Media Reform Looks Like America
The Media Reform conference in Memphis, which just ended yesterday, was left leaning. However, if you didn’t know the people’s politics, it looked decidedly like America. People of every age and every ethnic background all in one place, many of whom are making their own media. Get the Right into the mix and this is what newsrooms across America should look like. The result would be more stories from inside many more communities. However, it would be messy. No unified idea of what news is. No unified agreement about how to cover various communities and no unified agreement, whether conscious or not, which communities get the most and least coverage.
In the past these Media Reform folks were marginalized by the mainstream media and probably still are. Almost no mainstream reporters or editors were there. But that matters less than in the past. For this movement is growing. This is the third Media Reform conference and topped out at more than 3,000 people, or a thousand more than last year.
Mainstream media ignores these people at their own peril. Or maybe it is already too late. Maybe this movement will replace mainstream media as we know it.
Of course, the cynic might say that when the Media Reformers build a critical audience the media conglomerates will buy them. Time will tell. However, one thing is for sure, no legitimate conversation can be had about reinventing journalism without these reformists at the table because they well might be the future of journalism. To get an idea of who they are are and what they are talking about go to the Media Reform pages, where most of the sessions have been captured in online video or audio.
