Media

The Washington, DC rally promoted by Glenn Beck and Fox News on August 28, 2010 has been called a non-political event by Beck and others.

Michael Wood-Lewis and his wife, Valerie, moved to the south end of Burlington, Vt. in 2000. He recalls, "We'd landed in what we thought was our dream neighborhood. It was walkable, near the lake, full of trees. But we were having trouble getting to know the neighbors. One night, my wife and I were sitting around the dinner table talking about it. It hit us that in the Midwest, where we're from, people brought cookies to their neighbors. We've been here a year-where were our cookies?"

Anyone whose mission it is to 'control the masses' knows it all begins with good marketing. Public relations aficionado Edward Bernays understood that. One of the country's original PR flacks, Bernays is perhaps best known for forging the decades-long marketing alliance between the AMA and the tobacco industry. The 'Father of Spin,' as he is known, also played a major role in the marketing and selling of the First World War to the American public with his now infamous slogan, "Making the World Safe for Democracy."

A Muslim family sits across of me in café, in a largely Muslim Asian country. An older woman shyly hunches over, desperately trying to avoid eye contact with the giant plasma screen TV, blazing loud music on the popular music video channel, MTV. The scantily dressed presenter introduces her 'top song' for the week. Beyonce, dressed in so very little, annoyingly reiterates that she is "a single lady." The older woman's son is mesmerized by what he sees.

Local newspapers ground us in a globalized world, provide a sense of community, and help define who and where we are. But now more than ever these local papers are disappearing. They're being bulldozed over by corporate conglomerates and dropping ad sales.

Two networks or groups, Canadians for Al Jazeera and the Campaign for Democratic Media have partnered together to form a joint campaign in order to support Al Jazeera English's CRTC application to broadcast in Canada. Canada's broadcast regulator is accepting public comments until June 8. These groups have already generated one thousand letters from the Canadian public in hopes of giving Canadians the choice of viewing a truly independent global news network among the overwhelming 500-channel universe currently available.