PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Campaign to Reclaim the Media
by David Meieran Monday July 07, 2003 at 04:41 PM
dmeieran@123mail.org (email address NOT validated)

New Thomas Merton Center project to fight for media justice. First meeting on Thursday, J10.

Pittsburgh Media Action: Campaign to Reclaim the Media

WHAT: A local campaign of resistance to the corporate media -- the propaganda front of the U.S. empire-building war on the world. First meeting.

WHEN: Thursday, July 10, 7pm.

WHERE: The Thomas Merton Center, 5125 Penn Ave.

WHY: We cannot successfully fight the U.S. corporate military and economic agenda without also confronting its weapons of mass deception.

Media democracy movements to reclaim the media and protect and defend freedom of expression are growing like wildfire. In recent months, activists from Portland to Pittsburgh targeted the corporate media -- which implicitly conspired with the Bush administration to manufacture consent to an unjust war -- and the Federal Communications Commission --- which gives away our airwaves to such transnational behemoths as Murdoch's News Corporation and Clear Channel Communications at the same time it clamps down on low-power FM community stations.

The tentative goals for the campaign are

(1) to contribute to local and nationwide efforts to stop further consolidation of the corporate media,

(2) to "expose the corporate media for the boardroom bulletin that it really is" (as Arundhati Roy recently pleaded),

(3) to raise public awareness of the links between the military, economic and propaganda dimensions of the corporate, empire-building agenda, and

(4) to change the sources from which local residents seek their news by heavily promoting alternative media (e.g., IndyMedia, The New People, Homefront, Free Speech TV, Democracy Now, BlastFurnaceRadio, etc.).

The campaign's activities will include creative resistance, protests and direct action, as well as educational outreach and media watch. The campaign will participate in "Reclaim the FCC", a nationally coordinated day of local actions protesting the FCC's media giveaway, as well as Media Democracy Day, a day of international action focusing on global media justice.

The goals for the meeting are to establish principles of unity and to formulate the campaign's plan of action.

For more information, see http://www.thomasmertoncenter.org/MediaAction or email dmeieran@123mail.org

www.thomasmertoncenter.org/MediaAction

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