Articles by Megan Tady

Imagine you know a thief is going to pilfer your television in the middle of the night? Most likely, you would take action to stop it - lock your doors, hide your TV, or in one last ditch effort for revenge, at least hide your remote. Imagine you knew that in the broadest of daylight, corporations and government were going to pinch not your television, but the only TV channels that give you, the citizen, a voice and a hand in local programming? Well grab your bat, because there's someone at your door.

Most progressives already know that the nation's media is in the hands of the few, the rich, the white, and the male. We know that local control of the airwaves and newspapers is as rare as a "fair and balanced" Fox news report, and as tenuous as Cheney's stuttering heart. We know that to create any lasting and systemic social change - out with the old, in with the bold - we must take back the media that we've lost.

A "David and Goliath" battle is being waged in Washington over zip codes and the names of companies offering high-speed Internet access. A non-profit organization is seeking access to records that detail the companies that offer broadband access in every zip code to include in a public database of media services. But the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), with the backing of telephone and cable companies, is keeping consumers lost by not releasing an accurate map of broadband Internet deployment in the United States.

Five days before journalists converged in Detroit for the Allied Media Conference, another independent media publication fell. After thirteen years of producing cutting-edge content, Punk Planet announced that "the final issue… is in the post." With so many additional independent outlets dipping their toes in financial mires, nervous journalists traveling to Detroit last weekend were looking to each other for answers.