Gearing Up for the Media Reform Orgy

This week there is a one-day pre-conference of sorts to the National Conference for Media Reform: Can Freedom of the Press Survive Media Consolidation? Several big-name speakers will be here, like Seymour Hersh–giving the Tuesday evening keynote–and Danny Goldberg, the new president of Air America. Also in attendance will be several left media luminaries who will also be at the Media Reform shin-dig this weekend, such as Democracy Now‘s Amy Goodman –who will be broadcasting the show live from the studios of our local public TV station–and Naomi Klein.

I’ll be attending the Media Consolidation conference, which is being put on by the Illinois Initiative for Media Policy Research, headed up by Robert McChesney, professor at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois, which is also my academic department. I intend to record it all. Some of it will air on the radioshow this Friday. I will probably post raw audio of everything for those who can’t be there.

Jack Brighton, who heads up internet operations for local public station WILL, plans to videotape everything and put it on-line in streaming video.

Then Thursday I’ll be off to St. Louis for the big one, to record, interview and see where this media reform thing is taking off to.

Drew and I will do part of Friday’s radioshow live from St. Louis by phone, while fellow WEFTie Jeff Nicholson-Owens sits in for us.