Valentine’s Day is Wednesday, and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has spurned the public’s love in favor of the largest media companies. It’s time we won back his heart, according to FreePress.Net.

The group has created a 40-second Valentine’s Day video for Chairman Martin.

“Watch the video, sign the card to Martin, and tell your friends to do the same,” says Timothy Karr, Campaign Director for FreePress.Net. “Last year, Martin was caught in bed with corporate lobbyists. We need to woo him back to the people he’s really supposed to serve.”

This year is a pivotal year for the chairman. He will be making several decisions that will have a direct impact on the future of television, radio and the Internet.

Before he gets back in bed with corporate lobbyists, Martin needs to hear from the people.

The group urges people to sign the card and ask Chairman Martin to:

1. Stop Big Media from swallowing up even more local outlets.

2. Prevent big phone companies from destroying Net Neutrality.

3. Help foster more diverse voices and points of view.

“Take action today to demand a media system that puts our interests before those of the corporate media lobby. On this Valentine’s Day, let’s make sure the public can’t be ignored.”

To get involved in the fight for better media, visit FreePress.Net and the allied campaigns at SavetheInternet.Com and StopBigMedia.Com.

Worried that mega-corporations will once again pressure the FCC this year to allow the big media companies to take over more of your news and entertainment options?

Watch Book TV on C-SPAN II and see the show “After Words,” about author Eric Klinenberg and his book “Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media.” He is interviewed by Ben Scott of FreePress.Net and the show airs on Saturday, February 3 at 9 p.m. and Sunday, February 4 at 6 p.m. and at 9 p.m.

Show Description: Eric Klinenberg is an associate professor of sociology at New York University and the author of “Heat Wave,” about the 1995 heat wave that took the lives of over 700 people in Chicago. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, The Nation, and Rolling Stone. His latest book, “Fighting for Air,” looks at the control of local media by companies like Clear Channel, Sinclair Broadcasting, and the Tribune Company. Prof. Klinenberg is interviewed by Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press (www.freepress.net) and co-editor of “The Future of Media: Resistance and Reform in the 21st Century.”

For more information, go to C-SPAN’s Book TV.

A federal judge in Brooklyn, N.Y., is considering whether bloggers are entitled to the same free speech protections given to reporters for newspapers and other media in a case involving leaked documents belonging to the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, according to National Public Radio.

Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Freedom Foundation in San Francisco argues that the order to shut down the Web links in the case violated the protections of the first amendment. Von Lohmann’s client is an anonymous “John Doe” who posted entries on a Wikipedia Web site about the Zyprexa documents.

“Courts in the United States, thanks to the First Amendment, are not allowed to issue what are called ‘prior restraints,’ Von Lohmann said. “After all, the Pentagon Papers were also allegedly improperly obtained. And the courts have said over and over again ‘It doesn’t matter if the documents were improperly obtained. Courts do not issue stop-the-presses orders against people who happen to get the documents after they had been released.’”

Neil Richards, a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, says this case squarely poses the question of whether “John Doe” deserves the same protections as the established media.

“A number of people have made claims to be the press,” Richards said. “The Supreme Court, in interpreting the First Amendment, has defined the press very broadly because it doesn’t want to foreclose new types of people who are engaged in press-like activities from claiming First Amendment protection.”

Richards thinks the court will decide that “John Doe” is a full-fledged member of the press. But because the documents were released on the Web, Richards says, Judge Weinstein will also have to decide that the public interest in knowing what’s in the documents outweighs Lilly’s interest in protecting its trade secrets.

This may or may not be the best test case of free press rights for the Web Press. But it is a test case nonetheless, so the judge should decide in John Doe’s favor or all of our First Amendment free press rights are imperiled.

MEMPHIS, Tenn., Jan. 13 - Veteran television journalist Bill Moyers opened the National Conference for Media Reform Friday with praise for SavetheInternet.com’s grassroots campaign to keep the Internet open and fair for all comers.

“You lit a fire under people to put Washington on Notice,” Moyers told a packed house of more than 3,000 activists and organizers.

Net Neutrality, which Moyers dubbed the “Equal Access Provision of the Internet,” became a broad public issue “that once again reminded the powers that be that people want the media to foster democracy not to quench it.”
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by Ronald Sitton

Photo by Ron Sitton

The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks at the National Conference for Media Reform, urging participants to continue the fight to keep independent online media alive and well.

MEMPHIS, Tenn., Jan. 12 - Rev. Jesse Jackson told a gathered crowd of approximately 2,500 and an additional 2,000 watching the event through streaming media on freepress.net that President George W. Bush is a war addict who needs some type of methadone.

“The president is in a hole looking for a shelter rather than a rope,” Jackson said.

While he occasionally referred back to the president, Jackson used the forum to speak about the upcoming national Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and claimed that romanticizing King’s legacy takes away from the struggle of today.

In a rather poignant moment, Jackson spoke of King’s last hours before coming to Memphis, noting King spent his birthday at home with family and in the basement of his church trying to decide how to end poverty and to end the war. Jackson said King almost gave up the struggle the morning before coming to Memphis due to the accomplishments of the Civil Rights movement, comparing King’s indecision to that of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane prior to his crucifixion.

Jackson then spoke of the problems of the affirmative action movement, noting the main beneficiaries of affirmative action has been white women through Title IX legislation allowing equal competition in sports. But he claimed many young white female beneficiaries are against affirmative action because they don’t hear the truth of affirmative action in mass media.

“I’m concerned that the media has the capacity to make America better,” Jackson said. “We must fight to open the airwaves for all people.”
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