mediageek

Author: Paul

  • WSJ: ” FCC Flooded With Letters Opposing Media Consolidation”

    According to the Wall Street Journal the FCC has received over 1700 comments on the upcoming media ownership rules reviews. The article attributes the flood to some coordinated campaigns run by consumer and advocacy groups, which according to an unnamed “former FCC insider” means that the commission will likely note the volume but not necessarily…

  • Concern about Media Monopolies Plays in Peoria

    Last week I spoke with a media reporter from the Peoria Journal-Star, Steve Tarter, about the upcoming FCC media ownership rules review. He dedicated his Sunday column to the matter, and did a nice job following up some details about Central Illinois media owners: “YouÂ’ve already got a situation where two of the area stations…

  • Comments to the FCC on Media Ownership

    Just under the wire of the Thursday, Jan 2 midnight deadline, I submitted my comments to the FCC on the agency’s upcoming media ownership rules review. It’s sort of surprising it took me so long to get comments together, given that I write about this issue every week here on mediageek. But I wanted to…

  • Keeping up the Pressure With Public Access TV

    Brad Johnson is a former Clear Channel radio engineer, a driving force behind Partytown on-line radio and a public access TV programmer in his hometown of Modesto, CA. He’s raised a bit of ruckus by showing on his public access TV show a clip of Clear Channel shock-jock Bubba the Love Sponge slaughtering a live…

  • Friday’s Radio Show On-Line: Year-End Wrap-Up with John Anderson

    The Dec. 27 edition of the mediageek radio show is now on-line (but not listed on the main radio show page yet). It’s a freewheeling discussion with John Anderson, of DIYmedia.net, about the past year in grassroots and indymedia, with a particular focus on low-power/free/pirate radio. You can listen in: low bitrate mp3 (16kbps –…

  • Local Wireless Internet Coverage

    Local wireless Internet efforts were profiled in yesterday’s Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette. The story covers a company offering high-speed connections via microwave, along with our local grassroots free wireless Internet group.

  • Printed Ephemera — Original American Indymedia

    We see them all the time: posters, flyers, pamphlets, catalogs. But how much notice do we take? Often, they only require a few moments attention, and yet so much about a time and place is communicated. And unlike our tradition conception of the mass media and press, the production of these forms of printed communication…

  • FSRN Report on Media Ownership Rules / Tribune Expands TV Empire

    Today’s Free Speech Radio News featured a segment on the upcoming FCC review of media ownership rules. I was interviewed by reporter Leigh Robartes for this report and Robartes also used a bit from my interview with Ivy Glennon on Dec. 20. You can download a 13 MB broadcast-quality mp3 of the whole show or…

  • Cogent Media Analysis in Service of Liberal Whining

    “Media critic” Neal Gabler submits a reasoned analysis that the true split in the media is not liberal/left vs. conservative/right, but rather the difference “between two entirely different journalistic mind-sets: those who believe in advocacy, and those who believe in objectivity — or, at the very least, in the appearance of objectivity.” … Unfortunately, for…

  • Why the FCC Might Ignore Public Comments

    The Smoking Gun filed a FOIA request for all the public comments made to the agency over the airing of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show on CBS this fall. Predictably, the majority of the comments were negative and many were part of coordinated campaigns run by such outfits as the American Family Association. But, there…