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 Over at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), they are reporting on the Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, and his comments on the grassroots media revolution which he made on Democracy Now!:
According to Amy Goodman (Host of Democracy Now!) on her Jan. 22 show: Sen. Bernie Sanders believes that "if you are concerned about health care, Iraq, the economy, global warming you must be concerned about corporate control of the media."
Goodman (and Sanders) continue, "The newly elected U.S. Senator from Vermont tells media activists of his belief that we are reaching a moment when critical mass is kicking in. Because of your efforts, because of a growing grassroots movement all over America, what I can tell you is that not only in the House is there a media caucus where this issue is now going to reach a higher level than ever before, I can tell you that it's going to happen in the Senate as well. I can also tell you, absolutely, that we will not succeed unless you are there, unless there is a strong grassroots media, which demands fundamental changes in media today and the end of corporate control over our media. We've got to work together on that."
Don't let anybody tell you what you should say. Just say it. And if they don't like it. Say it again.
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for this site.
Corporate control and consolidation of the media is one of the reasons
we started this site. We didn't want to be in a situation where there
was one monolithic news source beaming to all, and felt like fighting
back in a tiny way.
When we started, there was no name for what we were doing. "It's
kind of like an online newspaper written by the people in town who
read it" was the way we described it. It was sort of like a blog, but
then again it wasn't. Six months later we read Dan Gilmor's article on
OhMyNews in Korea where he dubbed it "citizen journalism" and that
had a nice ring to it.
The word "citizen" implies civics, and participation in the community
in which one lives. "Journalist" describes reporting and writing fair
news stories. It seemed to fit what we envisioned.
Another reason we started the site was that the newspaper couldn't
possibly cover everything that happened here, and Brattleboro has a
lot going on - all worthy of other people knowing about. There are
intersting meetings and events every day of the year - often at the
same time in different locations. The only way to truly cover
everything would be to get everyone involved in writing about what
they are doing.
Lately I've been thinking that this town has a very healthy media mix.
It's like a good basketball team. Think of it this way:
Once upon a time, our team had one tall player - The Reformer. It
was soon joined by another tall player - TSA. The two took on almost
all opposing teams (The News). They did very well, but sometimes
were blocked when other things were happening elsewhere on the
court.
In come an array of scrappy, not so tall, but quick players. Live and
Local, iBrat, and Commons know some new plays and a few fancy
passes but still need the two giants to really score big. And the giants
benefited from having the extra players on their team.
The fans liked it, too (watching on BCTV and listening to WVEW during
the rest of their time).
Seriously, though, I think people here have great access to multiple
ways to tell stories and report the news. If their were a "Grassroots
Media Town" designation, Brattleboro would get one, I'm sure.