Category Archives: Press Room

Recent press releases issued by Media Alliance. Sometimes we’ll post newspaper, radio and broadcast interviews here as well.

Press Room

Will New York’s Cable Strike Revitalize The Labor Movement — Or Kill It?

Originally printed in Salon. 

By Robert Hennelly

An ongoing strike by 1,800 members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 3 in New York, against the cable giant Charter/Spectrum, could well determine whether the American labor movement has a fighting chance for a revival. The strike has gone on for almost six months, and many of the union families face foreclosure or eviction. For decades, these workers worked with the company’s corporate predecessors, made a living wage, had decent benefits, sent kids to college and made profits for their employer.

Continue reading Will New York’s Cable Strike Revitalize The Labor Movement — Or Kill It? →

Press Room

What Exactly is Urban Shield Preparing Law Enforcement For?

Originally published at ktvu.com

By Andre Torres

ALAMEDA COUNTY, Calif. (KTVU) – Tracy Rosenberg jumped up and down holding her protest sign outside the Alameda County Fairgrounds gate in Pleasanton last year. “I was not arrested,” she said.

Rosenberg, executive director at communications advocacy group, Media Alliance, admits to protesting the annual “Urban Shield” law enforcement disaster training event in 2016. This year was her first time actually attending the expo, although she had previously read several accounts from journalists who had documented Urban Shield.

Continue reading What Exactly is Urban Shield Preparing Law Enforcement For? →

Press Room

Right-Wing Extremist Group Had Booth at Urban Shield ‘To Explain Who They Are’

Originally printed in the East Bay Express  9-15-2017

By Jessica Lynn

Right-Wing Extremist Group Had Booth at Urban Shield ‘To Explain Who They Are’

The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies the Oath Keepers as an extremist anti-government group

 

Continue reading Right-Wing Extremist Group Had Booth at Urban Shield ‘To Explain Who They Are’ →

Press Room

Pacifica’s WBAI Tries To Fight Off Predatory Empire State Lease

 

July 26, 2017

For Immediate Release

Contact: Tracy Rosenberg, Executive Director, Media Alliance  Email: tracy@media-alliance.org  Tel: (510) 684-6853

Pacifica’s WBAI Tries To Fight Off Predatory Empire State Lease

15-Year Lease At Quadruple The Market Rate Threatens Radio Network

New York- On July 13, numerous prominent NY politicians joined producers and supporters of New York’s WBAI-FM on the steps of NY’s City Hall to say to the uber-wealthy owners of New York’s iconic skyscraper, the Empire State Building, that enough was enough.

Long trapped in a lengthy 15 year antenna space rental lease set at a ruinously high price with a 9% annual hike, WBAI supporters implored the billionaires to stop suing for a multi-million dollar summary judgment and sit down at the negotiating table to make a fair settlement and preserve not for profit community radio. Continue reading Pacifica’s WBAI Tries To Fight Off Predatory Empire State Lease →

Press Room

Leading The Nation On Broadband Privacy

 

July 27, 2017

For Immediate Release

Contact: Tracy Rosenberg, Executive Director, Media Alliance  Email: tracy@media-alliance.org  Tel: (510) 684-6853

Leading The Nation On Broadband Privacy 

California Poised To Protect Consumer Search and Browser Data with AB 375

Sacramento-California, perhaps the state most identified as resisting federal overreach by the Trump administration, is acting to reinstate popular broadband privacy protections enacted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) at the tail end of the Obama administration. The Republican Congress, in one of their few actions to date, invoked rarely used Congressional Review Authority (CRA) to revoke the regulations after passage, an act wildly unpopular with Americans who opposed it by a 74% margin according to You Gov’s April 2017 poll.

Assemblyman Ed Chau, the chair of the Assembly’s Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee and 49th Assembly District representative (Monterey Park/Alhambra) late-introduced AB 375 to allow California Internet users to affirmatively consent to the sale of their browser and search data by their Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) and to prevent pay-for-privacy schemes like that recently floated by AT&T, that condemn less affluent customers to the potential involuntary sale of their browser data at the discretion of their ISP.  Continue reading Leading The Nation On Broadband Privacy →

Press Room

The Federalization Of Local Police: Why The Urban Shield Vote Failed

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Printed in Berkeleyside and the San Francisco Bayview on June 21, 2017. 

On June 20, the Berkeley City Council, only months after being swept in by a progressive majority, rejected the call of hundreds of people, ranging from former Mayor Gus Newport to Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza to famed author Naomi Klein, to terminate a series of entanglements between local police and the federal security forces of the Donald Trump administration. The resistance failed to resist. In the nation’s heartland of dissent. What went wrong, and why? Continue reading The Federalization Of Local Police: Why The Urban Shield Vote Failed →

Press Room

KCSM-TV Spectrum Pot Of Gold Dissolves Into Dueling Lawsuits

 

By Tracy Rosenberg. Published in the AFT Advocate – May 2017 http://aft1493.org/may-2017-advocate-kscm-tv/

For years, KCSM-TV, one of two noncommercial broadcasting outlets owned by the College of San Mateo, trained generations of students in communications. The program was probably the best broadcasting training available at a public two-year college and one of the best in the whole country.  The TV station, the 5th largest public TV outlet in the state of California, had fallen on hard times in recent years, losing its PBS affiliation and running annual operating deficits. The trustees of the San Mateo Community College District, during a prolonged process to sell the license, kindly referred to KCSM-TV as a “junker car”, reflecting the District’s lack of enthusiasm for revitalizing its public television station.

Every junker has a suitor

But every junker has a suitor, and a hedge firm came calling for KCSM-TV’s carcass. Here is how we got to dueling lawsuits. Continue reading KCSM-TV Spectrum Pot Of Gold Dissolves Into Dueling Lawsuits →