Media

Major telecommunications companies are spending millions lobbying the U.S. congress to make the Internet into a private network. In political lingo this means abandoning what is called "Net Neutrality". In common sense terms it’s about the government withdrawing our right to Internet Freedom, it’s about the Death of The Internet. This V-Doc. (viral documentary) produced by COA News managing editor Steve Anderson, is about the current threat to Internet Freedom and how we can hold on to the open Internet and our right to communicate. Click here to watch this short documentary. read more

It's good to be with media makers who don't believe that climate change is just a rumor, don't think immigrants coming to the U.S. for a better life should be turned into criminals, and didn't need over three years to figure out that the administration manipulated public opinion and distorted reality to go to war in the Middle East.

What do you get when you cross two high-powered progressive-minded citizen activists with the information superhighway? The answer: a new book called "Crashing The Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics."

This month - March - marks the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. 2,500 U.S. soldiers have been killed in the line of duty, while countless Iraqis, many of them women and children, have lost their lives. It seems fitting to stop and reflect on the meaning of U.S. wars with those who have served in them, and a new film called "After The Fog," co-produced by Jay Craven, does just this. Stitching together the personal testimony of 11 U.S. war veterans, "After The Fog" is an intimate and human look at the consequences of war, told by those who fought.

Commenting on films nominated for this year's Academy Awards on his February 5, 2006 show, Chris Matthews noted that films are important for what they say about the times in which they are made. For example, Good Night and Good Luck, he said, is about the current Bush Administration's attempts to suppress the truth of governmental malfeasance, even though the film is set in the McCarthyite climate of the 1950s. Munich, he observed, speaks to our on-going anxiety about national security even though its story is about the Olympic Games of 1972 and the events that followed.

Four and a half months since Katrina struck land, the situation in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast still leaves a lot of troubles and a lot of questions. Many of these questions are being asked by grassroots media activists. In the immediate aftermath New Orleans' coverage was grossly lacking. While CNN and local affiliates set up shop dozens of miles away in Baton Rouge, grassroots media activists both in New Orleans and elsewhere prepared to fill the gap left by the mainstream media's coverage.