FreePress Summit, network neutrality

Listen in on a Facebook Lobbiest as he gets OWNED at FreePress Summit, in Washington DC.

Comment on Comcast/NBC Merger

Add your voice to the petition to the FCC and stop the merger of Comcast and NBC. Media Consolidation on this scale helps no-one. It only creates artificial fortunes for the owners of media. We need to restore the broadcast airwaves to the people of the United States of America.

FRIDAY – FCC at STANFORD

The FCC is coming to Stanford on Friday, May 21st, for a public hearing on the impact media consolidation and tech innovation has had on journalism. This is part of their 2010 review of media ownership laws. You probably remember that during the Bush administration the FCC relaxed media ownership laws – particularly the 30 year-old newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership ban (a move we have shown will hurt newsroom jobs and lead to less local news)

Even though President Obama has opposed media consolidation, Big Media has been beating down the door at the FCC. They are pushing the Obama FCC to go even farther than the Bush FCC and dramatically relax media ownership laws, letting absentee Big Media giants control even more local media.

This fight is coming to Stanford on Friday, and we need to turn out a crowd to show the FCC the public still cares about media consolidation.

What: Media Ownership Public Hearing
When: May 21, 2010,10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (the public comment section is at 11:45 and 3:30)
Where: Stanford University, Dinkelspiel Auditorium, 471 Lagunita Drive, Stanford, CA
*This event is free

The public hearing on Friday will have time for local communities to weigh in on these issues. We need to be sure the public interest is strongly represented or the only people they will hear from are giant companies.

Please share this broadly with others.

Some of the panelists include Tim Westergren, Founder of Pandora Music, Eddy W. Hartenstein, Publisher and CEO, Los Angeles Times, Jim Joyce, President, National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, and Vice President, Communications Workers of America and Alan Mutter, Publisher, Reflections of a Newsosaur, and Tiffiniy Ying Cheng, Co-Founder, Participatory Culture Foundation. The full agenda is here: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-298195A1.pdf

If you have questions or want to help with turnout – please contact me.


Josh Stearns
Program Manager
Free Press :: www.freepress.net
SaveTheNews :: www.savethenews.org
Twitter: @jcstearns
Phone: 413.585.1533 ext. 204 

--
Mera Szendro Bok
Communications and Information Officer
New Media Rights
3100 5th Ave. Suite B
San Diego, CA 92103
619-591-8870
mera@newmediarights.org,
www.newmediarights.org

Follow New Media Rights on Twitter:

www.twitter.com/NewMediarights

Become a fan on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/newmediarights?ref=ts

Subscribe to our Youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/newmediarightsstudio

Future Tense from American Public Radio

What is the
Public Insight Network?

The Public Insight Network is you and thousands of others like you who have agreed to share what they know to help public radio cover the news, find stories, and add depth to our reporting.

As part of Future Tense's Public Insight Network, you have an open line into our newsroom. We'll send you about an e-mail a month asking for your knowledge on issues and stories we are pursuing.

Future Tense is American Public Media's daily "Journal of the Digital Age."

Produced and hosted by Jon Gordon, Future Tense keeps pace with the latest technology topics in daily five-minute capsules from electronic privacy and digital democracy to spam and computer worms.

American Public Media also produces Marketplace,Marketplace Money, Weekend America, Speaking of Faith and other programs.

American Public Media puts audiences first.

American Public Media's mission, vision and values express a commitment to serving the 16 million listeners and over 100,000 contributing members who are better informed, enriched and inspired by the content we provide.

MISSION

Our Mission is to enrich the mind and nourish the spirit, thereby assisting our audiences to enhance their lives, expand perspectives and strengthen their communities.

VISION

We will be the most relevant, innovative and insightful media company in America.

OUR STRATEGY

We will create indispensable content that engages with diverse audiences to connect people with each other, their communities, their country and the world.

The Commonwealth Club of California

Mission

The mission of The Commonwealth Club of California is to be the leading national forum open to all for the impartial discussion of public issues important to the membership, community and nation.

The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum, bringing together its more than 18,000 members for over 400 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.

Founded in 1903, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, actor Alec Baldwin and author Christopher Hitchens in recent years. Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Bill Gates have all given landmark speeches at The Club.

As a nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization, The Commonwealth Club relies on the support of its membership, the Business Council and foundation grants to continue its role in fostering open public discussion in the San Francisco Bay Area and throughout the nation via radio, Internet and television.

The Club has offices in San Francisco and San Jose, with regular events in both cities, as well as programs in the East and North Bay.

For members outside the Bay Area, The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations. Our web site archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history.

The California Report

KQED Radio, in collaboration with public radio stations throughout California, launched The California Report, a statewide radio news program, on October 2, 1995. Distributed by satellite from the KQED Radio studios in San Francisco, The California Report provides daily coverage of issues, trends, and public policy decisions affecting California and its diverse population. It is carried by more than 30 public radio stations from Arcata to San Diego. Many local station reporters are regular contributors to the program.

The daily morning edition of The California Report, a 9-minute program, airs on KQED 88.5FM Monday through Friday at 5:50am, 6:50am and 8:50am. The Friday afternoon edition, a half-hour magazine, airs on KQED 88.5FM at 4:30pm, 6:30pm and 11:00pm, and brings you in-depth analysis of the week's top news stories, sound-rich radio excursions and commentaries from voices around the state. Please see the California Report tune in page for information about where and when to tune in to The California Report in your area.

About PRI - PUBLIC RADIO INTERNATIONAL

At Public Radio International, we invite listeners to hear a different voice with content that provides unique perspectives on our interdependent world.

Partnering with public media's most talented producers and hosts, we offer distinctly global voices on PRI's "The World" and BBC World Service. We offer singular, diverse voices on "The Tavis Smiley Show." We present voices of culture, contemporary American life and artistry on "This American Life" and "Studio 360 from PRI and WNYC." And we provide decidedly fresh takes on "WireTap" and "The Sound of Young America."

Mission

Public Radio International's mission is to serve audiences as a distinctive content source for information, insights and cultural experiences essential to living in our diverse, interconnected world.

Core principles

Public Radio International recognizes as core principles:

• the central role played by diversity in our nation's past and its importance to our future
• the urgent need to understand connections between American life and cultures around the globe
• the responsibility of public media to encourage the exchange of ideas and search for common principles fundamental to a civil society and
• the power of sound and of the spoken word to engage the mind and nurture the human spirit.

PRI productions

The Takeaway
PRI's Sound & Spirit with Ellen Kushner
Studio 360 from PRI and WNYC
PRI's The World

Distributed programs (sampler)

BBC World Service
Bob Edwards Weekend
Capitol News Connection with PRI
Living on Earth
Michael Feldman's Whad'Ya Know?
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
The Sound of Young America
The Tavis Smiley Show
This American Life
To the Best of Our Knowledge
To the Point