Where is Media Blizzard? On hiatus!

Media activists,
I’m taking a haitus from Media Blizzard as I further discern how I could be most helpful to the local media reform movement. The contribution I can make is limited while I’m mothering two young children more than full time! I’m glad to see the concern nationally for our local news gathering organizations as newspapers try to stay afloat, including proposed Congressional action to help make newspapers nonprofit educational organizations and a much broader plan put forward nationally by Free Press. I wish I could do more, but please feel free to contact me anytime about local media reform and independent media efforts–I’ll continue to support them as much as possible. (I’ll also continue to do speaking on media reform as these opportunities arise.) Thanks for visiting Media Blizzard!

Nancy Doyle Brown

Grassroots video project delivers a message from bus riders

In a thrilling example of using the media to promote justice, a handful of human rights advocates from St. Stephen’s Human Services took video cameras to the streets of the Twin Cities to capture reactions to a proposed bus fare increase among people earning low or no incomes. The Southwest Journal (and sister publication the Downtown Journal) reports that the group filmed no fewer than 409 30-second videos and posted them on their YouTube page, spurring the Metropolitan Council to reconsider its 25-cent fare increase and seek cost-cutting alternatives. 

This hands-down media justice victory has a number of noteworthy aspects:

• It offered people a chance to weigh in on a policy decision before rather than after the decision was made. By contast, the mainstream media encourages depoliticization by telling us about policies after decisions have been made when it’s too late to affect them.
• Requiring only a videocamera and Internet access, this project was relatively cheap and easy to do.
• It allowed people to speak in their own words.
• The media makers went to the people rather than requiring that people come to them.
• It sought the perspectives of the people who would be most affected by the policy, while the mainstream media relies more heavily on the perspectives of elected officials and other elites.
• It did not try to be “neutral” or “objective,” but helped broaden an existing conversation by airing voices normally not heard, creating a richer understanding of an issue for everyone.

The St. Stephen’s workers who initiated this probably didn’t think of themselves as “the media,” but they became the media for a targeted purpose, proving that anyone (and everyone) can wield the tools of communication.

The two community newspapers that were willing and able to cover this act of media ingenuity also deserve kudos!

If there were a grassroots media award, I’d give it to the folks at St. Stephen’s for reminding us that media matters and that everyone should have a voice.

Taking matters into our own hands

On news of more newspaper bankruptcies, including our Star Tribune, the New York Times hosted a discussion laying out “Battle Plans for Newspapers,” with MinnPost.com editor and owner Joel Kramer among the contributors. (It also recently published an opinion piece predicting that only a few large newspapers will survive the recession and saying that it people simply won’t ”pay by the slice” for journalism.)

Across the country, people are starting to realize that investors who don’t care about journalism aren’t the best stewards of local news organizations. When Maine’s largest news organization went up for sale recently, employees and other stakeholders set up a website inviting people to support a bid by employees and local investors to buy the organization. It reads:

“We think an employee-ownership model backed by community-minded investors is the best way to keep our newspapers out of the hands of a low-budget operator who would be more interested in maximizing profits than serving our communities.”

No results yet, but negotiations are underway.

Employee ownership of the Star Tribune would be a great leap forward in protecting one of our community’s most powerful news-gathering organizations. Options for community ownership were addressed at a recent industry conference in Baltimore.

The nuts and bolts of producing a local independent nightly news

Part 4 of “Re-envisioning our local TV nightly news.” Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

Since Part 3 of this series was posted, there have been two meetings to embark on a project like this. If you’d like to get involved, contact me via email.

Though it’s an ambitious project, producing a half-hour, local, nightly TV news program isn’t out of reach, even for a group with little or no budget. The project will benefit from a format that recognizes there will likely be no full-time staff and little to no budget. That means using time wisely and keeping the project paired to essentials initially. Keeping most of the production in the studio, with headlines read first and then two guests to explore important local issues.

Here are some more nuts and bolts:

Production

The program should be taped and aired daily, but does not necessarily need to be broadcast live, like mainstream news programs. This flexibility will help. There will need to be a core of committed people and a wider circle of supportive people to make the production happen daily. This group will determine the editorial direction, aggregate and/or produce the content, tape the program, and distribute it.

Like everything, this project needs either organized people or organized money. It usually helps to have some of both. The lowest-cost option for producing the program is to use the network of public access stations available in the Twin Cities. You must supply your own crew, but use of the equipment and space is free.

A more costly cable TV option for production is Metro Cable Network, Channel 6, a nonprofit cable station. MCN requires that you use their professional crew for about $1200 per program.

A third option is to use Twin Cities Public Television’s Minnesota Channel, one of its six digital channels. One downside is that you have to be a nonprofit organization. Also, the price for this little slice of media democracy is a minimum of $5000 per show.

Distribution

The best possibility for airing the program daily is MCN Channel 6, which sells airtime for a hefty but not insurmountable fee. The benefit of Channel 6 is that it’s located right after Channels 4 and 5, so channel flippers will leave local mainstream news to find this refreshing, independent alternative.

The program can also be posted online. This may be its sole means of distribution initially, though its potential audience would be much smaller and it would compete with the web-based local news sources instead of addressing the dearth of local independent news on TV (they’ll all soon be the same thing, but they aren’t yet).

The key to successful distribution will be providing it in a format and media that’s familiar, consistent, and convenient. The mainstream nightly news is all three! Of course, a major disadvantage of both distribution possibilities is that they’re paid subscription media, leaving out all who can’t afford to buy access.

Collaboration

Opportunities for collaboration are many with web-based news sources and others. Creating connections across the Twin Cities independent media organizations will help strengthen our independent media infrastructure, a victory in intself.

Honoring human nature

To make this or any new project successful, it has to work with and not against people’s habits, preferences, and lifestyles. An independent TV news will find a loyal following if:

• It looks familiar and is recognizable (one meeting attendee wisely noted that this is a form of “accessibility,” not technological, but human).
• It clearly articulates what it is and how it’s different (e.g. provides news and perspectives you won’t find elsewhere)
• It’s on at the same time and place every day so people can make it part of their routine
• It points the way to a better future for all of us
• It empowers people (rather than scaring or innoculating them)
• It invites people to stretch a little into what’s ultimately a more inclusive and rewarding experience of community

Trouble at the source: the Strib’s bankruptcy

We’ve watched the Star Tribune bow to the pressure for profits by dumbing down its content to woo the consumption-oriented, apolitical, twenty-something market. But its bankruptcy filing still comes as bad news for the Twin Cities media landscape. Like it or not, the Star Tribune maintains the only major newsroom in Minneapolis, with around 300 dedicated staffers.

Here and in other major cities, the newspaper isn’t just one of many forms of media–it’s the source that feeds all others. Radio, TV, and the blogosphere all rely on the content generated in the newsroom of the daily newspaper. So as newspapers slash staff and even threaten to fold, it’s not just newsprint readers that will suffer the effects.

Though I’ve seen little coverage of this ripple effect, the fate of the American newspaper has been the topic of increasing discussion and speculation. The Pew Center released a study last summer called “The Changing Newsroom” about the industry’s financial pickle. Here’s an excerpt from its section on “The Future”:

In part, this report is a portrait of how those papers are pushing the boundaries of innovation at a pace unthinkable a decade ago. At the same time, however, it documents the crippling impact of cutbacks triggered by the erosion of once-solid financial fundamentals. As we noted in introducing our findings, these two contradictory forces have effectively placed newspapers in a race—a race between innovating and cutting back. How quickly can newspapers invent a new journalism online, build an audience and find a way to monetize the product? And in the time it takes to do this, how much will further staff losses, and the accompanying loss of institutional memory and community knowledge, undermine their biggest competitive asset—the size and strength of their newsrooms? How much will they have to cut back on key subject matter? Will audiences drift away because their old economic model is shrinking more quickly than their new one is growing? Or will the investment in new technologies generate the income needed to sustain staffs large enough to produce outstanding journalism? Winning this race, editors sense, involves innovating quickly—on both business and editorial sides of the paper—with one hand and fighting off excessive cut backs with the other.

The automobile did no favors for the horse-drawn buggy business either, but visionaries knew people still needed to get around. We still need newsrooms (whether virtual or actual) and we need people whose job it is to keep us informed.

For thoughtful and thorough coverage of the Star Tribune’s efforts to make newspapering add up, check out David Brauer’s blog at Minnpost.com.

Tell Target: Minneapolis residents need a no-cost DTV transition option!

The Star Tribune today joined the chorus calling for a delay of the nationwide switch to digital television planned for February 17. Unless that happens, anyone who still uses an antenna to get TV reception must buy and install a converter box to continue to access programming.

But try to find a box that’s fully covered by the federal government’s $40 converter box voucher program.

Two local media justice organizations are asking Target to help residents of Minneapolis make a no-cost conversion by offering boxes with closed captioning and analog pass-through features for $40 or less.

The two organizations, Main Street Project and the Minnesotano Media Empowerment Project, along with other community leaders, are concerned that low-income families, immigrants, seniors, communities of color, and people with disabilities will be the hardest hit by the DTV transition, as many people will be unable to afford converter boxes costing even ten or twenty dollars more than the $40 voucher covers.

Minneapolis has been identified as a “red market” by the FCC and National Telecommunications and Information Agency (NTIA) because it has more than 150,000 households dependents on antennas for TV reception.

Having access to media is essential to being able to participate effectively in our society. As more media become available to paid subscribers only, we must protect and preserve free, universally accessible media options.

Main Street Project and the Minnesotano Media Empowerment Project have developed a petition to urge Target to offer a no-cost converter box. Please add your support!

Where are the workers? Giving voice to the silenced majority

The “Business” pages of a newspaper concern our interactions with our economic system, primarily as owners and as consumers. As owners (and investors), we are informed about how the stock market’s faring, which sectors are strongest, which businesses are succeeding and failing, and so on. As consumers, we are informed about inflation, finding the best deals on consumer products, the latest consumption fads, and more.

But there’s another way nearly all of us interact with our economic system that is largely absent from business news: as workers.

There are a lot of explanations for the absence of workers’ voices. First, workers don’t have public relations firms to fill reporters’ in-boxes (reporters who rely too heavily on press releases because they no longer have time to do otherwise). Also, workers’ perspectives feel “ideological” to news organizations while owners’ perspectives feel “neutral.” (Even the word “worker” carries Marxist connotations. “Working people” is an alternative.)

Add to that the bottom-line reason most media outlets exist, which is to deliver your ears and eyeballs to advertisers. Focusing on your identity as an owner or consumer better promotes spending, which serves the interests of businesses trying to sell you things. As always, the criteria for what is printed or aired in the media isn’t what’s most needed, but what’s most advantageous for advertisers.

(Also missing from the Business pages are the perspectives of unemployed or underemployed people, a guaranteed constant in our economic system. “Unemployment figures” are provided to help owners understand effects on their investments, but the people represented by these numbers are invisible.)

Thankfully, there are a few shining lights. Workday Minnesota is a partnership of the University of Minnesota’s Labor Education Service, unions, and workers. According to its website, it ”seeks to be a news and information source that combines journalistic ethics and practices with a focus on the lives and concerns of working people.”

“Our admitted bias,” it continues, ”is that we present the world of events and issues through the prism of social and economic justice and the dignity of work.” An admitted bias! Good for them! Mainstream news insists it’s bias-free while favoring the perspectives of business owners and managers.

Minnesota  at Work, another project of the Labor Education Service, is a weekly cable TV program by and about working people, aired weekly on Metro Cable Network Channel 6.

Next door in Madison, Wisconsin, Workers Independent News is what they call “a voice in the media for workers.” WIN produces and distributes a nationally syndicated 3-minute headline news broadcast that reaches over 1 million people daily. They even call it “business news for the rest of us.”

How can we broaden business news and amplify the voices of working people? Here are a few ideas:

• Notice the local mainstream media’s bias in favor of owners and managers and bring it to their attention. Write a letter or send an email suggesting an alternative perspective on a story or question their decision to run an story that speaks to owners’ interests (e.g. Best Buy’s earning projections) rather than a story that speaks to workers’ interests. If you’re ambitious, monitor coverage over time, summarize your findings, and ask a media organization to commit to changes in their coverage.
• Download, reproduce, and link to Workday Minnesota’s news (for con-commercial purposes only).
• Submit news and photos on subjects of interest to working people to Workday Minnesota (send them to editor@workdayminnesota.org and include your name, phone number and e-mail address). Workday Minnesota is a media partner of the Twin Cities Daily Planet, so your story may be posted there too. 
• Help keep “labor news” from contributing to its own marginalization with leads like this one, from a December 29 story on Workday Minnesota’s website: Teamsters Local 120 has won a neutrality agreement with Minneapolis Refuse, Inc. in a campaign to organize waste-hauling employees.” When union machinations and not people take center stage, labor reporting fails to communicate to a broad audience.
• What are your ideas? Suggest more in the comment box below!

New Year’s Resolution: Local TV news that matters

If you like the idea of re-envisioning the Twin Cities local TV news, help make it happen! A group has formed in the Twin Cities to work on producing a local, nightly, independent TV news (which will also be distributed online). Attend the kick-off planning meeting on Saturday, January 10 at 1 p.m. at the Walker Library in Minneapolis! Experience with daily news or locally produced TV news is especially helpful, but not required. Learn how you can play a role in this much-needed addition to the Twin Cities media landscape. For more, read previous posts 1, 2, and 3.

Elite media rallies around Bush and discredits Iraqi critic

Leslie Savan posted an insightful piece on The Nation’s website exposing our purportedly objective media’s dodging the real meaning of the Iraqi who threw his shoes at Bush last week. As she illustrates, it’s a good example of the corporate mainstream media believing in their own neutrality while politely protecting those in power.

The basic proposal for a TV news alternative

Part 3 of “Re-envisioning our local nightly TV news” (read Part 1 and Part 2)

I’ve been describing an alternative nightly TV news that would help Twin Cities residents be better informed participants in our community.

The basic proposal is a half-hour program modeled on the national Democracy Now format, distributed on TV and online, with headlines first and then in-studio interviews to explore issues in depth.

The idea is to provide an alternative to the existing “product” that is local nightly TV news. It would run opposite the network’s news, catching disaffected channel-flippers and bringing back to TV viewers who’d given up on nightly news for lack of meaningful content.

A lot of learning about the media is mental deprogramming—realizing that the news available to us is neither objective nor comprehensive, that the way the news looks results from market forces rather than divine prescription, and more. So when we become the media, we can look critically at the conventions. Why daily? Why a half hour? Why TV? Also, who sets the news agenda? How does that work? What’s the ultimate purpose of “news”? Who do we most want to reach? How should news organizations function internally? These and more are all questions to be explored.

A nightly TV news alternative will address the lack of local independent content on TV and provide a video-based online option. The Twin Cities is fortunate to have great independent daily news in other media–online on MinnPost, the Minnesota Independent, and the Twin Cities Daily Planet and on the radio on KFAI’s Evening News. TheUptake also deserves special mention for posting video of notable events online, but it doesn’t aim to perform a filtering or synthesizing role. These news sources are all potential collaborators.

If a nightly TV news alternative is really needed, why doesn’t it already exist? Our advertising-based media aims for the cheapest way to string together commercials. The goal is to deliver your eyeballs and ears to advertisers. If they could reach through the screen and feed you gummy bears, they would. Giving you the news you need is not their primary interest.

Next: The nuts and bolts of producing a TV news alternative