a short monthly column on media and politics that Tracy and I coauthored for In These Times:

What She Said

This month, we invited Jennifer L. Pozner, executive director of Women In Media & News, to tell us about the organization’s new project: WIMN’s Voices: A Group Blog on Women, Media, AND….

The next time some pundit blames the underrepresentation of women writers in corporate and independent media on a supposed lack of available talent, check out the dynamic and insightful writing at WIMN’s Voices.

WIMN’s Voices creates critical space for media monitoring and analysis by, for and about women. Through this diverse online community, dozens of leading women journalists, media critics, scholars and activists (including In These Times Senior Editors Lakshmi Chaudhry and Silja J.A. Talvi) analyze coverage of women in relation to specific news beats. From war to health, race to humor, international politics to pop culture and beyond, the blog illustrates that all issues can be reported as women’s issues.

In the blog’s first month, WIMN’s Voices writers were invited to discuss their posts in outlets as varied as ABC News Now, WomenseNews.org and Clamor. Here’s a taste of a few recent entries:

• Andi Zeisler on Newsweek’s mea-culpa to single women: To celebrate the 20th anniversary of telling unmarried women over 30 (that they were) less likely to marry than to die at the hands of terrorists by 40 …“Marriage by the Numbers” revisits several of Newsweek’s original subjects [from 1986] and finds–whaddya know?– that eight out of 11 (of the original 14) future cat ladies are in fact happily married after all …
• Sonali Kolhatkar on media coverage of Afghanistan: Mainstream and right-wing commentators expressed horror at the barbarism of a country we supposedly “liberated” (after an Afghan man faced the death penalty for converting to Christianity) … Meanwhile, the institutionalized misogyny of Afghanistan’s judiciary has escaped the notice of the media …
• Makani Themba Nixon on gender and race in the latest X-Men film:
  The comic book Storm’s cold blooded, self assured fearlessness conjures up more of a Grace Jones than the cowering, wimpy character [Halle] Berry brings to the screen … Storm’s character was a bright spot in the relentless denigration of Black women in media … The movie series has stripped Storm of her power and the storyline of all its potency …

Let the Sunshine In

Congresspedia.com, “the citizen’s encyclopedia on Congress,” is a new clearinghouse for everything you want to know—and want everyone else to know— about our elected officials. Built with Wiki software, it allows users to collaboratively add and remove information, and includes oversight from an editor.

Congresspedia’s users can update policymaker’s profiles, contact information and bios, and contribute to such sections as “Meet the Cash Constituents” and “Controversy.” It launched on April 26, the same day that its sponsor, the Sunlight Foundation, opened its doors. The foundation’s mission is to give citizens “the power to root out corruption in Congress.” As of mid-May, the top pages for visitors have included—hold your breath—Duke Cunningham and Tom DeLay, as well as potential presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

The nonpartisan Wiki is housed at SourceWatch.org, which is sponsored by the Center for Media and Democracy. SourceWatch similarly allows citizens to create and update its directory of people, organizations and issues shaping the public agenda, including public relations firms, think tanks and more. The number of daily visitors to the site has jumped to 48,000—up from the 28,000 daily visitors before the launch of Congresspedia.

Military Malarkey

“The American public will need to accept that certain information warfare tactics may not seem, on the surface, to be consistent with a global free press,” according to Simon Worden, the former head of the Pentagon’s controversial and short-lived Office of Strategic Influence.

Worden is a key character in “Mind Games,” the cover story of the May/June issue of the Columbia Journalism Review. In it, Assistant Editor Daniel Schulman outlines a series of recent efforts to foster “information warriors” in Iraq. One telling directive from 2003, the Information Operations Roadmap, called for “greater synergy” between public affairs, military information operations and psyops. As a result of this blurring, Shulman reports, misinformation designed to affect combat conditions now also regularly makes its way into news outlets.

“Increasingly,” Schulman writes, “the information environment has become the battlefield in a war that knows no boundaries.”

a short monthly column on media and politics that Tracy and I coauthored for In These Times:

TxtPower

Wondering what tools progressives can use to increase political engagement in ’06? Check your pocket. The Pew Research Center for The People & The Press reports that 66 percent of American adults now have cell phones, and 32 percent of those between 18 and 29 say they “couldn’t live” without them.

According to MobileActive.org, a group that tracks cell-phone activism around the globe, “Mobile phones have emerged as a campaign organizing tool across traditional socio-economic and cultural boundaries.” Callers have used text-messaging to sign petitions, coordinate seemingly spontaneous gatherings (known as “smartmobs”) and engage in citizen journalism. In San Francisco, Mobilevoter.org is working with the Chinese American Voter Education Committee to launch a cell-phone assisted voter registration drive, And FrontlineSMS.com helps NGOs reach out to targeted communities in developing countries. Check out the Mobile Messaging Awards at 160characters.org in late May for a glimpse at emerging text message applications.

Our So-Called News

Just when you thought television news couldn’t get any worse, information has surfaced that there’s a good chance you haven’t been watching the news at all.

The Center for Media and Democracy has identified 77 television newsrooms over a ten-month period that have broadcast Video News Releases (VNRs) produced by such corporate types as General Motors, Intel, Pfizer and Capital One—without disclosure to the viewers.

According to the group’s report, “In each case, these 77 television stations actively disguised the sponsored content to make it appear to be their own reporting. In almost all cases, stations failed to balance the clients’ messages with independently-gathered footage or basic journalistic research.” Combined, these 77 television stations reach more than half the U.S. population.

In an effort to clamp down on fake news, the media reform organization Free Press has started an online petition to demand that the Federal Communications Commission strengthen disclosure requirements and penalize news outlets that violates such regulations. To sign the petition, go to http://action.freepress.net/campaign/fakenews. To read the full report, go to www.prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary. 

a short monthly column on media and politics that Tracy and I coauthored for In These Times:

Calling One Wingnut

Mike Stark’s battle with Bill O’Reilly started last October when he called O’Reilly’s daily radio show to tell listeners to visit the “true no spin zone”: watchdog group Media Matters for America. O’Reilly, who has long vilified Media Matters, immediately cut Stark off, pronouncing, “We got another nut on the air.” He threatened to trace the call and pay Stark a visit at his home.

In late January, Stark launched Calling All Wingnuts a combination blog and organizing Web site that provides tools for progressives to counter misinformation spouted on the radio airwaves.

Stark and his volunteers, dubbed the “Wingnut Spinners,” soon began a new call-in campaign after O’Reilly called for the firing of his MSNBC competitor Keith Olberman on the air. After calling in—to a call-in show—“Spinners” began receiving return calls from Fox News’ security department, which threatened legal trouble for their alleged “harassment” of O’Reilly.

Olbermann has since picked up this story on his nightly show, “Countdown,” and has begun to rake O’Reilly over the coals. So far, O’Reilly has not sicced Fox security on Olbermann.

Reaching Out to Local Media

Stark has also offered his tips on talking back to conservatives to the Roots Project, a new effort to influence Congressional members where they live by contacting the media that serve their districts. The first outreach campaign harnessed blog readers living in Kansas, Maine and Nebraska to write letters to the editors of papers in those regions, urging local senators to investigate the illegal NSA wiretaps.

Jane Hamsher is coordinating the Roots Project through her blog firedoglake. She says organizing calls into local conservative radio shows is the next frontier.

The Roots Project also hopes to engage and showcase regional progressive bloggers. “We don’t want it to be outside agitation,” says Hamsher. “We don’t want to send 1,000 people from California pouncing on West Virginia. Our ability to drive traffic through to a West Virginia blog and have them be the point person—that’s where we can be the most effective.”

Move Over, Tim Russert

Are you: a) A political news junkie? b) Constantly surfing political blogs? c) An activist seeking a national audience? Now there’s a political news network just for you—but not on your TV. Go online and load up Politics TV. Officially launching March 7, this progressive online TV network will provide daily news delivered with a satirical edge; DSPAN, a progressive version of CSPAN that allows nonprofits and think tanks to submit videotapes of their events, and the Candidate Channel, which will feature video commentaries by candidates running for local, state and federal office.

Politics TV is not just about the news viewers can watch, but about news viewers can produce. On the soon-to-be-launched Satire Channel, PTV viewers can submit flash cartoons, sketch comedy, and other humorous content. Over the next few months, Politics TV will also roll out the Pundit Channel, which is billed as “the American Idol of political talk shows.” Politics TV producers will travel the country looking for the best “pundits” in cities across the country.

Politics TV’s Executive Producer David Mannett puts it this way: “Politics TV is the continuation of the democratization of media. Blogs have leveled the playing field for print media and journalism. Internet TV is going to take on conventional broadcast and news TV.”

20 years of FAIR-ness

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) celebrates its 20-year anniversary in 2006, and the media monitoring group is taking a look back at its accomplishments in the January/February issue of Extra!, the group’s bimonthly magazine. Throughout the years, FAIR has mounted creative protests, worked with anti-racist and gay activists to fight bigoted commentators like Bob Grant and Michael Savage, and has time-and again marshaled organizers to demand more accurate coverage of marches, military actions, and the putative “liberal” bias of the media itself.

“FAIR provided the foundation for the explosion in media reform activism of the past decade,” writes media scholar Bob McChesney. “What Voltaire said about God is true about FAIR: If it did not exist, we would have to invent it.”

Small-screen activism

In a trifecta of organizing, production and distribution, the Sierra Club, Brave New Films and Link TV are teaming up on a seven-part television series to highlight how “pollution, corporate greed and short-sighted government policies affect all of us.” Each show will highlight the impact of major environmental issues in local communities, along with corresponding activism. Topics range from the continuing economic and environmental damage wreaked on the Prince William Sound region by the 1988 Exxon oil spill to the devastating toll of air pollution-related health problems on working families in Los Angeles.

The show, which debuted January 12, will air every second Thursday of the month until July at 8:30 p.m. EST and PST on Link TV (DIRECTV channel 375 and Dish Network channel 9410). The Sierra Club and Brave New Films—which recently produced the direct-to-DVD documentary, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price—are offering alternative modes of distribution. Viewers can download the shows to their computers and video iPods and the DVDs are available at no cost for house parties.

For more information on the series and to download the first episode, “9/11 Forgotten Heroes,” visit www.sierraclub.org/tv/.

Really rapid response

Nonprofits and news junkies now have access to a powerful research and spin-monitoring tool. MediaChannel, a “media issues supersite,” is partnering with MediaVision, a video search engine, to offer real-time monitoring of cable and network broadcasts to activists at a discounted rate. MediaVision delivers digital video clips to users based on a simple search query or an automated feed keyed to a topic specified by the user.

While “clipping services” have been combing media for customers such as PR firms and political campaigns for decades, MediaVision specializes in “getting it to individuals really fast,” says Gregg Reed, the company’s chief operating officer. Because the search is based on closed-captioning of the broadcasts, which are available 5-10 seconds after airing, it’s possible to receive an alert and respond to an on-air assertion while a show is still in progress. Customers can store clips and share them in the context of research, but can’t repost them or distribute them to the public. Check out a demo at www.mediachannel.org.