mediageek

Author: Paul

  • McChesney Nails It: the Process, Deception and Stakes of Media “Deregulation”

    Communications Scholar and Activist Robert McChesney has put forth an abosutely clear, complete and concise run-down of the history and stakes of the FCC’s current media ownership rules review. In just one article he knocks home many of the issues and ideas that I’ve been trying to get at here on mediageek for the last…

  • St. Louis Gestapo… er, Cops, Make Pre-Emptive Raids on St. Louis Indymedia & Other Collective Spaces

    Let me just preface this by saying that the incidents that happened in St. Louis this weekend are indefensible acts of repression on the part of the St. Louis cops and city government. These sorts of gestapo tactics will continue to take place until the cops and officials involved are made accountable for their actions…

  • Urbana-Champaign Indymedia Center Mostly Open After City Overreacts

    After a bit of a scare and quite a bit of wrangling, negotiating and meeting with Urbana city officials the Urbana-Champaign IMC remains mostly open after getting a notice of immediate closure last Thursday. However, the IMC’s all-ages performance venue, known as the “back room,” remains closed, as it was the target of most of…

  • At the Eleventh Hour We Already Know We’re About To Be Screwed by a Bigger Media Monopoly

    Coverage and activism on the FCC’s impending media ownership rules review are reaching a near fever pitch, many months late in the game. I find it both facinating and frustrating that issues like this one have to get down to the wire before arousing any real attention from the press and any kind of critical…

  • Urbana Indymedia Center Shut Down by Local Officials Under Dubious Circumstances

    Yesterday the performance space at the Urbana-Champaign IMC was shut down by the City of Urbana with no warning or notice, even though the fire inspector gave the IMC and its landlords until May 29 to clear up some small violations. I’m still gathering details, but according to my trusted associates at the IMC, attempts…

  • A Free Corporate Media… Free To Serve Inverted Totalitarianism

    Sheldon Wolin writes convincingly in the Nation that the Republican Bushist regime is effecting an “Inverted Totalitarianism”: “By inverted I mean that while the current system and its operatives share with Nazism the aspiration toward unlimited power and aggressive expansionism, their methods and actions seem upside down. For example, in Weimar Germany, before the Nazis…

  • Welcome Clickers

    Hello to anyone who clicked here via Lawrence Lessig’s blog, and thanks to him for the link. I just want to point out that I’ve been tracking the FCC media ownership rules review story for quite some time here on mediageek, and invite you to check out the media ownership & consolidation archive.

  • How Better to Fight the Media Monoliths? With Lobbyists or Direct Action?

    On Wednesday the media columnist for the Boston Globe profiled four prominent activists in the current battle to keep the FCC from dismantling current media ownership regs. The profiles are relatively short and shallow, but what strikes me is that of the four, only one, Jenny Toomey of the Future of Music Coalition is not…

  • The Impending Consolidation Story Up To Now — No More Begging

    On today’s mediageek radio show I decided to give an update to all the various non-happenings and news regarding the impending FCC review of media ownership rules. It’s sort of a continuation and elaboration of Wednesday’s blog entry, Growing Awareness of the Media Monopoly Threat, But Will It Do Any Good? Click for more below.…

  • Growing Awareness of the Media Monopoly Threat, But Will It Do Any Good?

    I haven’t blogged much about the ongoing media consolidation debate recently because it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere new, different or interesting. Yes, it’s still important but mostly it’s the same refrain: FCC Democrats Copps and Adelstein keep going to public hearings and advocating for more restraint; FCC Chairman Powell says he already has…