Activist Rally for a Better Media... Video Footage

Following up on Liisa’s recent post on the October 31st Free Press Rally outside the FCC Building in Washington, DC about media consolidation here is a video that features clips and key points made by guest speakers at the rally that I filmed and edited. While the FCC held hearings in the boardroom activists poured their hearts out, raising up their voices against monopolization of media.

First up in this video we have a clip of the Prometheus Radio Project “FCC Cheerleaders.” Dressed in blue and white uniforms with FCC stitched across their chests and armed with pom-poms the cheerleaders pumped the crowd up with a cheer about the FCC, finishing with a tough looking pyramid.

The rally also featured many powerful speakers who all had a say about how “big media” is damaging the diversity within the media.

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Protecting Older Women Against Cervical Cancer

By Susan Scanlan

Much discussion recently has focused on a new vaccine that helps protect girls and young women against cervical cancer. The vaccine wards off the virus – the human papillomavirus, or HPV – that causes the disease. This medical breakthrough, however, does not protect against all cancer-causing HPV types and is only FDA-approved for girls and women aged 9-26. Therefore, it certainly won’t help women aged 65 and older, who account for nearly 20 percent of all new cervical cancer cases in the United States and more than 35 percent of all deaths from the disease.

Another technology -- a DNA test for HPV -- can better protect these women. And now, a proposal before Congress will ensure that older women get access to this test by requiring Medicare to pay for it.

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Keep local media alive!Activists rally to protest FCC’s corporate tilt

Outside the headquarters of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington, D.C., a group of 200 people gathered on Wednesday morning, in an effort to bring public awareness and persuade the FCC to change its direction on media ownership. The rally, sponsored by Free Press, Inc., a non-profit that works to limit media consolidation, was held in conjunction with a public hearing – announced by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin just five days ahead of the hearing date -- on how media consolidation affects local markets. Free Press organizing materials suggested that the short notice was an attempt to lock the public out of the debate.

The Washington Post described the media ownership issue this way:

FCC rules govern how many radio and television stations a company can own in a city and how many radio stations a company can own nationally. They also prevent one company from owning both a newspaper and a TV station in the same city, a rule likely to be lifted during the current review.

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