Thrown into a defensive position by aggressive monopolies, media workers unions seek new sources of strength.
Bay Area media unions, like those everywhere else in the country, live today in the shadow of Detroit. Newspaper workers at the Detroit News and Free Press have been on strike for three years, since walking out in 1995 over corporate demands for deep concessions. Although the National Labor Relations Board ruled this year that the newspapers’ management had engaged in illegal bad-faith bargaining, a decision that gave strikers the right to immediate reinstatement with back pay, the two newspapers continue to run with strike breakers. The sorry state of U.S. labor law allows employers to appeal NLRB decisions for years through the courts. In the meantime, only a handful of strikers have been rehired, and there is still no contract or union at the papers. Continue reading THE STATE OF OUR UNIONS, by David Bacon→
“You get what you pay for,” was the opinion of one reader looking at the first edition of the “new” San Francisco Examiner. The first few editions of the newspaper had so many mistakes that a message on the website www.mediagossip.com called it the “joke of the journalism profession.” The errors and other problems could have been overlooked if this were the Fang family’s first publishing venture. But the Fangs are experienced newspaper publishers who have printed the San Francisco Independent three times a week for a decade, and the award-winning Asian Week for about the same period. Continue reading FANG’S EXAMINER. by Harrison Chastang.→
Under intense lobbying pressure and lawsuits brought by corporate media, the federal government is now considering removing the last few media-ownership limits. These rules–intended to protect diversity of viewpoints, competition and local ownership– keep major TV networks from merging into one and prevent a single company from dominating the local TV market or owning a town’s local newspaper, TV and radio station. Continue reading ACTIVISTS FIGHT MEDIA CONSOLIDATION: FCC DROPPING OWNERSHIP LIMITS by Aliza Dichter→
“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good.” –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I saw the ad in the last issue of MediaFile soliciting signatures for the writers’ petition in support of a fair trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal. I am signing the petition and would like to share my reasons for doing so. Continue reading MUMIA’S TRIAL — THE SMELL OF SMOKE, by Margot Pepper→
“Are you Margaret?” two or three people ask me eagerly as I walk through the door. “No, she’s not Margaret,” responds Brian Scott, CityVisions Channel 53’s public access coordinator. The large, lofty studio is a flurry of activity this Friday night. Studio lights hanging from the rafters illuminate the stage. Two people are assigned to each of the three cameras, and they nervously practice zooming in and out and rolling the cameras around the concrete floor. They’re preparing for Open Mike Live, a show featuring local talent that airs once a month on San Francisco’s public access station. The people behind the cameras have never done this before. The broadcast is a culmination of a training program they have gone through to become proficient on the studio’s impressive array of equipment. Continue reading YOU’RE THE PUBLIC, SO GET CABLE ACCESS, by Lisa Sousa→
This report from the National Hispanic Media Coalition sheds light on the prevalence and the dangers of American hate radio. Specifically, it chronicles how hate groups and hate crimes have spiked while hate radio’s popularity and reach have risen. Finally, it examines a microcosm of the prevalence of hate radio synthesizing hundreds of consumer complaints to the FCC against one station in Southern California. Clear Channel Radio’s KFI AM 640
