The Rocky Mountain News is Closing Because of Corporate Malpractice

Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

The Rocky is the only one of the 20 papers in the Scripps chain that was unprofitable in 2008. After 150 years, Scripps closed it today.

Last year was the first year in its recent history that the Rocky has been unprofitable. Just the year before, it had made $44 million. The other 19 papers in the chain provided Scripps with a more than adequate cushion to see the Rocky through a recession. The corporation has given no explanation for this.

Website of the staffers who organized: I Want My Rocky

Below is the statement by Colorado Common Cause:

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For Immediate Release:
February 26, 2009

Contact: (303) 292-2163 office
http://www.ColoradoCommonCause.org

Statement on the Closing of the Rocky Mountain News
Jenny Rose Flanagan, Executive Director of Colorado Common Cause

Denver—It’s a sad day in Colorado. Over the last 150 years, the Rocky Mountain News has established a strong tradition of reporting on the local issues that matter to Coloradans. From award-winning investigative reporting to their distinctive political perspective on the editorial pages, the Rocky has been a consistent voice on the issues of the day.

While we will mourn the loss of the Rocky, we are troubled by what this loss means for the future of journalism in Colorado and beyond. The Rocky Mountain News is not the first newspaper to announce plans to close in recent months, and unfortunately, it won’t be the last. The Rocky’s closure is more than the loss of a single newspaper, it’s just one example of a failing model for the news industry. Although print media has become less popular, the desire—and need—for diverse and independent journalism has not.

An informed citizenry requires a diverse and independent media. Newspapers have long been the medium to connect neighbors, inform communities, and give us the information necessary to hold government leaders accountable. As more Coloradans choose to get their news online, we must ensure that the news they get continues to meet the standards set by the Rocky Mountain News and other print media.

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Colorado Common Cause is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working for open, honest, and accountable government. For more information, visit http://www.ColoradoCommonCause.org

Microradio Bill Introduced in House - Please speak up for community radio!

Hello folks!

On Wednesday, Reps. Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Lee Terry (R-NB) announced the introduction of the Local Community Radio Act of 2009 - Congress' latest attempt to expand Low Power FM community radio across the country.

The Congressmen were joined by activist groups who have been leading a nationwide grassroots fight for community radio for years, including the Prometheus Radio Project and the Future of Music Coalition. Other cosponsors of the bill include longtime LPFM champion Jay Inslee (D-WA), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX), and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA).

The bill would expand LPFM community radio nationwide, allowing hundreds of community groups, schools, municipalities and religious organizations to apply for new noncommercial radio licenses in cities and towns across the US. Last year's House version of the bill garnered the support of nearly 100 cosponsors.

The Senate version of last year's bill was cosponsored by another longtime LPFM champion, Maria Cantwell (D-WA), along with John McCain (R-AZ), Senators Obama and Clinton, and others. The Senate is expected to take up the issue of LPFM once again this spring.

Low Power FM stations are community-based, noncommercial radio stations that broadcast to neighborhoods and small
towns. LPFM licenses make radio station ownership possible for schools, churches, labor unions, local governments, emergency providers and other nonprofit groups to directly communicate with their local community.

In 2000, the Federal Communications Commission began to issue LPFM licenses.

However, soon after, Congress passed an unnecessary piece of legislation that drastically limited the radio spectrum available to LPFM stations. Since then, thousands of applications submitted to the FCC have been dismissed because of these limitations.

"Diverse, informative, thought-provoking, locally oriented programming has been dramatically restricted across the country by the current federal laws governing the separation between broadcast frequencies," said Congressman Doyle. "Enactment of this legislation would improve the quality of life in communities across the country by providing new and different programming -- especially programming addressing local interests and events -- to these communities."

The Prometheus Radio Project, a group that helps build LPFM stations across the country, is the leading advocate for community radio. Campaign Director Cory Fischer-Hoffman notes, “As media outlets are increasingly consolidated local voices are being forced off the airwaves; it is time for Congress to remove the unfair restrictions that stand in the way of community organizations, religious groups, students and senior citizens from getting their own LPFM stations.

"In this time of economic crisis, it is crucial that communities have access to important information and educational programming featuring local news, emergency information and community matters. Expanding LPFM is a concrete action that will provide this important service,” she adds.

- Detail from Prometheus Radio Project and Jonathan Lawson's post on Deepmedia.org.

Please send a letter to your representatives here.

TV 101 - and Public Access 101

Go get a cup of coffee, and watch them in order - I posted as much as I could find. 22 minutes total.

Public Access, Denver Open Media Style

From: Tony Shawcross
Deproduction/Denver Open Media
700 Kalamath
Denver, CO 80204
720-222-0160 x200
http://deproduction.org

(from correspondence)

...as I mentioned about the suggestions I'd give to access stations,
there are two primary ones.

1. stop all production services that are not directly generating a
significant profit. Public Access stations don't exist to produce
content, but to allow the public to do so, and any resources directed
at internal production work are reducing resources available to
support the community productions Public Access stations exist to
provide. Public Access stations should view themselves like
Wikipedia, where the staff is expressly discouraged from participating
in "content creation" and is entirely focused on facilitating public
creation of content.

2. review all staff activities, identify those which the community
could conceivably take-on. Develop systems and incentives for the
public to take over as many responsibilities for running the station
as possible. There are web-based tools available to enable any Access
station to hand over every task to their community, which results in
stronger community involvement and support.
Scheduling, programming, marketing, equipment reservations, class
registrations, documentation, fundraising, underwriting... these are
all tasks that could be handed over to the public.

Documentary as a Tool for Action

video: Bukeni Waruzi, on the use of his footage of child soldiers in the Congo in the International Criminal Court trial of a warlord:



Last week I was able to go to the Center for Social Media's annual conference at American University in DC. To put it simply - this was a conference of people who make documentaries, and then go out and use them to organize for social justice. It was completely and utterly inspiring. Documentary filmmakers are simply too hip to begin with, and then I meet these folks, and they are all that plus the idealism and some rebellion. They were making the art/journalism (or journalism/art?) that will change the world.

Highlights that I want to pass on:

- The Hub. This is world's first participatory media site for human rights. "Through the Hub, individuals, organizations, networks and groups around the world are able to bring their human rights stories and campaigns to global attention and to mobilize action to protect and promote human rights," according to their site. The video work on the site covers Egypt, India, Congo, Zimbabwe... and the list goes on. Most hopeful and moving, though, is the work of their regional director Bukeni Waruzi, whose videos documenting the insanely cruel "child armies" used to fight their civil war has, a decade later, provided some of the evidence required to bring one of the most powerful warlords to trial. This is one of the most potential powerful forms of journalistic innovation I have seen in a long time, and is yet another argument as to why the Internet must be protected from all tampering by either corporations or national governments, and net neutrality provisions written into law as soon as possible.

- Using documentary as teaching/organizing tool. The documentary department of PBS, AmDocs/POV, will lend you for free any of their hundreds of documentaries, which come with downloadable Facilitator/Discussion Guides on how to host the event, and Lesson Plans for educators. Some of the documentaries they have available: "Flag Wars," about gentrification, "The Camden 28," about the 1971 trial of an anti-war raid on the New Jersey Draft board, and "Thirst," about the global water shortage. You can also search by topic. Link here.

- Snagfilms. This is a Beta site hosting all sorts of dox you can watch for free. And you can also pick five of them and set them up on your website in a little theatre!

- The Unheard Voices Project. Based in NC, this is a project aiming to document the impacts of globalization and economic displacement.

- DoGooder.tv is sort of a hosting space for videos about nonprofits.

- Info on the conference and sponsor: Center for Social Media here. And information on Making Your Media Matter, the conference itself, is here, with video to be posted soon. Information on all the great documentarians who were there should be up as well.

Read "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman

What can I say? The Vatican mounted a massive campaign to suppress it. It's about witches, Texans, goddesses, cool toys, and polar bears. How much more of a recommendation do you need?

Incredibly Kind Article that Marc Stier Wrote about My Work

Marc Stier is running the statewide healthcare reform in PA, is a faculty member of the Center for Progressive Leadership, knows most people in Philadelphia, and is one of my closest friends. He wrote this about my work.

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Hannah Miller On Tour
Submitted by Marc Stier on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 4:23am.
YoungPhillyPolitics.com

As many of you know, for her work with the Media and Democracy coalition, Hannah Miller is going to be working all over the country from a new base in to Washington, DC.

There was a going away party for Hannah on Friday that I missed because I was very late in getting back from Harrisburg. I was sorry to miss it because, though we said goodbye earlier in the week, I believe in the power and importance of public ceremony.

And when someone who is not only one of my best friends but an important part of the progressive movement in our city leaves for a time, that event should be marked publicly. So I had hoped to be there to say a few things about what Hannah has meant to all of us.

I’m a little reluctant to post this, undoubtedly much much longer more formal version, of what I would have said. It’s a little too eulogistic for someone only thirty two and totally healthy. And, I’m quite sure that the news of Hannah’s leaving our city is somewhat overstated: I’d be shocked if she doesn’t continue to be an important part of our political life not least by writing here.

Still, let’s err on the side of ceremony and take a moment to think about Hannah’s role in our city.

I met Hannah almost exactly three years ago, and had been receiving emails from her for about six months when I met her. For the last three and a half years I’ve known her, Hannah has been a critical part of progressive activism in this city.

Most of her achievements are well known:

She’s been a leader of Philly for Change.
She was a driving force in Anne Dicker’s campaign for state representative
She played a key role in making the State House Democratic by guiding Rick Taylor’s campaign, which gave Democrats a one seat advantage after the 2006 election.
She helped bring a disparate group of progressive council candidates together as a movement in 2007. While only one of us was elected to office, the impact of that race will be felt again in the future.
She helped Ellen Green-Ceisler become a Common Pleas judge and played an important role in Ruth Damskers’ campaign for County Commissioner in Montco.
She has been an important advisor to the leaders of the anti-casino and save the library campaigns. And as SEIU’s Health Care Campaign Manager she had an important, and continuing, influence on health care reform in Pennsylvania and beyond.
Two roles Hannah has played are not well known. One may only be important to me: Hannah was an enormous help to me as I tried to articulate my ideas about Philadelphia politics. “The Politics of Hope” was her phrase and the idea it expresses—the notion that we need a new kind of civic engagement in our city based on our belief in the power of collective action—still strikes me as the key to reforming our politics. (And I’m happy to see that in the last year or so an important national politician has been using the phrase as we did in 2007).

And, far more important was Hannah's unsung role in the Mayoral election of 2007. As a volunteer, Hannah contributed important themes to the campaign of Michael Nutter, helping him give a heroic narrative shape to his work in Council. And, more than anyone else, Hannah is the one who made Michael Nutter cool. Her posts at YPP and a Philadelphia Magazine article that not only quoted her extensively but was shaped by her perspective on the race, helped turn a candidate with a reputation for being a smart policy wonk with a progressive streak into a champion of a new kind of politics for the city.

That Michael Nutter has seemingly been trying to be uncool in the last few months, shouldn’t take make us forget that Hannah helped him realize his potential for giving hope to this city. (Nor should we give up on that potential just yet.)

Hannah has played different roles in these various campaigns and done them all well: as an inspiring recruiter of volunteers; as the creator of bold and effective campaign messages, as a canny strategist, as a fundraiser and as a psychologist to candidates trying not to get overwhelmed by their campaigns.

But much more important than what Hannah has done is how she has done it. Hannah’s work in our city has been filled with inquisitiveness, humor, passionate idealism and love.

As befits a former journalist, Hannah asks better questions (and more of them) than anyone else in politics in this town. That’s how she has learned so much so fast and how she has come to develop insightful, original political ideas. Hannah has, in my view, not always been right in her judgments. (Who is?) But she has been one of the handful of people whose ideas I can’t dismiss without thinking them through.

Sometimes her way of expressing those ideas (fluffy bunnies!) grates on people who think that politics has to be relentlessly serious. But there is no hope, and no getting up after you have been knocked down, without laughter. So Hannah’s incredible sense of humor, recognition of the absurdity of so much of politics and life, and willingness to risk seeming ridiculous to expose it, has helped keep us coming back for more.

Philadelphia is a city that is embarrassed of any idealism, let alone passionate idealism, that is not connected with the Founding Fathers. It is as if our reservoir of idealism was used up over two hundred years ago and we have been living without it every since—with the sole exception of the brief Dilworth-Clark moment when the springs flowed again. Hannah has refused to accept cynicism and passivity as our political lot and has challenged us to be passionate enough to drill down further in order to find a new well of idealism for Philadelphia

And she has done it with love for this city, its citizens and most of all her fellow activists. That’s not to say that Hannah hasn’t had her share of disagreements, and even angry ones. No political activist who doesn’t get angry at both injustice and the idiocy of her fellow activists is worth anything. So Hannah has had disagreements, and sometimes angry ones, with our opponents and with almost all of us as well, including me. But Hannah has the capacity of a fiction writer and sociologist to understand the lives of others as they do. That gives her the capacity to see the humanity in her opponents. And, that goes for her friends as well. Hannah doesn’t carry a grudge. Once the moment of anger has past, Hannah always looks for the best in everyone. I can think of ten or twelve times when, a few weeks after we have been railing about someone and I start in again, she declines to join me and, instead, starts talking about their good qualities and contributions to the progressive movement.

I’m one of many Philadelphia progressives who is grateful to have worked with Hannah as much as we have in the last three years. We are going to miss her. So while I wish her well I’m looking forward to her returning to our hometown.

Dr. Cornell West

The great prophet genius. He was on the radio yesterday talking about the economy and jazz, calling Paul Krugman a bluesman. I didn't get to hear it so I went looking. And found this.

Budget Workshops: Alan Tu's Riff on my Daily News Editorial

From "It's Our City"
It Takes A Village To Solve A Budget Crisis
Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 12:03 pm - by Alan Tu. Filed under: Budget.

Hannah Miller, a Philadelphia activist, would be the perfect person to write a Stephen King-like screenplay adaptation to Philadelphia’s budget crisis. In her op-ed in today’s Philadelphia Daily News, she makes the case that citizens better realize that Philadelphia’s budget crunch is real and it’s up to them to help decide what impact it will have.

In an effort to help us see her point, she says think of it this way:

Say we’re a village in New England 300 years ago, and one night some wolves come out of the forest and eat half our sheep and cows, so we don’t have enough food to make it through the winter.

We have a town meeting to figure out what to do, and everyone in the village shows up.

Are we going to grow more potatoes? Can we divide up the cows so that no one goes hungry? Can someone go to the suburbs to borrow some sheep?

And can someone go kill the wolves (otherwise known as the financial-services industry) so they don’t do this to us again?

That’s really all the budget is: cows and sheep.


And since a lot of us in Philadelphia are apathetic slugs who like to complain a lot, she really lets us have it. Miller says that we all have an obligation to help Mayor Michael Nutter decide how the remaining (sacred) cows and sheep are going to be shared or to find other places food might be hidden.

This is about us, and whether we’re going to show up for the most important decisions to be made in this city (and country) in a generation. We don’t get to skip the meeting and then spend six years complaining that the sheep were distributed unfairly.

Do you ever wonder what happened to your idealism? Where did it go? Well if you’ve been living around this old village, it’s easy to become cynical when some of our leaders have been saving the best cuts for themselves.

But after reading her piece, That made me think what if idealism only works if others participate with you? If they don’t, then what we’re left with is “realism” and things go on just the way have for decades. What if Miller is right that if enough people actually believe that their opinions mattered it could have an impact. Well in this “New budget process” she believes Mayor Nutter is truly sincere about hearing from the public and that he doesn’t have his mind made up. I’m inclined to believe her on this point because the four citizen budget workshops are a direct result of his nasty experience he had with announcing budget cuts in November then asking the public “How’d I do?” Also, he’s a lot more accessible than the last mayor we had.

Schedule for the budget workshops

Thursday, February 12, 2009
Northeast
St. Dominic’s School
8510 Frankford Avenue

Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Germantown
Mastery Charter School
Pickett Campus
5700 Wayne Avenue

Thursday, February 19, 2009
South Philadelphia
St. Monica’s Catholic School
16th and Porter Streets

Monday, February 23, 2009
West Philadelphia
Pinn Memorial Baptist Church
2251 N. 54th Street

The U-Verse Doesn't Apparently Include Your Town

FCC asked to probe AT&T treatment of public access channels
by Nate Anderson
Ars Technica
02/02/09

Link to full article here.

Municipalities around the country aren't pleased with AT&T's U-Verse IPTV service, which won't put their public access and government TV programming on actual "channels." FCC complaints have been filed and the Illinois attorney general is now involved.

PEG channels—public, educational, and government programming that generally takes the form of city council meetings and plays from the local middle school—are being treated as second-class citizens on AT&T's new U-Verse IPTV system, according to a new complaint to the FCC. Anger over AT&T's PEG handling has been buildling for some at the local level, but late last week it went national.

The FCC is now being asked to step in where state regulators so far have not to "rule in no uncertain terms" that the U-Verse PEG situation is "in violation of the Act and Commission rules and policies."

Everyone agrees on what's happening here, just not on whether it's a "feature" or a "bug." Instead of providing each PEG channel with an actual "channel" that subscribers can simply punch into a remote or surf past on accident, AT&T has bundled all the PEG channels from a broad area and dumped them onto channel 99. Users who want to see that city council meeting need to visit channel 99, click "OK," download a small app (from eight seconds to one minute), choose their community from a list of local towns, then choose a particular PEG channel from that community.

Link to full article here.

How Should We Replace the Sheep? - My Op-Ed in the Daily News today.

Feb. 2, 2009

By HANNAH MILLER

THIS IS a letter to the people of Philadelphia who don't have power and feel at the mercy of those who do.
Over the last few months, it's been impossible to avoid the drumbeat of fear over the millions of people losing jobs, of the largest U.S. companies possibly closing, of thousands of new applications for unemployment.

Even if you haven't lost anything, or didn't have a lot to lose in the first place, you're probably worried, confused and hoping that the folks in charge come up with a really smart plan.

Well, I have some bad news.

That's not only not going to work, but it's a bit of a cop-out on your part.

Our country is based on "Rule by the people." That's what democracy means. But it doesn't simply mean that you show up to vote once in a while, and then go back to playing with your Wii for the four years in between.

Everyone in our society has a sacred responsibility to shoulder the decision-making process of government. And it's up to us whether the economy gets back together or not.

Continued here.

"The Creation of the Media" by Paul Starr - food for thought.

Most of “The Creation of the Media” by Paul Starr blew my mind, but here are some favorite tidbits:

- The American newspaper industry would never have gotten started at all if it weren’t for massive government subsidies. Namely, discounted postal rates in the 18th century. The Postal Service played an absolutely crucial role in the formation of both the newspaper industry, and democracy itself, after the right to privacy was codified in the law. It had been standard operating procedure for the Brits to open mail in the colonies to suppress rebellion, etc. It’s something we take for granted now.

- The telegraph was the moment at which the speed of communication first outpaced the speed of transportation.

- The movie industry before World War I was magical! Little theatres in storefronts! Labor movies! Movies about women! Movies in lots of languages! Movies as travelogues! Totally diverse and representative of multiple ethnic communities! Movies that cost virtually nothing to make, or watch! A beautiful and diverse thing until vertical integration and creepy cultural consolidation.

- The Associated Press used to be a cartel that would put newspapers out of business if they didn’t subscribe, and that would use its overwhelming power to side with individual Presidential candidates – and get them elected.

- The Lazarfeld study of presidential voting in Ohio in the 1940s showed that in this case, the media rarely changed anyone’s minds – far more important in decision-making process were social networks and the ideas of “local opinion leaders.” It showed that people self select what they read and watch, and that they read and watch are almost always reinforcing what they believe rather than challenging it. Although we no longer live in Ohio in the 1940s, this study opens up a whole can of worms.

My direct personal experience is that this is true, especially in local and other low-information elections. Maybe that is the 2000s speaking, as even the concept of “broadcast” fades in relevance. But if I really am to follow this down the rabbit hole, I have to wonder what exactly is the public sphere? If it is not the media, then where does the public sphere exist anymore, especially in an age of increasing social fragmentation?

Other than politics, I think the most interesting place where you see the re-emerging importance of social networks is in the music industry. It’s a really simple question: how do you find out about new music? But the answer to it has changed so much over the last 50 years. It went from social networks, to local DJs...and then, with the death of commercial radio and the advent of automated playlists that turn DJs into functionaries requiring no more knowledge or creativity than burger flippers at McDonalds…we’re back to good old word of mouth. Except that we have this electronic version of word of mouth now, and it’s called MySpace.

- We used to have something in the U.S. called the Committee on Public Information. It was a part of the federal government set up to control propaganda during World War I, and is regarded as the beginning of the public-relations industry.

- When radio first went on the air in 1920s, there were four main types of programming:
1. RCA, Westinghouse, and the other radio manufacturers ran stations to promote the sales of radio receivers. At the time, people thought the way to make money off of radio was to sell the hardware. They had no idea about advertising.
2. Private businesses like department stores and newspapers started their own stations to promote themselves.
3. Colleges/churches/nonprofits operated stations.
4. “Toll broadcasting” – WEAF in New York City. You could pay for airtime.
When the concept of advertising was first invented for radio, it was seen as so abhorrent that even people in the advertising industry were against it. Or as President Herbert Hoover put it at the first radio conference in 1922: “it is inconceivable that we should allow so great a possibility for service, for news, for entertainment, for education, and for vital commercial purposes, to be drowned in advertising chatter.”
Which of course brings to mind the current war for the soul of the Internet…