Free the Press
The topics were provocative: The possible impeachment of President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. How to stop an American invasion of Iran. And what to do about the corporate lapdog press.
Actually, at the National Conference for Media Reform, the first two were, in part, the reason for the third topic, which brought me and 3,500 other journalists and activists to Memphis earlier this month.
The waitress at the Beale Street hole-in-the-wall where I had dinner laughed at my attempts to explain the meeting. “It’s about trying to take control of the media from the corporations and give it back to the people,” I told her.
Her joking response showed the disconnect between this movement and the general public. The mainstream press may be losing readers right and left and under siege by everyone from Wall Street to bloggers to talk’show pontificators on both ends of the political spectrum. But the average person doesn-t connect the problem to corporate ownership.
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