-2Truthy Meets With Bill Moyers, Memphis 2007-
NCMR Memphis, 2007: Keynote BILL MOYERS
There were plenty of 'holy shit' moments for 2Truthy this past week at the National Conference for Media Reform (NCMR), which was hosted this year at the Memphis Convention Center (1/12-1/14) and attracted over 3,000 academics, activists and media professionals from across the country to address the problems of Big Media that threaten objective reporting and freedom of the press. NCMR, sponsored by freepress.net http://www.freepress.net/, featured hundreds of combined speeches, workshops, panels and exhibitors with the primary purpose of saving the internet, stopping Big Media, and protecting public media. This week, 2Truthy will report on the speakers and workshops attended as it was utterly impossible to attend them all due to considerable overlap of so many fine speakers. Check back for reports on Phil Donahue, Juan Gonzales, Jeff Cohen, Danny Schecter, Laura Washington, Helen Thomas, Geena Davis and Jane Fonda, to name a few.
Special thanks to the folks at Freepress.net Founder, President and Board Chairman Robert McChesney, (who bears a slight resemblance to John Malkovich - only with more hair, gravitas and degrees) who explained that “the media are in a state of deep, deep crisis, and it’s universally acknowledged that the state of journalism in America has disintegrated.” For three jam packed days of morning through evening speeches and workshops, the camaraderie was kicked off the moment award winning journalist Bill Moyers addressed the conference ballroom of 3,000 with a compelling and moving keynote address that unified the audience more powerfully than a Baptist revival. To have been there to experience his galvanizing message was truly a privilege, and to have had the chance to meet and speak with him after the speech was an honor.
There were plenty of 'holy shit' moments for 2Truthy this past week at the National Conference for Media Reform (NCMR), which was hosted this year at the Memphis Convention Center (1/12-1/14) and attracted over 3,000 academics, activists and media professionals from across the country to address the problems of Big Media that threaten objective reporting and freedom of the press. NCMR, sponsored by freepress.net http://www.freepress.net/, featured hundreds of combined speeches, workshops, panels and exhibitors with the primary purpose of saving the internet, stopping Big Media, and protecting public media. This week, 2Truthy will report on the speakers and workshops attended as it was utterly impossible to attend them all due to considerable overlap of so many fine speakers. Check back for reports on Phil Donahue, Juan Gonzales, Jeff Cohen, Danny Schecter, Laura Washington, Helen Thomas, Geena Davis and Jane Fonda, to name a few.
Special thanks to the folks at Freepress.net Founder, President and Board Chairman Robert McChesney, (who bears a slight resemblance to John Malkovich - only with more hair, gravitas and degrees) who explained that “the media are in a state of deep, deep crisis, and it’s universally acknowledged that the state of journalism in America has disintegrated.” For three jam packed days of morning through evening speeches and workshops, the camaraderie was kicked off the moment award winning journalist Bill Moyers addressed the conference ballroom of 3,000 with a compelling and moving keynote address that unified the audience more powerfully than a Baptist revival. To have been there to experience his galvanizing message was truly a privilege, and to have had the chance to meet and speak with him after the speech was an honor.
click here to Watch Bill Moyers.
Equal to or Better than a Stones Concert… The standing ovation and applause shook the proverbial rafters before and after – especially after -- Bill Moyers gave his keynote address. The message that the ever graceful Mr. Moyers so inspirationally conveyed about the “Plantation Media Society” ownership was that people want media to foster democracy, not squelch it and that together, we CAN make a difference in what we expect of the media by demanding more and speaking out. That the channels of “radio, TV, and cable, which were hailed as a vehicle to give voice to community and meant to serve the Life of the Mind were controlled by Jello and General Motors” illustrates a numbing picture of the “parasites in politics” that bear down to control our airwaves.
These parasites in politics and other flatworldians, like billionaire blowhard Tom Friedman who hail so-called “free trade” agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA as “inevitable and necessary” and yet never even read, are gathering foam on the exclusive beltway cocktail party circuit of insufferable mutual admiration society ass kissers who will stop at nothing to silence a free and democratic media.
To say you “had to be there” would be an understatement, because, after he delivered that speech, I don’t think there was one person in that ballroom who will ever think about the media in the same way again, in particular how much a part of it we collectively really are, by our silence, and how we have the choice to either passively sit back and allow Big Media to control what we read and think, or to stand up at both the local and national and levels and play an active role in reforming it.
Bill Moyers inspired us all to make a difference working together. By appreciating our individual and collective strengths and talents, we can utilize our local channels and networks of communication to shape our communities in a democratic way that represents everyone. Our country was built on the promise of hard work and compromise by the good character and integrity of our rich and diverse people.
Equal to or Better than a Stones Concert… The standing ovation and applause shook the proverbial rafters before and after – especially after -- Bill Moyers gave his keynote address. The message that the ever graceful Mr. Moyers so inspirationally conveyed about the “Plantation Media Society” ownership was that people want media to foster democracy, not squelch it and that together, we CAN make a difference in what we expect of the media by demanding more and speaking out. That the channels of “radio, TV, and cable, which were hailed as a vehicle to give voice to community and meant to serve the Life of the Mind were controlled by Jello and General Motors” illustrates a numbing picture of the “parasites in politics” that bear down to control our airwaves.
These parasites in politics and other flatworldians, like billionaire blowhard Tom Friedman who hail so-called “free trade” agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA as “inevitable and necessary” and yet never even read, are gathering foam on the exclusive beltway cocktail party circuit of insufferable mutual admiration society ass kissers who will stop at nothing to silence a free and democratic media.
To say you “had to be there” would be an understatement, because, after he delivered that speech, I don’t think there was one person in that ballroom who will ever think about the media in the same way again, in particular how much a part of it we collectively really are, by our silence, and how we have the choice to either passively sit back and allow Big Media to control what we read and think, or to stand up at both the local and national and levels and play an active role in reforming it.
Bill Moyers inspired us all to make a difference working together. By appreciating our individual and collective strengths and talents, we can utilize our local channels and networks of communication to shape our communities in a democratic way that represents everyone. Our country was built on the promise of hard work and compromise by the good character and integrity of our rich and diverse people.
But what Mr. Moyers so eloquently expressed to us all from that stage in Memphis last week was that we can together shape and restore democracy to our media once again, echoing the history that the founders of our great nation so fiercely believed that we can and will regain the power of its true voice, the voice of freedom. Our voice of America.
-2Truthy
1 comment:
"billionaire blowhard Tom Friedman" ??
I thought he was on "your" side? Wasn't he only describing the situation, not endorsing it? Then lamenting the fact that while this economic folk dance continued with China and India, Bush merely fiddled . . . in Iraq. Yes? No?
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