Please don't ask me how I stumbled onto Townhall.com -- I watched their GM Chuck DeFeo at today's Beyond Broadcast conference and from that point forward I blame Google -- but I did. And in doing so, came across Ohio's Ken Blackwell going on about the impending threat of the Fairness Doctrine, an old FCC reg largely done away with under the Reagan Administration.

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Working at the heart of media reform today is Free Press, a Northampton, MA-based organization with offices in Washington, DC. You may know Free Press from the work they did to organize and drive the Save the Internet coalition. Yesterday in Memphis, the organization wrapped up a National Conference for Media Reform that saw over 3,500 attendees. Mr. Tim Karr is Campaign Director at Free Press. (I’m experimenting with a new format for me -- quick interviews of important progressives voices via IM, posted with light editing. Tim and I typed back-and-forth early this morning and I'm posting it 'round noon.) In the interview, Tim talks about the state of public broadcasting, what comes after network neutrality, the Internet Freedom Declaration of 2007, and more.

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MediaVolunteer does not consist of calling voters, raising money or talking to politicians that are busy packing.

We dare say it is the "perfect victory lap for successful and engaged voters" and volunteers. It is the perfect busy work while waiting for the results.  Most importantly, the work on mediavolunteer is actually best done BEFORE the newly elected officials and staff move into office.

Please visit http://www.mediavolunteer.org and complete a few tasks in just 12 minutes.

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Yo. Little help over here....Psst. We could use a hand. Actually just 12 minutes right now. (http://www.mediavolunteer.org)

To get the truth out and to focus media attention on important stories, organizers need lists of newspaper, radio, television and internet reporters. These lists cost big money. Unlike our well-funded opponents, progressive groups have limited resources.

That is why volunteers are working from their own homes and offices to build a comprehensive media list that will enable progressive groups nationwide to spread their messages quickly and efficiently. With access to this media list, organizations will be able to participate in the public debate and focus more resources on organizing. More message volume from our friends will enable us to lift more important stories into the news cycle.

Take a few minutes and knock off a few research tasks at http://www.mediavolunteer.org or wired on Red Bull and jam through a few thousand items that need to be done. Every bit of work counts. We even have volunteers checking each others work to make sure it is a list that can be trusted.

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Sounds impossible, no? Well, I just conflated the headlines of two consecutive articles in Elaine Meinel Supkis' fantastic, educational, entertaining blog Culture of Life News!
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Greg Palast Arrested Interviewing FEMA Trailer Storm Victims

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Reporter Greg Palast was arrested for trying to interview FEMA trailer people. The deadline for eviction from the trailer camps is in four months. Nearly no one in these camps have any homes to return to and the public housing that wasn't touched by a drop of water in the floods remain boarded up. Obviously, these people are slated for being eliminated or struggle to survive in the streets of whatever city they can reach.

This is an article from several months ago.

»    7/21/06 The Federal Emergency Management Agency prohibits journalists from having unsupervised interviews with Hurricane Katrina victims who have been relocated to FEMA trailer parks, according to a report in the Baton Rouge Advocate (7/15/06).

»    "If a resident invites the media to the trailer, they have to be escorted by a FEMA representative who sits in on the interview," FEMA spokesperson Rachel Rodi is quoted in the article. "That's just a policy."

»    The Advocate report, by reporter Sandy Davis, describes two separate attempts to talk to people displaced by Katrina that were halted by the intervention of a FEMA security guard. In the first incident, in a Morgan City, Louisiana camp, an interview was interrupted by a guard who claimed that residents of the camp are "not allowed" to talk to the media.

Politicians and public officials expressed outrage that the Bush dictatorship was no allowing hurricane victims to talk with the media except when a FEMA 'escort' was along.
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