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Free Press: Solutions for the changing media
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As a member of the media industry, I try to get out to different events.
Recently, I spent some time with Free Press, a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media.
Free Press held a summit on May 14 about "Changing Media: Public Interest Policies for the Digital Age." The summit was an all-day event at the Newseum's Freedom Forum, and it was attended by a few hundred members of the media, media reform activists and groups, broadband people, attorneys (media law types), and independent film producers.
The point of the meeting: To come together in support of a national broadband plan that essentially will help "save journalism" and also reach the 40 percent of Americans (mostly in rural areas) who currently are not plugged into the Internet. Susan Crawford, with Barack Obama's national economic council, also came to the event, speaking on behalf of the president, who "mentions the national broadband plan all the time."
"We're here because 20,000 journalists have been laid off in the last 18 months," said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press. "The fourth estate will crumble. The transition from old media to new media creates some risks. Online [news items] and blogs are great, but what about the 40 percent of Americans who still don't have Internet access?"
Speakers at the meeting mostly talked about the creation of a system that is "better than before."
For example, old media included the cable television, op-ed write-ups, and "Meet the Press," they said. New media involves YouTube, blogs, and virtual town halls.
"Major news bureaus closed in DC, newspaper circulation is declining, and most news organizations did not invest in the future," said Craig Aaron, senior program director of Free Press. "While newspapers are still profitable, newsroom jobs are still being cut. The government is going to have to be involved."
The group gave some recommendations (i.e. a national journalism strategy, new ownership structures, new incentives, and a journalism job program) to the Federal Communications Commission for the national broadband plan. Their recommendations filled a 285-page book (pictured), titled "Changing Media: Public Interest Policies for the Digital Age." It was given to each attendee.
FCC acting chairman Michael Copps told the group that he poured through the book and already dog-eared many of the suggestions made in it. He said "Changing Media" is important to the national dialogue to formulate the nation's plan.
"Two decades of mindless deregulation topped by a tsunami of [media] consolidation ... we are skating perilously close to the depth and breadth of depriving people of the means to make good decisions for their future," Copps told the audience. "We might not only be losing journalists, we might be losing journalism."
The FCC has been congressionally mandated to come up with a broadband plan by February, Copps said.
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