Working at the heart of media reform today is Free Press, a Northampton, MA-based organization with offices in Washington, DC. You may know Free Press from the work they did to organize and drive the SavetheInternet.com Coalition. Yesterday in Memphis, the organization wrapped up a National Conference for Media Reform that saw over 3,500 attendees. Mr. Tim Karr is Campaign Director at Free Press. In the interview, Tim talks about the state of public broadcasting, what comes after network neutrality, the Internet Freedom Declaration of 2007, and more.

Nancy Scola: Free Press just finished a three-day conference on media reform [1] in Tennessee. What's so wrong with the state of American media that it needs reforming?

Tim Karr: One of the aims of the weekend conference was to mobilize more Americans to fight for a media system that, in the words of the Supreme Court, "is an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will prevail." Establishment news media have drifted so far toward "infotainment" that local interests and pressing national and global issues aren't adequately represented.

Now that media owners are themselves the most powerful people in the country, mainstream media's role as watchdog has diminished...some would say it's evaporated. Huge expanses of power in our society go unexamined (Enron, the rationale for war in Iraq), issues are ignored (Darfur, poverty, health care) and the range of debate narrows.

Most of what we see and hear is homogenous and leaving people with a thin gruel of content that suits the needs of the few companies that control most of our media, and not those of citizens whoe experience it.

What went wrong? The Federal Radio Commission was established in 1927 and it seems like things sort of went downhill from there.

In the 1920s, radio was considered a common technology, in the sense that an extraordinary range of people could gain access to a new and relatively cheap communications to send messages to one another over the air. The biggest radio owners controlled fewer than 50 stations. But once people began to think that they could begin to make commercial radio function through advertising, the Federal Communications Commission began to implement a very different, less public-interested idea about how radio would function.

Working with business, government allocated the radio spectrum in a way that made it so only a few could get access to the airwaves. By the mid 1930s NBC and CBS were responsible for an astounding 97% of nighttime broadcasting. And the number of radio station owners has plummeted by 34% since the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Today, Clear Channel Communications — one company — owns more than 1,200 stations.

Television suffered much the same fate in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Through well-financed lobbyists, television broadcasters gained overwhelming influence in Washington. Broadcasters spent $222 million to lobby government officials from 1998 to 2004, including millions on entertainment and travel, taking FCC regulators on 2,500 all-expense-paid trips.

Television broadcasting policy was shaped in closed-door meetings between industry and policymakers. So, even though the public owned the airwaves, special interests decided how this influential media was created, financed, and distributed. There developed an interdependence between those who held political power (and needed access to the airwaves) and those who controlled the airwaves (and needed access to political power). Those who lost out in this equation were, of course, the public.

It's gotten so bad that today, Instead of nurturing and extending democracy and free speech, broadcasting threatens to warp it. This is why the Internet is so important to restoring media democracy.

Isn't that why we have a system of public broadcasting — the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS? So there's at least one avenue by which the public can have a voice, even if the other channels are closed to them?

The influence of our non-commercial media system pales in comparison to dominant commercial media. That is because we have hobbled non-commercial media through a system of laws and a funding structure that is subject to the political whims of Washington. By comparison, countries like Canada, the UK, Germany and France provide for public media that presents a more forceful counterpoint to mainstream commercial media.

How so? How have Canada et al created a system where public media actual have a voice — better funding, a more supportive regulatory environment, both?

In general, they're both more fully-funded and politically-insulated.

Did the prospects for stronger public broadcasting, a more sustainable Internet, and a more open media space change on November 7th?

Pretty much everything changed with the shift in Congress. As a movement, we're no longer fighting a defensive battle against entrenched corporate interests and their immovable GOP allies in Congress. While special interest still hold sway in Washington, we have managed to push the thin wedge of public interest into the process.

Over 2006, nearly 1.5 million people contacted Congress about the need to safeguard an open Internet. As Rep. Ed Markey said in Memphis [2]: "Congress is a stimulus-response institution. There is nothing more stimulating than having 1.5 million people who say I don't think I want you to keep your job if you won't keep your hands off the Internet."

Now that the SavetheInternet.com Coalition has their attention we're going to expand the debate beyond Net Neutrality to fostering a digital media system that is faster, more open and accessible to every American. At the beginning of the Memphis conference, the SavetheInternet.com Coalition unveiled the New America Media Contract [3]."

Commissioner Copps is a modern-day folk hero. He — more than any other commissioner in the history of the federal agency — has helped ignite the public outcry against "business as usual" at an FCC. Remember, this agency has long been under the influence of a powerful corporate lobby. While Copps' "contract" is his conception, he needs public interest groups like Free Press, bloggers, activists and others to fire up a grassroots campaign to seal the deal.

Commissioner Copps was at this weekend's National Conference on Media Reform in Memphis. But what's perhaps more exciting, so was Geena Davis.

Davis gave an eloquent and funny speech [4] about corporate media's failure to foster empowering images of women for a younger female audience. We're particularly pleased when people who themselves are the product of corporate media have the courage to say "enough is enough."

What do you make of the argument that the current state of media in America is just a product of the marketplace? If more people wanted to watch empowering images of women, more broadcasters would run that sort of thing.

In short, it's crap.

Ha.

Longer version — whatever the complaint about media, one thing is certain: there are underlying structural issues at work that give rise to these problems. Our media system is not the byproduct of a natural evolution of free market forces, as a self-interested few would like us to believe. Through well-financed lobbying operations, media corporations have overwhelming influence in Washington. They shape media policy in closed-door meetings with policymakers and through hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions.

The resultijg policy then shapes our media. So, even though we own the airwaves, a corrupted process determines how media is created, financed, and distributed.

Let's talk a bit about Free Press. How many staffers do you have there?

We're now over 25 people [5], which has been incredible growth for an organization that's only been around for only four years.

What's a day in the life like for the Campaign Director for Free Press?

I'm at my computer by 4:30 in the morning. I read the news as it pertains to our three core campaigns: media ownership [6], the future of the Internet [7], and noncommercial media/public broadcasting [8]. If there's a need for rapid response to any breaking news item, I mobilize Free Press staff and our allies to take action.

Midday is for writing: blogs, staff memos, op-eds, letters to the editor, etc. Most of the remainder of my day is spent working email, phones and IM to make certain that our various campaign tactics — such as maintaining the SavetheInternet.com coalition's constant pushback to phone and cable lobbyists in Washington — are implemented.

The afternoons are often dedicated to conference calls with allies to foster stronger relationships, set the agenda, and craft the message for the days and weeks ahead. Then it's to bed by 9pm.

Net neutrality sort of took up most of the air out in the media reform space in 2006. There's some level of public interest in media consolidation, at least among the very politically-engaged; in 2007, the FCC will be wrestling with how to construct ownership requirements that satisfy the courts. What else is on the radar for this year?

We're looking to mobilize allies in the new Congress behind a larger vision of what non-commercial, public media can be. It's a vision that goes beyond relatively narrow confines of public broadcasting. But we still use this popular medium (80 percent of Americans judge PBS to be fair and balanced compared to network and cable television) to engage more Americans in the debate over a making public media that serve more people — and foster independent journalism that truly challenges the status quo.

It's a huge effort that involves organizing millions of people to pressure Congress — and, even, to shake up the somewhat staid public broadcasting community — to revitalize public media and invest it with the Madisonian idea that people "must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives" If they mean to govern themselves. A vibrant public media system is the catalyst to a more participatory democracy.

And the role of the new Internet Freedom Declaration?

This guiding declaration for the SavetheInternet.com Campaign should become the manifesto of every politically engaged Net user. Why? Soon virtually all media will be delivered to homes via a single high-speed broadband connection. As more than 800 allied organizations, 6,000 allied loggers and 1.5 million petitions signed [9]) to line up broad public support behind three basic principles: 1.) The right to universal and affordable access, 2). an open and neutral Network and 3.) world class broadband quality through real competition. The end-game is to provide everyone with access to the revolutionary tools that the Internet has to provide — elevating diverse public participation in democracy and dissent.

You've been at the intersection of media and politics for a long time. You've been an AP reporter and a news network VP. Now, in addition to your work at Free Press, you blog at MediaCitizen [10]. You're in a unique position to settle this for once and for all: are bloggers journalists?

Who cares.

Professional journalists, for one.

We're all a part of the information revolution. What's hopeful is that the Internet has elevated the voices of regular people to a level with mainstream journalists. As a whole, that's been healthy for our national discourse.

That said, we do need to protect the institution of journalism. Its ethical standards need to be maintained and, importantly, reinvigorated. We also need to be sure that professional journalists have the resources and independence to take on powerful institutions and conduct investigative enterprises. With blogging, we've brought back the same kind of pamphleteers who were so influential in forging our original notions of democracy.

The great thing about bloggers is that they don't have to be journalists. They don't have to adhere to the standards and mores of the profession. This opens up the political discourse to an incredible and creative range of opportunities. That's pretty exciting when you think about the prospects for making our democracy better.

The Free Press blog recently asked people to submit five-word statements [11] about media reform, inspired by the the word limit on last year's Webby Awards speeches. What five words do you have for us here at MyDD?

"Take Netroots to the Streets." I think the challenge for the netroots is to channel virtual power into flesh-and-blood public action — not just protest, but also door-to-door canvassing, church organizing, etc. Marry the old school of grassroots organizing with the emergent power of the progressive blogosphere.

It's also critical for bloggers to hit the streets with their video cameras. In a word: "Macaca."

For more on the work of Free Press, visit freepress.net. Tim's personal blog is MediaCitizen.