN ARMY
BACK IN POLAND
HAPPY NEW YEAR

In his new book Communication Revolution, chronicling his own impressive intellectual evolution from a an activist and music writer to a leading media academic historian and reformer, Robert W McChesney kindly calls me a pioneer in the media change business labeling me a “one man media army.” I like the military image but, to be honest, my work in this area has been about trying to build a broad based movement, not a personal platform.

Mediachannel was my weapon of choice. The idea was a Channel to watch the other channels, to argue the centrality of media change as key to transforming our democracy. Perhaps because we were are and were media people, and had been on the insider of the vast corporate media machine that we believed that without an informed electorate, our democracy would wither and be more open to manipulation. We weren’t wrong. Everyone now acknowledges that the big media is tilted to the right—and I just don’t mean Fox News, the left’s favorite whipping boy—and made the War in Iraq possible and, by its lack of critical coverage is an accomplice in keeping it going.

In the years since I started my own little media war, the public has in many ways joined me with growing expressions of dismay with the dumbed-down media they consume. Every survey registers dissatisfaction, and other indices show a fall off in newspaper circulation and lower rating for TV news. The popularity of the Daily Show and many online outlets offers more evidence of this trend. So many are estranged from the mainstream media, but so few are willing to support and help sustain independent media -oriented projects.

Activists seem locked in a ritualistic protest mode yielding fewer and fewer results with semi-annual protests every Fall and Spring. Funding and benefactors are harder and harder to find. Many foundations flit away from institutions without “big names” to embrace the new and trendy. Hundreds of millions of dollars are raised by Democratic politicians who we all know are more tethered to compromise and opportunism than principle.

So that leaves us struggling for survival, unable to market to the large audience we know is out there. We are hell raisers who have forced to become fundraisers, and we are always very good at it. At the same time, a steady set of invitations from around the world suggests that there are many people value what we do.

Why is that?

For one thing, most media and political websites are partisan appendages of political parties. They don’t raise structural critiques or offer global perspectives. In an age of globalization, they remain parochial or only focused on conflicts that the US is a main player like Iraq and Afghanistan. There’s very little offered on other parts of the world, and even less about the economy and what we might learn from others.

Rory O’Connor and I have been upwardly global even as we have become downwardly mobile. His tribute to Dame Antita Roddick, once a close patron, speaks to our own global aspirations and commitment to socially responsible principles.

In the last few years we have been to nearly 4o countries speaking at events, making films, and trying to show the face of Americans as people who care about fostering deeper changes in our world. We have encouraged global exchanges. (We currently have interns from China and Holland and work with colleagues worldwide.) Shouldn’t this effort be valued?

If you read Mediachannel regularly, you will find reporting and opinions from many countries and cultures. We feel this promotes understanding and makes our work distinctive and worth supporting. We are honored when organizations, forums and festivals think we are worthy or inviting to enrich their global conversations. Very few of our online colleagues have this global reach.

They think we matter.

We hope you do too. We hope you will help us keep keeping on by supporting Mediahchannel in our hour of need.

I am just back from a second visit to Poland, I hope you find my report of interest.