Recent press releases issued by Media Alliance. Sometimes we’ll post newspaper, radio and broadcast interviews here as well.
Predictive policing is the use of computer-generated algorithims to predict crimes prior to happening. Made famous in Phillip K. Dick’s Minority Report and the later film with Tom Cruise in which a futuristic policeman goes on the run after being accused of a precrime, software such as “Predpol” is becoming quite the rage in police departments across the country. Continue reading Oakland Police Department Rejects Predictive Policing
The History of Media Alliance – Excerpted from “Remaking Media: The Struggle to Democratize Public Communication”.
Posted by Bob Hackett (Author) and Bill Carroll (Author) on May 27th, 2009
In its 7 January 2002 cover story on media reform, the respected progressive periodical The Nation recognized Media Alliance in San Francisco (now Oakland) as one of several ‘crucial organizations’ for building media democracy in the US.
The seed from which this non-profit media advocacy group sprouted was the post-Watergate generation of journalists, against the backdrop of a high tide of liberal reformism in American politics. The tumult of the Vietnam war era had receded following the withdrawal of US troops, but the movements which it had engendered were impacting the State machinery. Lawmakers and courts were moving forward on environmental protection, reproductive rights, women’s equality and other issues. Buoyed by the liberal zeitgeist but frustrated by the conservative disposition of mainstream media, about 50 journalists began meeting in 1975-6 to socialize and discuss media and political issues. Larry Bensky describes his fellow founding members as journalists, especially freelancers, but also many employed in both corporate and alternative media, people dissatisfied with corporate media coverage of events in the Bay Area (like the Vietnam war and the anti-war movement), and hoping to change that. Continue reading Remaking Media
Posted by Christine Joy Ferrer on April 13th, 2009
Editor’s Note: Early morning on New Year’s Day, 22-year-old Oscar Grant III was shot and killed in Oakland, California by a Bay Area Rapid Transit agency police officer. Grant was unarmed. The young black man’s arms shackled behind his back. His face—pressed down against the cement. Onlookers video-phoned the horrific spectacle as his life was taken from him.
Over three dozen artists have contributed to the Oscar Grant Memorial Arts Project. Our goal was to gather the creative works dedicated to Oscar Grant from artists, musicians, writers, photographers and others. Any form of creative expression was accepted– a video of a dance work, audio, song, poster, photo, etc. Selected portfolio work will be featured in several Bay Area publications (print and online). Continue reading Oscar Grant Memorial Arts Project
The Oscar Grant Memorial Arts Project was co-sponsored by Media Alliance and Race Poverty & The Environment
Host: Al Kielwasser
Guest: Tracy Rosenberg
Subject: The Changing Nature Of Media Advocacy
Host: Tracy Rosenberg
Guest: Kwan Booth
Subject: Citizen Journalism
Producer” Lars Aaberg
Guest: Regina Costa, TURN
Host: Tracy Rosenberg
Subject: Net Neutrality and the Future of the Internet
Posted by Tracy Rosenberg on
Huffington Post May 22 2010
As we arrive at the end of the long health care reform battle with something less than nirvana, media activists have been waiting with bated breath for the release of the long-awaited National Broadband Plan from the Federal Communications Commission.
Well over a year in the making, the plan sets a course for the future of the online communications system — a system that materially affects every American’s ability to access information and express themselves.
It’s not exactly the public option.
