National Conference for Media Reform

FreePress is sponsoring a national conference this coming January 12-14, in Memphis. There will be dozens of exciting guest speakers (Amy Goodman, Bernie Sanders, Helen Thomas, ...) and hundreds of workshops on how to regain our strong progressive voice in the old and new media. Thinking of going? Post a comment here and we'll all meet up at the regional breakout session! One goal of that session will be to discuss what we can do at the state and local levels to create a free, diverse media ecology -- a media Garden, if you will.

Easy way to reach the FCC on media consolidation

If you want to tell the FCC not to allow even more big media monopolization, they have made it really easy for you! Just go to their Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) page on that topic, and make your views known.

The ECFS home page gives you a chance to comment on other issues as well, such as Low Power FM.

This Guy Heads the Commerce Committee

Ted Stevens (R-AK) is the head of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Stevens was made famous last year for refusing to make oil executives testifying before the committee to take the customary oath that all congressional witnesses take. Now Stevens has made the Op-Ed page of the New York Times once again with a great quote about Net Neutrality.

"Just the other day, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially."

Senator Stevens is openly opposed to net neutrality.

Ferguson's Record On Net Neutrality

Here's a great post from Dump Mike, the best site dedicated to Representative Michael Ferguson (R-NJ), about Ferguson's record on Net Neutrality.

Net Neutrality Bill Ready for Mark-Up's

Here's an interesting post from MyDD about the upcoming manipulation of the Net Neutrality bill.

Kentucky Governor Blocks Political Blogs

Via Political Wire:

Political bloggers "have joined pornographers, casinos and hate groups" on Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher's (R) "list of Web sites that state employees are blocked from visiting," the Louisville Courier-Journal reports.

Libertarian Republicans better start looking for a new candidate to head their state.

Jarvis on Net Neutrality

Jeff Jarvis gives personal accounts of the spin campaign that has taken control of the Net Neutrality issue in Washington D.C. here.

I saw one commercial urging a vote against neutrality ending with this punchline: “They call it net neutrality. We call it sticking it to the consumer.” This from the folks who know all about sticking it to the consumer: phone companies (and their friends).