Future Of Media Blog Posts
Owning Our Airwaves: Tonight in Pittsburgh
Tonight in Pittsburgh people from around the city will come together at a public town hall to discuss the future of media and journalism. The event will be an opportunity for the people of Pittsburgh to speak directly to Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and FCC Commissioner Michael Copps about the state of local news.
This fall marks a critical moment for the future of our airwaves. The FCC is gearing up to review its media-ownership rules and faces massive industry pressure to remove the remaining public-interest protections and pave the way for more industry consolidation.
The Three Worst Ideas in the FCC’s Future of Media Report
The Federal Communications Commission released its long-awaited report on the future of media, now re-titled "The Technology and Information Needs of Communities.” The document spans a whopping 450 pages and touches on nearly every aspect of American media. The scope and depth of the report is impressive and the FCC future of media team should be commended for their tireless work on it.
However, at first glance, there are some glaring problems in key parts of the report that suggest troubling trends for those who care about better news and information for American communities. While the report does highlight a number of promising policy ideas—many proposed by Free Press and our allies—almost all of them are outside the jurisdiction of the FCC. We’ll post more on these policies soon.
What's Your Big Idea?
Have a great idea for better media? We want to hear it.
Free Press is excited to announce the call for suggestions for the 2011 National Conference for Media Reform. It's your chance to submit your ideas for sessions, presenters or topics for next year's big event.
Go here to submit a suggested session, speaker or topic.
The conference is a time for thousands of people to gather and work together to change our media system. We want the conference to reflect the broad sweep of media reform — from policy to journalism to social justice to technology and innovation. We need your input to make this our best conference yet.
Free Press, Allies and Citizens Tell FCC to Reshape Media for the Better
Friday marked the public’s last chance to file comments with the Federal Communications Commission’s Future of Media initiative, and people didn’t hold back from telling the agency they want a better media system.
This proceeding represents an ambitious yet critical undertaking by the FCC to examine the news and information needs of communities in light of economic and technological shifts in the media industry. The agency is reviewing media laws that shape everything we see, read and hear, and asked the public to weigh in.
Give The People What They Want
Most people, from local citizens to working journalists, foundations to academics, policy makers and even some publishers, agree that the business model for journalism is broken. The experimentation we are seeing emerge at the local, state and national level is encouraging, but also highlights the fact that commercial media is failing to meet the information needs of communities.
Public Tells FCC How to Shape Our Media Future
The FCC’s call for public comment about the future of the media has opened up a national discourse with citizens submitting a wide range of concerns about our media system. As the May 7th deadline approaches – you can still add your own comments – we examined a handful of the submissions from a diverse spectrum of groups, and identified several broad themes:
Changing News Media Landscape
Staying Optimistic as a Journalism Student
When I walked into my arts reporting class, statistics from the latest "State of the Media" report were written on the whiteboard like an epitaph on a tombstone.
“That’s depressing,” one classmate said in a defeated tone. My professor, Sasha Anawalt, director of the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program and former dance critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, turned around with a grin on her face. The statistics were, in fact, uplifting news. “Wanna know why?” Anawalt asked our confused class.
Change the Channels
Check out the interactive map to see consolidating newsrooms near you.
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