NCMR in the News

In exactly one year from April 5, thousands will gather in Denver for the largest and most dynamic gathering of media activists yet. That's right -- we are exactly 365 days away from the 2013 National Conference for Media Reform! We couldn't be more excited.

Worried you missed something during the National Conference for Media Reform in Boston in early April? Take a sigh of relief -- we've captured it all in either audio or video form, or both, and we've been working hard to get you footage of the amazing sessions that took place over the weekend. Here are four videos worth watching.

More than 2,500 people showed up in Boston a few weeks ago for the National Conference for Media Reform, and many more tuned in online. Now it's time to keep showing up.

I have to say that NCMR was one of the best journalism conferences I have attended in a while. It was exciting to be around others, especially people of color, who were also excited about the potential new media brings to traditional journalism.

"It's much more like Egypt than MoveOn", is the comparison Roberto Lovato used to describe how migrant youth use social media as we prepared for our panel in the National Conference for Media Reform here in Boston. It's an apt comparison, I believe. Unauthorized migrant youth, or Dreamers (after the DREAM Act), have had to use social media differently then most in the U.S.

Media issues are universally human rights issues. Media issues affect everyone. When it comes to the media, everyone has something at stake, and everyone should understand its importance.

The publisher and CEO of WorldNetDaily, a right-wing news site, admitted that his site publishes "some misinformation by columnists." Publisher Joseph Farah argued that opinion writing is exempt from the rigorous fact checking and therefore beyond the sort of criticism levied at poor (or, perhaps, politically inconvenient) reporting that might otherwise discredit a story, publication or network.

The National Conference for Media Reform was held in Boston on April 8-11. The conference brought together journalists, activists, educators and policymakers to explore the future of journalism and public media and the technology, policies and politics that shape the media. Cartoonist Susie Cagle drew the event for Truthout.

The National Conference for Media Reform in Boston celebrated independent media and incubate strategies to fight the tide of corporate personhood, monopolization in communication industries and the denial of access to the public airwaves. Independent, open and interactive television networks are the antidote to the problems facing free speech and democracy as more media power is centralized in fewer hands.

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) spoke passionately about the future of communications at the National Conference for Media Reform in Boston. "Our challenge is to shape the media for the public, not the publicly-traded company. To build a mass movement for better media to inform and enlighten, now and into the future," Markey said.

Most people don't realize that prior to the 1970's, there were no corporate lobbyists on K Street. But since that time, they have built an unprecedented web of power. And you can't appease people who are trying to keep you disconnected and in the dark. It's time to actively challenge the corporate influence in Washington and build a movement that insists on real dialogue and debate. And that depends on independent and inclusive journalism.

The Harry Potter Alliance, a group that creates advocacy campaigns themed to the spells and characters in the popular book series, is campaigning to promote Net Neutrality regulations.

Full audio is available for over 70 panels presented at the National Conference for Media Reform. The panels featured everything from Wikileaks to astroturf to the future of journalism to open source community media and more.

As you might expect, members of the independent media spoken to by The UpTake at the National Conference For Media Reform generally had low opinions of the corporate-owned media. But attendees at the conference are also worried about another corporate ill: the control corporations want to exert over a tool citizens and independent media have been using to go around corporate owned news channels. That tool is your cell phone.

Would that Harry Potter could thrust his wand and holler "Petrificus Totalus," immobilizing those who would see the Internet taken over by corporate greed and censorship. This time, the magic is going to have to come from us.

At the National Conference for Media Reform in Boston, the round table on ethnic media drew a packed audience. But with world events and a down economy hurting media outlets, more ethnic media representation throughout the conference could help gain the attention and support the ethnic media sector needs to survive.

Speaking at the National Conference for Media Reform, a panel of local journalists addressed the state of Boston media. The group tackled tough topics like the Globe’s recent decision to build a pay wall around its online news, the possible defunding of NPR, WGBH’s switch away from classical music, the role of ethnic media in the city and the sustainability of journalism today.

Cheers of "Hear, hear!" rippled through the crowd after Salon writer Glenn Greenwald argued that "what WikiLeaks is doing is what journalism is all about." Greenwald spoke at the National Conference for Media Reform in Boston, where he took part in a standing-room-only panel discussion of WikiLeaks with Emily Bell of Columbia's Tow Center for Digital Journalism, Greg Mitchell of The Nation, Australian journalist Christopher Warren and Micah Sifry of Personal Democracy Forum.

Although I am but a sharecropper on Uncle Rupert's vast plantation, I am interested in the use and future of media, especially as it impacts politics, civics and culture. I attended the National Conference of Media Reform in Boston, but I want to make one thing clear at the outset. This was not a convention for the "Left Wing Media." This was a convention for those who think the Left Wing Media are a bunch of quisling, sellout fascists.

Winning the battle for America's media future is the single most important thing you and I can do to preserve this democracy of ours. Many other issues crowd in for our attention, but those other issues depend so heavily on how media treats them that their reform depends upon media's reform. And media's reform depends on you.