Resources for Media Activists

This document provides URLs that will hook you up to many groups and information regarding citizen efforts to raise public awareness of the degree to which we are influenced by corporate-owned mainstream media.

APPEAL TO ALL ONLINE BLOGGERS

Please, at least once a week publish an article that calls attention to the influence of propaganda in the media and tells the public how they can combat.  It’s not enough to rant, we must also educate.

THANK YOU.

LIZ

 

MAY 28, 2011

Media Reform Advocacy Groups:

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) (the #1 media watchdog group)

Media Channel

Media Access Project

Media Alliance

Center for Creative Voices in Media

Reclaim the Media (working on federal media policy and local media reform in Seattle area)

Media Tank (working on federal media policy and local media reform in Philadelphia area)

Free Press

Media Matters (exposes conservative misinformation in media)

Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME)

Media Watch (challenges racism, sexism & violence in media)

Media Transparency: The Money Behind the Media

Rocky Mountain Media Watch (takes on the TV “news” media)

Media Geek

Media Transparency (exposes the right-wing foundations and institutes that influence much of when ends up in the mass media)

Media Tenor (media content analysis of media around the world)

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Media Reform Articles/Books

The New Media Monopoly (new 2004 version of Ben Bagdikian’s book, revised with 7 new chapters)

• Robert W. McChesney’s website (author of several books on media and democracy)
• Media Control, Propaganda, and Democracy (excellent compilation of articles)
• The Making of a Movement
• Off the Record: What Media Corporations Don’t Tell You About Their Legislative Agendas
• The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly

Public Relations/Advertising/Commercialism

• Adbusters’ Culture Jammer’s Headquarters (attacks advertising, corporate commercialism and more)
• Center for Media & Democracy
• PR Watch magazine
• Toxic Sludge is Good for You!
• Trust Us, We’re Experts!)
• Institute for Public Accuracy (exposes corporate-backed think tanks)
• Integrity in Science (exposes scientists’ and non-profits’ ties to industry)
• Stay Free! (Attacks advertising, corporate commercialism)
• Strategic Press Information Network (SPIN) Project / PR with Principles (media/PR advice for grassroots activist groups)
• SourceWatch (directory of PR firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts)

The Media Monopoly / Corporate Media Ownership:

• The New Media Monopoly (new 2004 version of Ben Bagdikian’s book, revised with 7 new chapters)
• The Big Ten (chart of the 10 largest media corporations and their holdings)
• Who Owns What (comprehensive list of media ownership by the Columbia Journalism Review)
• Global Concentration: The Media Ownership Chart
• Networks of Influence: The political power of the communications industry (book available from Center for Public Integrity)
• Well Connected: Tracking the Players in Telecommunications, Media and Technology (from the Center for Public Integrity)
• Mega-Media’s Interlocking Directorates (FAIR, June 2001)
• Consumers Union testimony before the U.S. Senate on Media Concentration (7/17/2001)
• Media Industry Efforts to Eliminate and Weaken the Ownership Rules: What it Means for the Public and the Future of the Internet
• PBS’s Media Giants Site
• Mega-Mergers in the Telecommunications Industry (up to 1997)
• Democratic Media Legal Project to Challenge Media Monopoly
• Clear Channel Sucks (website takes on entertainment giant)
• OutFOXed (documentary on right-wing bias of Fox News)
• Pappas Telecasting (right-wing advocacy)
• Boycott Sinclair Broadcast Group / Sinclair Action (right-wing advocacy)
• Inkywatch (monitoring the Philadelphia Inquirer for bias and deception)

Radio (low-power / micro radio)

• Americans for Radio Diversity
• Center for Democratic Communications (CDC) of the National Lawyers Guild
• Free Radio Network
• National Federation of Community Broadcasters
• Micro Radio Implementation Project
• MicroRadio.Net
• Media Access Project’s Project on Low Power Radio
• Prometheus Radio Project (primer on applying for a low-power FM license)
• Radio For All (the movement to reclaim the airwaves)

 

Television Media Reform Cable Access

• Center for Screen-Time Awareness Coordinators of TV-Turnoff Week;

◦                    TV Facts

◦                    May 1999 Congressional Testimony of Henry Labalme, Executive Director of TV-Free America “Millions of Americans are so hooked on television that they fit the criteria for substance abuse as defined in the official psychiatric manual, according to Rutgers University psychologist Robert Kubey. Heavy TV viewers exhibit six dependency symptoms–two more than necessary to arrive at a clinical diagnosis of substance abuse. These include using TV as a sedative; indiscriminate viewing; feeling loss of control while viewing; feeling angry with oneself for watching so much; inability to stop watching; and suffering withdrawal when forced to stop watching TV.”

• Alliance for Better Campaigns seeking reduced cost air-time for political candidates
• Alliance for Community Media fighting for public, educational & governmental access cable TV channels
• Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting
• Mental Engineering public broadcasting TV show on dissecting television commercials
• Excerpts from the book: Four Arguments for The Elimination of Television
• Kill Your Television Home Page
• TV Alters Brain Waves! (From Test Card F)
• TV & Brainwashing (more on TV, brain waves and advertising)
• TV: Opiate of the Masses
• Smash Your TV Set
• Video Activist Network

 

Internet / Open Access / Digital Divide

• Center for Digital Democracy
• Center For Democracy & Technology
• Digital Divide Network
• Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy
• NoFilters.org keep Internet filters out of our libraries
• Media Access Project’s Project on Broadband/Open Access to the Internet over Cable Infrastructure
• Alliance for Public Technology
• Future of Music Coalition

 

Independent/Alternative Media Advocates

• Alternative Press Review
• Independent Press Association
• Independent Media Centers
• Independent Media Institute

 

Resources for Investigative Journalism & Reporters

• Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
• First Amendment Handbook
• “Afflict the Comfortable, Comfort the Afflicted: A Guide for Campus Alternative Journalists”
• Center for Investigative Reporting
• Investigative Reporters and Editors
• Reporter.org
• International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
• Citizen Muckraking: How To Investigate and Right Wrongs in Your Community
• Center for Public Integrity
• Guerilla Video Primer

 

Progressive Media Outlets:

• Democracy Now
• Reader Supported News e-newsletter
• Alternet e-newsletter
• TruthOut e-newsletter
• Common Dreams
• Corporate Watch
• Global Information Network
• Media Channel
• ZNet / Z Magazine
• NewStandard News
• Independent Media Centers
• The Nation
• Mother Jones
• In These Times
• InfoShop News Kiosk
• Cascadia Media Collective
• Media Education Foundation
• Free Speech TV: A progressive voice In the Media Revolution
• Pacifica Radio
• Progressive Populist
• Talk America Radio
• NarcoNews Bulletin / Fund for Authentic Journalism Reporting on the Drug War and Democracy from Latin America
• Counterpunch
• SleptOn
• WebActive
• Whispered Media

 

Alternative Progressive Book Publishers:

• AK Press
• Akashic Books
• Apex Press
• Autonomedia
• Beacon Press
• Chelsea Green
• Common Courage
• Four Walls Eight Windows Press
• Left Bank Books
• Pluto Press
• Progressive Resources Publications
• Seal Press
• Seven Stories Press
• South End Press
• Independent Online Booksellers
alternatives to the monopoly bookseller corporations: Amazon, Borders and Barnes & Noble

◦                    BookSense.com

◦                    Powell’s City of Books

 

Where the (Mainstream) Media is…

• National and Local Media Finder

 

• The Drudge Report right wing advocacy page with a lots of links to media outlets and columnists’ websites
• NewsDirectory.com
• Yahoo’s News & Media Directory
• FAIR’s media contact list

Other Media Links:

• 10 Ways Reporters Can Screw up an Article
• 5 Ways News Editors Can Screw up an Article
• Media Literacy and Education Organizations

Media Links at Electronic Policy Network