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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listerv
by david Monday July 07, 2003 at 07:23 PM

to join the campaign listerv, send a message to
media-act-subscribe@indypgh.org

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my personal silencing by one of Pittsburgh's great newspapers
by Emily Bell Thursday July 10, 2003 at 12:02 AM

I've been wondering for a long time where the Fourth Estate was. I present my own small testimony as evidence that the "news media" might be, indeed, controlled by colossal whispers from The Government.
A prologue is necessary to my tale:
In January 1997, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette invited me to compile and write its daily historical Almanac on page A-2 as part of a three-person weekly rotation. A permanent part-time employee in public relations at the time, I accepted the assignment on a freelance basis.
Shortly, one staff writer quit the rotation, and I was invited to take his week, as well. For the next six years, until March 2, 2003, my freelance submissions were published daily for 14 days in rotation (the other staff writer published the column seven consecutive days.)
I received $60 for each 7-day cycle of 400-word daily submissions. I confess that a larger recompense was the satisfaction of seeing my stuff published virtually untouched by a company of editors.
Even after my public relations position was ended in March 2000, management explicitly invited me to continue my freelance Almanac submissions.
While researching for the Almanac online in late February 2003, I tripped across a photograph of the Pentagon on September 11. What I suddenly saw--really, what I suddenly realized I did NOT see--made me violently and forever ill.
What I could not, and still can not, see, is any wreckage of a Boeing 757 commercial airliner. Later, I rediscovered the fact that the granite wall breached that day stood intact for 1/2 hour before collapsing into a tidy heap.
Arriving at the Post-Gazette on March 2, 2003 to research for the Almanac in the microfilm library, I stopped to ask two reporters of long acquaintance to explain the lack of airplane wreckage at the Pentagon.
The city desk editor on duty interrupted and demanded that I immediately leave, then escorted me personally out of the building. When the managing editor telephoned me three days later to inform me that my submissions would no longer be accepted, she refused to discuss the incident.
Nobody in the "news media" will discuss this with me; not my personal tale, but the fact that pictures of the Pentagon on September 11 show no evidence that it was struck by a large commercial aircraft.
Fellow citizens, we have been tricked. Bamboozled. Duped. Hornswaggled. Fooled.
Fellow citizens, I propose that a literal coup d'etat has been accomplished by the current occupants of the White House, with the help of our very own, carefully informative "news media."
Fellow citizens, let us take back possession of our country. We will need a free press to do it. Benjamin Franklin and his ilk used moveable type; we have the Internet.

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RECLAIM IMC FIRST
by 2 beers Thursday July 10, 2003 at 09:24 AM

So what Emily, your experience is not any different than that of many people right here at IMC. Once you can get IMC to play by the rules you demand of all the media then you can have some right to challenge the rest of the Fourth Estate. IMC is far less free and open than even the PG, which at least allows the expression of differing viewpoints (and it isn't even a tax exempt company living off of the subsidies of the government).

FREE THE IMC OPPRESSED !!!! FREE EWAN KENKESMEARSE !!!!! TRUST THE MEDIA !!!!!

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Double Up the Tinfoil...
by The Knights Templar Thursday July 10, 2003 at 03:30 PM

in your white frat baseball cap, so the IMC can't log your IP.

But seriously, there are lists of freeper IP's, which are collected by the administrators of personal pages which are frequently attacked by trolls. Webmasters can copy and paste these lists of IP's and block them.

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comment for 2 beers and question for The Knights Templar
by Emily Bell Thursday July 10, 2003 at 09:55 PM

RECLAIM IMC FIRST
by 2 beers • Thursday July 10, 2003 at 09:24 AM
So what Emily, your experience is not any different than that of many people right here at IMC. Once you can get IMC to play by the rules you demand of all the media then you can have some right to challenge the rest of the Fourth Estate. IMC is far less free and open than even the PG, which at least allows the expression of differing viewpoints (and it isn't even a tax exempt company living off of the subsidies of the government).

FREE THE IMC OPPRESSED !!!! FREE EWAN KENKESMEARSE !!!!! TRUST THE MEDIA !!!!!
~2 beers, I demanded no rules of any, or all, media. ~I have the right as a citizen to challenge the Fourth Estate and, yes, even my own Government. ~IMC is free and open enough to publish me, which is more than the P-G now, or every other news organization I've written to. ~The point is not my own silencing: The point is that THERE IS NO BOEING757 WRECKAGE IN PICTURES OF THE PENTAGON ON SEPTEMBER 11. ~Adults question authority; children trust it.
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Double Up the Tinfoil...
by The Knights Templar • Thursday July 10, 2003 at 03:30 PM
in your white frat baseball cap, so the IMC can't log your IP.
But seriously, there are lists of freeper IP's, which are collected by the administrators of personal pages which are frequently attacked by trolls. Webmasters can copy and paste these lists of IP's and block them.
~Knights, please explain. I'm not entirely computer or internet literate. Thanks.

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