Reclaim the Media

Are you mad yet? You should be. Glenn Beck has now taken down Yosi Sergant, the second hip-hop activist to be forced to leave the Obama administration in a week.

Last night the 34-year old communications director at the National Endowment for the Arts was asked to resign. Why? Because he was trying to organize artists to support President Obama’s national service program, United We Serve. If your next question is: so what? That was ours too. But Glenn Beck compared the effort to "Nazi propaganda." (Just sick–especially since Sergant, a Jewish American, has worked as an activist for peace in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.)

This was the same logic paleocons used to batter Obama’s school speech. If he does it, it’s indoctrination. If they do it, it’s "journalism." But there’s much more to this story…

After a brief respite, the most accessible American political discourse --the national broadcast media--has returned to fearful, hate-filled, ignorant rants of a high-volume, low-intellect minority.

In such an environment, how does one govern? Does one try to “balance” such concepts as contradictory as a “public option” on one hand and “fear of death panels” on the other? Or does one realize that this is a false spectrum and to try to find a center in such a sea is a worthless and foolhardy expedition?

Now is the time to expand Low Power FM radio! Once again, Congress is taking up the Local Community Radio Act, which would dramatically increase community access to the public airwaves by allowing for thousands more low-power noncommercial radio stations to pop up across the country.

People across the country have been waiting patiently for Congress to take action to expand LPFM. This could be the year that it happens! Read more on how you can help support Local Community Radio.

On August 24, KBCS Community Radio in Seattle will dramatically increase its weekday public affairs offerings, the station announced this week. The planned programming changes will broaden and diversify the station's news and information programming, and make weekday morning music an eclectic mix of jazz, Americana and international music.

Under the new schedule, the morning broadcast of Democracy Now! will move from 6 to 8am, and Hard Knock Radio will air daily at 6pm. New programs include the Michael Eric Dyson Show, Sound of Young America, and GRITRadio. Read more for details!

A recent study found that the US has fallen to 20th place internationally in household broadband use. Many suburban and rural communities have limited or no access to affordable, high-speed Internet. Even in tech-savvy US cities (including Seattle), local residents pay too much for too little speed and bandwidth, our consumer "choice" for broadband services limited to choosing between the phone company and the cable company.

Thanks to broadband stimulus funds in the Recovery Act passed this spring, rural and urban communities across the US will soon be able to expand local community access to affordable, high-speed Internet. It's a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shift our tech infrastructure into high gear—benefiting our democracy, our culture, our economy, our healthcare, our public safety, our educational system and our environment.

Seattle may soon move forward with plans to connect the city's neighborhoods with high-speed broadband. If you're in the Seattle area, come to a meeting on Community Broadband and Digital Justice for Seattle, 6pm Mon, Jul 13 at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, to learn about the details--and help articulating our technology needs for the next generation! Special guest: Seattle Chief Information Officer Bill Schrier; hosted by Reclaim the Media and the NW Media Action Grassroots Network.

• Join our Digital Justice Facebook page!
• Read more about RTM's campaign for affordable, public broadband in Seattle.
• See what some elected officials and candidates are saying about our plan.

Moral of the day: Selling access to government officials who are willing to contribute their time and power to the media's cause is a bad revenue model for newspapers. Another way of saying that is that newspapers should not be funded by indirect government subsidies. But the whole brouhaha confirms my long-held belief that newspapers should be funded by direct government subsidies.

One thing to keep in mind while worrying about the future of journalism is that its past hasn’t been all that great either.

Journalism ought to be judged not on the profits it makes for stockholders but on the service it provides to democracy. By that measure, the reporting profession has been falling down on the job: Leading us into an aggressive war with evidence based on lies, overlooking an asset bubble whose predictable deflation devastated our economy, failing to raise alarms about the erosion of key civil liberties.

As part of making the switch to digital TV, many consumers are ditching old TVs in favor of new digital-ready or flat screen sets. Old TVs contain toxic metals such as lead and cadmium, and must be recycled properly rather than simply trashed.

However, environmental watchdogs warn that due to loose regulations, about 80% of so-called "recyclers" in North America will simply export your old TV to countries like China, India, or Nigeria, where these toxins will poison villagers using primitive technologies to recover valuable materials from the electronic scrap.

On Thursday, June 11th, organizers of Reclaim the Media's Seattle DTV Assistance center partnered with the Seattle YWCA to distribute about 100 donated digital TV converter boxes to YWCA residents who were unable to apply for the government’s $40 coupon program through regular channels.

While apartment dwellers are nominally eligible for the coupons, the YWCA residents ran into trouble when the government's coupon distribution system failed to recognize the YWCA address as a residence.

Friday, June 12 is the date that all remaining major TV stations will go digital-only; if you watch over-the-air TV, your screen will go blank unless you have a converter box or a digital-ready TV. Recent estimates suggested that there may still be more than 30,000 households in the Seattle-Tacoma area who are not ready for the switch. Here are a few tips for last-minute switchers:

Get a box! There are several options for getting a $40 box (basically free if you have a coupon. Fred Meyer stores are making good on their promise to sell a $40 box. Online retailers with $40 boxes include freedtvshop.com. Target is selling boxes for $45. If you already have a UHF (loop) antenna, you may not need a new antenna. Try your current antenna before buying a new one. If you do need a new antenna, they run between $10 and $40 .

Get a coupon! If you haven't gotten a coupon, it's not too late--even though at this point you will be without TV for a week or so. The fastest way to order coupons is online at dtv2009.gov, or by calling 888.DTV.2009.

Get help! For information, visit one of Seattle's local DTV assistance centers (listed on the left column of this page) or call 206.508.1277. Several organizations have received government funding to help you with home installation: Call Installs, Inc at 800.582.4250, Apollo Industries at 800.504.5677, or Best Buy (no purchase necessary) at 877.229.3889.