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Media Criticism
Keeping an eye on the War-ego-nian, ClearChannel, et al.
From the open publishing newswire:
Portland Independent Media will be having an open general meeting at It's a Beautiful Pizza (3342 SE Belmont) on Saturday August 2nd at 5pm. All are welcomed and encouraged to attend. This meeting is for people with general concerns or ideas regarding the website, print, radio, television, video or other.
Indymedia strives to be all-inclusive so please be mindful and respectful of other people's age, race, gender, sexual orientation, class and abilities. Thank you. Don't hate the media. Become the media!
From the open publishing newswire:
As sad as this is for Oregon Oregonian doesn't have much reputation for integrity or much else for that matter. Fish wrapper some call it.
Here is an example de jour, this time on what they consider acceptable speech. There was a minor domestic dispute in Hillsboro last Friday, that, as is the habit of many police departments in this country was turned in major blood bath by the local cops. The whole sorry affair was dutifully reported by the Oregonian..
From the open publishing newswire:
Conservative Hate Radio star Michael Savage is back at it again. And although he continues to become more and more hateful against everyone, he took the gloves off to Children with Autism. Michael Savage still aires in the Portland Area on 750 KXL. And although there was an outpouring of anger at Michael Savage for his parody of Senator Edward Kennedy's brain cancer diagnosis, KXL and Rose City Radio refuse to remove the "Savage Nation" from it's line-up. Contact information for KXL, it's General Manager and Program Director can be found below.
From the open publishing newswire:
I was on my way into work today when I came across this at N. Flint and N. Broadway at 9:05am: A white car dangerously and illegally parked as the bike lane starts. As I rode my bicycle by the car I noticed a man in the car with a camera on the dash pointed at the stop sign. I went on to the sidewalk and noticed that he was taking pictures of bicycles and the stop sign. He also had a laptop propped up in the passenger seat and was typing on it.
I do question the validity of the data collected by the press as they very rarely share their mythology. What I find most appalling is that from my perception KPAM was willing to breaking the law in order to collect data on others breaking the law. The reason that it is illegal to park the KPAM reporter and car was, is so that people can get to the bike lane to navigate this dangerous intersection.
From the open publishing newswire:
WHAT: "Tell it Like it Is," Benefit Party for the Portland Grassroots Media Camp A great opportunity to help shape the next Media Camp by signing up to share skills, organize, or by telling us what workshops you want to take! Network with other artists, journalists, computer geeks, and poets. Participate by making media that night! We'll be screen-printing, stenciling, shooting video and more.
From the open publishing newswire:
There is prattle about a possible "suitcase nuke" in the news lately. Prattle, I say, because a "suitcase nuke" is very nearly (though not quite) a unicorn. It IS possible to miniaturize a fission/fusion weapon, but it takes a high-tech/high-investment effort typical only to well-financed governments. It isn't something that some yahoo could do in a garage. Furthermore the components of any Cold War era miniaturized nuke would be heavily degraded by now--everything in it would be subject to heat (say 300-400F) and neutron irradiation, degrading everything from "shaped" explosives to control components.
From the open publishing newswire:
The Iraqi Children's campaign efforts to put up a prominent billboard in the Portland Metro area ran into a roadblock last week when Clear Channel refused to allow the billboard. The proposed billboard is on our website and features a frightened Iraqi child with the words, "Every child matters!" www.iraqichildrenscampaign.org
This billboard is tasteful and simply shows a frightened iraqi child and conveys the message that every child matters regardless of their nation of origin. But Clear channel has decided that the people of Portland don't need to be reminded of the pain and suffering of children in their name. They claim that the design is "not right for the market at this time" which is of course utterly absurd.
From the open publishing newswire:
Corporate media is not going to handle John and Joan Cusack's
film, War, Inc., very well for a few reasons. 1) Don't know how to review satire 2) What to make of a movie that makes fun of THEM 3) Pressure from corporate structure above for reviewers to pan such a movie. 4) Easier to attack something topical than support it.
From the open publishing newswire:
KPTV just ran a report on PADL's protests against Ungar furs. It was the most pathetic piece of yellow journalism I've seen since Kyle Iboshi uttered the words, "Was Fouad Kaady on drugs?" The premise of the story was that PADL, "unlike In Defense of Animals," has a stated goal of shutting down Ungar furs. (IDA, you will remember, carefully stated their goal in the Schumacher's campaign as being to educate the public, not to shut down Schumacher's. This was a very useful tactical move, if you ask me. To express the desire to actually shut down the business would have triggered any number of legal repercussions, which might have stopped the demonstrations. Instead, the public became educated to the horrific realities of the fur trade, elected not to shop at Schumacher's, and the end result: Schumacher's shut down.)(And, to make clear a point that KPTV seems not to have understood, the Schumacher campaign was a grassroots response to the fur trade, engaged in by many different people, and was not just IDA.)
From the open publishing newswire:
Many of us went up to Seattle to fight the FCC, knowing all along that the deck was stacked. They wanted to hand over a huge victory to the corporate police state: They wanted to allow anyone with enough riches to take control over all of the media they want. That means, they would have been able to control what we see, hear, learn, and think. And they had the votes to override the voices of millions of citizens who opposed the plan. ...Or so they thought.
While the FCC ignored all of our voices and pushed the rule changes ahead in spite of monumental outcry, it seems we have been heard anyway. Moments ago, the Senate votes to throw out the FCC's decision. Here is a communique from Free Press Action: Just moments ago, by a near-unanimous vote, the Senate stood up to Big Media. They voted to throw out the FCC decision to let the largest media companies swallow up even more local media. This is simply an astounding victory, and it would not have happened without the massive grassroots effort by you and thousands of others who called their senators, sent more than a quarter million letters, posted thousands of pictures and stories on StopBigMedia.com, and testified at public hearings held by the FCC. It was your dedication that made today's Senate win possible. Today was a huge step forward, but there is still much to do. The fight against the FCC now moves to the House, where our elected representatives need to hear from us.
From the open publishing newswire:
In a town where animal cruelty is the claim to fame, a couple of students stand up with (gasp)sidewalk chalk! The College Rodeo is this weekend and, in a town where rodeos are the biggest thing happening, its difficult but more necessary than ever for a couple people to stand up for the animals.
Two students went out in the middle of the night (Sunday April 20th) to simply lay the truth out... on the sidewalk... with chalk. These students were once members of the Animal Rights Club but had recently resigned due to disagreements with the president over MULTIPLE issues. These students covered the sidewalks on campus with text including "Animal Cruelty is not Entertainment", "The Rodeo is not a Sport", "Don't Support Animal Cruelty" in addition to others. The following day both students received phone calls from the police, saying that they had been informed that these students were involved in "grafitti" on campus and that they'd heard that these students have been involved in animal rights protests before. The students told the police that they were, in fact, responsible for the display and that this was MUCH less harmful that what is done to animals in the rodeo. The following day the attached article came out in the campus paper.... more animal rights "grafitti" showed up on the sidewalks early this morning in addition to some phrases about FREEDOM OF SPEECH The police are looking for these unruly anarchists.
From the open publishing newswire:
KOIN, KGW, and KPTV have announced that only 300 hundred protesters (while really it was more like 1,300 protesters) "boycotted school." They mentioned that there were accounts of people fighting the police. And that "juveniles" were arrested for being in the street when we were on the sidewalk.
Fuck the corporate media. You slimy bastards.
From the open publishing newswire:
In Olympia this week, a Washington State House Committee approved a resolution asking Congress to roll back the FCC's recent deregulation of media ownership rules. At issue is a controversial FCC decision last December to allow media companies to control both a city's newspaper and TV/radio stations, in the 20 largest markets. The decision flies in the face of overwhelming opposition expressed by the thousands of people who testified against media consolidation at six public hearings, hundreds of thousands of comments submitted to the FCC, and an impressively bipartisan range of elected officials.
The FCC's final public hearing on the issue was held in Seattle on Nov 9. Despite having less than a week's notice of the hearing date, over 1100 people turned out to testify at the nine-hour marathon hearing. This week, the Washington State House Committee on Technology, Energy and Communications unanimously endorsed a resolution urging Congress to enact the Media Ownership Act, a bill which would retroactively repeal the FCC's December ruling, and impose stronger public accountability requirements on future FCC decisions. |
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