Media coverage of the recent victory of the Grant Building Tenants Association (GBTA) once again shows how the media can diminish the role of grassroots activism in shaping the world.
Located at the corner of Seventh and Market Streets in San Francisco, the Grant Building has long provided affordable office space to writers, artists, and a diversity of small businesses. This mix once typified the mid-Market area, but rising rents in recent years have forced many nonprofit and cultural groups to move to less costly neighborhoods. When the new owner of the Grant Building sought to impose steep rent increases last October, the tenants did more than just complain loudly in the media while quietly moving out: they stayed and resisted. Continue reading TENANT ACTIVISTS WIN MARKET STREET BUILDING, MEDIA YAWNS. by Randy Shaw.→
When searching for the perpetrators behind this nation’s current cops-and-incarceration boom, media workers need only look in the mirror. While reporters and writers may occasionally finger demagogic pols for shamelessly campaigning on soft-headed, tough-on-crime promises, our industry typically primes the public to salivate in anticipation of each new slab of lock-’em-up legislation. This is nowhere more obvious than with youth crime. Continue reading DISTORTED MEDIA COVERAGE FUELS ANTI–YOUTH PROP. 21, by A. Clay Thompson→
Just two days after the terrorist attacks in the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission moved ahead with plans to end or weaken several long-standing policies designed to promote diversity of media ownership. Under the leadership of the new FCC Chairman Michael Powell (son of Secretary of State Colin), the commission released two proposed “rulemakings” that will have a major impact on the country’s newspaper, broadcasting and cable TV industries. Continue reading UNDERMINING EFFECTIVE REPORTING: NEW FCC PROPOSALS. by Jeffrey Chester.→
A delegation of nine journalists organized by Media Alliance and Global Exchange visited Cuba for eight days in April and May. The U. S. government places severe restrictions on Americans who want to travel to Cuba–journalists are among the few who can freely travel there–but the Cubans (and their government) welcome visitors from their powerful northern neighbor. The delegation, hosted in Cuba by Radio Havana, met with Cuban and international journalists, representatives of women’s and community organizations, economists, health practitioners, and others–including some really good salsa dancers. In this article, one of the gals on the bus, ACLU News editor Elaine Elinson( front right), shares a few of her impressions.Continue reading HAVANA JOURNAL, by Elaine Elinson→
In analyzing media coverage of the California energy “crisis,” the one crucial tool you must have on hand is a flashlight. Not for use in case of a blackout, but for hitting yourself over the head to stay awake. As David Lazarus, who has been covering the story for the San Francisco Chronicle for the last year, put it, “It’s important, it affects everybody, and it’s deadly dull.” Continue reading WATT’S UP? BEHIND THE MEDIA’S COVERAGE OF THE ENERGY CRISIS. by Andrea Buffa.→
The air attack on Afghanistan began at 8:57 p.m. local time on October 7. The following day, Reuters carried an interview with a 16-year-old ice cream vendor from Jalalabad who said he had lost his leg and two fingers in a Cruise missile strike on an airfield near his home:
Despite its auspicious and promising beginning, the Public Broadcasting Service largely has failed its congressional mandate. PBS was supposed to compensate for the inadequacies of advertiser-driven network programming by providing, in the words of its mandate, an “alternative” that expresses “diversity and excellence,” involves “creative risks,” and addresses “the needs of the unserved and underserved audiences.” Continue reading PBS SHUTS OUT INDEPENDENT PRODUCERS. by Jerold M. Starr.→
On May 3, 2001, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) named Colombian paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño to its annual list of the ten worst enemies of the press. Six weeks later, a reporter from the Paris daily Le Monde caught up with Castaño in northern Colombia and asked how he felt about the distinction.”I would like to assure you that I have always respected the freedom and subjectivity of the press,” said the leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), Colombia’s leading right-wing paramilitary organization. “But I have never accepted that journalism can become an arm at the service of one of the actors of the conflict. Over the course of its existence the AUC has executed two local journalists who were in fact guerrillas.” He no longer remembered their names. Continue reading COLOMBIAN JOURNALISTS UNDER ATTACK BY PARAMILITARIES. by Frank Smyth.→
