We Are Family!

Did the small band of organizers realize what they unleashed with the first National Conference for Media Reform in 2003? Did they imagine that 1,000 people would show up on the shores of Madison, Wisconsin, and that FCC commissioners would be greeted like rock stars? Did any of us know that the “angels of the public interest” would lead us into a new era of media activism?

There have been many gatherings of public interest media makers and advocates (dating back decades), but the first NCMR was a historic gathering of the “tribes of media and democracy.” Community media and public access TV pioneers, digital divide agitators, low power radio activists, public media makers, open source coders, state and national policy wonks, and analog and digital natives beat the drums loudly for free speech, open networks and community control. At that first NCMR and the three that followed, we caught a glimpse of how to tip big media off balance with people power.

The giant dose of common cause generated at each of the NCMRs gave us the fuel to return to our communities to hold our foot against the ever-threatened door of media and democracy. We continue to mobilize our allies as every flavor of big media—cable, broadcast, telcos, print, multi-media, mobile and more — pushes against the public interest with their financial, political, legal and marketing forces.

There is no end in sight. As long as our economic order favors the consolidation of wealth, we will struggle against the consolidation of media. Add to this the many times that we will find ourselves working at cross purposes with each other. But then, there will be moments of reprieve — when Congress decides that monopolies are getting out of hand (remember the break up of Ma Bell?), or when we find enough allies and mobilize the masses to preserve our human right to communicate. In all events — the guts and the glory — “struggle” is the short name for the work that we do together.

Which is why the NCMR is so important. For a few brief and highly charged days, we are reminded that we do not struggle alone. We are reminded that our fight in Vermont is the fight in California — and even, in China. We are reminded that free speech and open networks depend on our unrelenting effort. And, we are reminded that democratic social change is possible if we persist together.

With this in mind, I hope you’ll join me and my colleagues from Vermont in Boston on April 8 – 10 for the fifth National Conference for Media Reform.

Lauren-Glenn Davitian is the Executive Director of CCTV Center for Media & Democracy based in scenic Burlington Vermont and has been gladly toiling in the fields of free speech and public access TV since 1984.