This Is Independent Media's Moment
Tomorrow is Media Democracy Day in Vancouver. The potential is huge.
Crisis equals opportunity.
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Tyee - Media Backgrounder
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News Media Revolt: Canada Next?
Activist scholar McChesney rallies growing movement.
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Crystal Ball for Media Activism
A guess at when and how big digital decisions will go down in 2009.
Tomorrow, Vancouver will host MDD 2009 at the Vancouver Public Library, Saturday, Nov. 7, 11am to 6pm. The event is one of several public forums being held in cities across Canada, marking the tenth consecutive year of Media Democracy Day (MDD). The conversation in MDD's interactive workshops and panels can help provide a path to a reinvigorated independent media sector in Canada.
According to SFU professor Robert Hackett, the initial drive of MDD was to "build a greater sense of community for those fighting for media democracy." In the past, these events have led to key collaborations between allied media projects. This year, we hope to see more collaboration and more pragmatic discussions focused on elevating, expanding and multiplying independent media in this country. There is a window of opportunity right now, and that window can and will close if we don't take this challenge seriously.
Considering the current crisis in big media, now is the time to take independent media to the next level.
Canwest, for example, filed for court protection against creditors on Oct. 6, 2009. Several already well-paid directors, executives and other senior members of Canwest management will share $9.8 million in Key Employee Retention Plan (KERP) bonuses. In an article for Rabble.ca, Gary Engler contrasts this extravagance with the fact that media workers are losing severance pay, pensions and jobs; shareholders are taking huge losses; and suppliers are receiving "a few cents on the dollar at best."
It is frustrating to know that those people who mismanaged the Canwest media empire are not bearing the brunt as much as media workers, shareholders and suppliers. However, there is now an opportunity for less wasteful media outlets to chip away at Canwest's market share. Rather than let other domestic or foreign media conglomerates step in, we should help independent media use this waste of resources as an opportunity to become the cornerstone of our media ecology rather than just the alternative to big media.
What is independent media?
Independent media is often referred to, but rarely defined. It is structurally independent from the two most powerful institutions in our society: government and corporations. This autonomy allows independent media more freedom than big media to be openly critical of power, and it makes outlets more reliant and accountable to everyday people.
Independent media typically relies on support from some combination of donations/members, foundations, NGOs/unions, commercial advertising, and volunteers. Most independent media outlets also have an overt social mission that creates an orientation and ethos of public service rather than the narrow commercial interest found in many media corporations.
Independent media organizations are, however, marginalized and in need of a reliable financing mechanism that maintains their ability to act autonomously. We know that our current media system creates an obstruction for an open public sphere, but the obstruction is not just the dominant corporate media system and its matrix of filters, it's also our inability to create a mechanism to fund a public service independent media system.
About Media Democracy Day
More information regarding Media Democracy Day activities can be found at: www.mediademocracyday.org
Fixing our media system is not simply an issue of better networking of existing projects; we must develop a sustainable independent media infrastructure, while also providing stable and reliable funding to individual projects. We can't continue to rely on individual independent media outlets that are scrambling for funds for the next story. To compete with big media, independent media needs to become the incubators of journalism experiments. While some are trying, it is very much an uphill battle when daily sustenance becomes a preoccupation.
Coming together to power independent media
The economic downturn has been hard on both independent and corporate media. And yet, there seems to be enough money to give particular management personnel extravagant annual bonuses. It is quite obvious that Canada's media-funding model needs to be reevaluated and remixed. In so doing, independent media should be prioritized by policy makers, citizens and civil society.
A partial solution to funding independent media could be "community media trusts" (CMT) financed by labour organizations, citizens, foundations, institutions (churches, universities), government and NGOs. Renowned communications academic James Curran and others who have put forth the creation of public trusts have conceived of single national public trusts, primarily funded through the state. Alternatively, we could set up a decentralized network of CMTs to provide service to particular geographical regions. For example, Vancouver based NGOs, universities, churches, labour groups, foundations, citizens and possibly local government, could pool their resources and create a Vancouver CMT, which could provide long-term funding for public service independent media in Vancouver.
Could this be the way forward for a democratically accountable independent media sector?
More information regarding MDD activities can be found at: www.mediademocracyday.org ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
OilbertaRedTory
06-11-2009
Rent Seeking
... through the privilege of unrestricted access for producers and consumers requires public co-operative ownership of the means of distribution.
Sounds almost revolutionary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkScM71Pngc&feature=related
Since the corporate market has failed so miserably, perhaps even Rupert Murdoch won't spin too fast in his grave. Well, not yet.
Still, the old-fashioned way has its attractions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d0GARTk_Nk&feature=fvst
Jeffrey J.
06-11-2009
Excellent coverage
As the old monopoly capitalist model continues to implode, real 'green shoots' of democracy are sprouting everywhere: independent media, citizens organized to oppose the Olympics; citizens working to save wild salmon; citizens combining to combat poverty; citizens supporting First Nations social justice; the list goes on.
This is the really, really GOOD news in BC and Canada. But it is imperative we continue to feed and water these democratic movements. History demonstrates that even as powerful monopolies begin to fail, like an old, rabid dog, they are still extremely dangerous. There were very progressive movements in the early 1930's Italy and Germany which were promptly squashed when the regime turned.
We may be at those crossroads. We will need to continue to support independent media!
BC Mary
06-11-2009
Don Martin: Mike Duffy jumps the shark
Here's a rare media event ... Don Martin of the National Post (while admitting he's uncomfortable about it) tearing strips off Mike Duffy for being biased, ill-informed, a big spender of govt. expense account $$s, and a willing shill for Stephen Harper.
I was moved to send a Thank You note to Don Martin.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/11/06/don-martin-mike-duffy-jumps-the-shark.aspx
Skywalker
06-11-2009
The Duffy vs. Stoffer exchange.
I've watched it. Whatever credibility Duffy may have had becoming a senator is shot in the first few words out of his mouth. Then it just gets worse. He's a shill for Harper. He goes so far as to point out that he is not a "progressive" conservative but a Harper conservative. Then he as a politically appointed tory hack is equal to an elected MP of any stripe. Sorry Mike, you are an appointed party flunky with his large snout in the trough. No different than any other useless overpaid, expensive and puffed up senator. All your biased reporting wasn't enough, now we have to endure this.
j9
07-11-2009
independent media day in victoria
we send our well wishes from across the pond, and will be promoting independent media tonight with a fundraiser for the new bchannelnews.tv and victoria.indymedia.org and perhaps others who are offering alternative views on the olympic priority.
whatever the new media looks like, it needs to be autonomous and free and inclusive of those voices that are silenced in the corporate propaganda. i also personally think it's better to be cooperative rather than, like the corporate model, competitive. it ought to be about getting the information out there, rather than bickering about who gets access to what information. the more the merrier, in this time of economic and environmental crises, is my opinion.
namaste,
janine
relativenewz.ca
Miss aware-beware
07-11-2009
Independent media
Being a person who has, in the last couple of years, started to tell the mainstream media and professional regulatory bodies what I think and know, I can very clearly see that if all the independent media was not there to back me up, they would have pink slipped me by now! Thank you independent media!
SharingIsGood
07-11-2009
"Talk 1410 is No More"
Commercial 1410 talk radio (out of Toronto) in Vancouver sometimes had the nerve to invite some free thinking guests like Rafe Mair and Harve Oberfeld met its demise this week. In its stead will be another sports talk radio station. One omre venue for open discussion - gone in time for the Olympics.
To read about it, see Harv Oberfeld:
http://harveyoberfeld.ca/blog/
SharingIsGood
07-11-2009
Re: BC Mary, "Don Martin..."
I watched the interview, live. I felt dirty at the end of the segment - like I had just witnessed someone being extremely lewd in public, but was powerless to stop it.
Duffy was filled with self-importance and he rudely cut off the polite Liberal MP, Peter Stoffer, at least 3 times. Duffy did not stay on topic, but arrogantly chose to attack the well-respected Peter Stoffer about a topic that had nothing to do with the interview. I am sure that Stoffer had plenty to say to counter Duffy's out-of-context attacks, but he politely remained on-topic.
I had never considered Duffy as unbiased when he covered Parliament - often found him pompous and rude toward Layton and other NDP MPs. As a reporter, he was barely congeninal to the Liberals, but not always. To Harper's Conservatives, he generally smiled warmly while he lobbed softballs, giving the Harperite plenty of time to explain his or her point of view.
In the end, I found the tuxedo-bedecked Duffy to have given an embittered penguine performance the likes of which would have made Danny DeVito quack with envy.
Skywalker
07-11-2009
One point Peter Stoffer should have repeated.
Only once did Stoffer say that unlike Duffy, he was elected and thereby accountable to the electorate. I wish he had repeated it over and over again to a puffed up appointed Tory hack accountable to only one person for ten years with no way of holding him accountable after that. To me that was the important difference. When Duffy runs for office and gets elected, I will consider him something worth considering. Until then he is just another fat cat in a tight suit with a stupid bow tie.
SharingIsGood
07-11-2009
correction
Peter Stoffer is an NDP MP from Nova Scotia. Above, I had erringly called him a Liberal. My apologies to all, especially the esteemed Mr. Stoffer.