NEW YORK - They say they want a revolution. Starting one is more difficult than it might seem.
The movement to democratize the corporate-held mass media is growing. But, so soon after the tobacco wars, the world may not be ready to embrace another anti-corporate struggle.
At the Media and Democracy Congress II, Thursday's March on the Media Moguls was met largely by irritation and bewilderment by the New Yorkers and tourists who encountered the procession of alternative journalists and progressive thinkers near Times Square.
The targeted media giants, including Viacom (owners of Paramount, Blockbuster, MTV, and Nickelodeon), Disney (ABC), Time Warner (CNN, HBO, WB Network), News Corp./Fox, CBS/Westinghouse, and General Electric/NBC, effectively ignored the 300 or so demonstrators. And no mainstream media outlets were on hand to cover the event.
Even with the participation of the brilliant activist group Bread and Puppet Theatre, the march lacked vision and creativity. Chants like "Hey ho, corporate media has got to go" and "Viacom sucks" failed to spark flames. Some of those who did listen still didn't get the picture. As one solemn member of the dazzlingly efficient NYPD escort team saw it, the march had "something to do with white guys and cable stations."
Spreading the news about the corporate stranglehold on media is this movement's major challenge. The mass media isn't likely to want to tattle on itself, and progressive journalists, by all accounts, spend much of their time talking to each other, as they did at the MDC opening panel Thursday night.
A number of gifted orators, including Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, and media activist Jeff Cohen, gave the auditorium the feverish feel of a revival meeting.
Each speaker reinforced the idea that the battle for media control encompasses every other activist cause. Ehrenreich discussed the under-reporting of blue-collar issues, citing research that proved Princess Di got five times the ink as the UPS strike.
"This is about paying attention to the many rather than the minuscule," she said. "The real story of the world around us is not one of princesses and playboys."
The import of the mission is why author and media activist Danny Schechter, a former ABC News and CNN producer, has no qualms about comparing the free-the-media battles to the early days of the civil rights, anti-war, anti-apartheid, and anti-smoking movements.
"We have an opportunity to make media reform an issue, to do something about the frustration and organize against the media system with a series of ideas and proposals," he said. "Having 1,000 journalists meet in New York is a step along the way.
"Having a protest against the media conglomerates is a second step. That's how movements start. Does it have the same moral force as the anti-war movement or civil rights movement? Not yet...."
