• Ira Glass Has a Posse

    Josh Stearns
    March 15, 2011

    In an interview on NPR’s “On the Media”, Ira Glass, host of “This American Life”, argues that it is time to stand up to the bullies and fight back against the smear campaign being waged against public media in Washington D.C. and on cable news.

    But how do we fight back? Here is what Glass suggests:

    “With the truth, baby, with the truth. That’s all we got. Listen to what we're doing on the air, and measure it. Call it impractical, call it idealistic, but I have to believe if we get out there with the truth, that, that weapon is a real weapon and actually means something.”

  • Delivering One Million Petitions Defending Public Media

    Josh Stearns
    March 15, 2011

    Some members of Congress have been spending so much time fretting about what’s going on in the executive offices at NPR that they have lost sight of the local people, local jobs, and local organizations in their districts that depend on public broadcasting. Today we are sending a wake-up call to Capitol Hill.

  • State of the News Media

    Libby Reinish
    March 15, 2011

    On Monday, the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) released its annual “State of the News Media” study.  The study covers a lot of ground, providing data about readership/viewership, ad revenues, ownership, journalism jobs, and content across every news medium, be it print, broadcast or digital. During the next few weeks, we’ll be diving deeper into the data, bringing you our analysis of how all this research can inform the media reform movement.

    The increasing dominance of the Internet as a news platform gets a lot of attention in the study. Let’s take a look at some of the media policy implications of what they found.

    Local News Goes Mobile

  • Sen. Franken: 'We Can't Lose Net Neutrality'

    Timothy Karr
    March 14, 2011

    On Monday, Minnesota Sen. Al Franken made the corporate takeover of the Internet – and the government's acquiescence to these corporations – frighteningly clear.

  • A Dangerous Congressional Overreach on Net Neutrality

    Megan Tady
    March 10, 2011

    Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner testified on Thursday on behalf of the Free Press Action Fund and the SavetheInternet.com coalition before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology.

  • House Goes Nuts Over Net Neutrality

    Timothy Karr
    March 9, 2011

    Late Wednesday, Republican members of a key House Commerce subcommittee decided to give phone and cable companies absolute, unrestricted power over the Internet.

  • Celebrating Community Radio Champion Rep. Mike Doyle

    Libby Reinish
    March 7, 2011

    Several dozen Pittsburghers honored Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) as he received a "Community Radio Champion Award" on Saturday.

    The award, presented by Free Press and the Prometheus Radio Project, recognizes Congressman Doyle’s championship of the “Local Community Radio Act,” a bill that will create space on the radio dial for hundreds of new community radio stations across the country. Advocates for these Low Power FM – or LPFM stations – have been working for years to pass this bill.

  • GOP Senate Bill: Another Attack on Public Broadcasting

    Josh Stearns
    March 4, 2011

    Senators Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) introduced a bill today that would eliminate federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This bill joins six other bills taking aim at public broadcasting already introduced in the House. DeMint wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today to make his case, attacking – of all things – CEO salaries at public broadcasting outlets.

  • Pubcasting Battle: A Slight Reprieve, and a Push for Reform

    Jessica Clark
    March 4, 2011

    Over the past few weeks I've been tracking the arguments of public broadcasting advocates fighting efforts in Congress to defund the service. This week, defenders got a bit of a reprieve, as Obama signed a two-week extension of the the deadline for the Senate and House to devise a final funding bill for this year.

     

  • Canadians Step Up to Stop the Meter

    Stevie Converse
    March 2, 2011

    Canadian Internet users rose up to defend Internet freedom when they beat back an attempt by the big telecoms to meter broadband usage. After a public outcry, both the liberal and conservative parties came together to stop the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission – the Canadian version of the U.S.

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