The Truthemergency Times

Full Audio of Opening Plenary Now Online

Truth emergency — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:11:10 GMT

The complete audio record of the extraordinary opening sessions is now posted on the Saturday page. The workshop audio will also be up soon...

New Article

Truth emergency — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 01:51:47 GMT

Mainstream vs. Main Street

A Santa Cruz conference looks to overthrow corporate media in favor of citizen journalism.

By P. Joseph Potocki

http://www.metrosantacruz.com/metro-santa-cruz/02.13.08/features-0807.html

Against a backdrop of increasing public alarm over the power and reliability of corporate news sources, more than 300 progressive media activists, professionals and academics gathered in Santa Cruz over the weekend of Jan. 25-27. The task of the Independent Media Strategy Summit: to bust up corporate media domination by envisioning and launching a reliable, grassroots, equally powerful "main street media" alternative. So what happened--and just how well did they do?

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Great White Way

It's Friday morning, Jan. 25. I'm bending into a monsoon downpour, slogging toward Stevenson Hall on the Sonoma State University campus. I'm here to snag a ride to Santa Cruz. My backpack's weight shifts and shimmies, causing me to spaz out on the wet walkway. I nearly land on my ass, twice, before arriving at the office of media summit organizer and Project Censored chief Peter Phillips. Nobody's home. Down the hall I hear a radio weather guy say that six more inches of rain is heading for the Santa Cruz Mountains by noon--which is exactly when we're to cross them. Peter Phillips walks up the hallway and asks me if I'm John.

Students start arriving. It's your typical pre-outing anarchy. Peter tells me to ride with Mark. Mark tells me to ride with Peter. I hop in Peter's car, along with John. On the way, Peter outlines the upcoming summit and tells me he's paying $59 a night to stay at a nearby motor lodge. I'm paying twice that at the University Inn.Once in Santa Cruz, we pull up to the University Inn. Scores of prog-folk mill outside the front door. Peter is greeted by many.

Wandering into the main room, I situate myself at one of a couple dozen large round tables filling the main conference room. It's your typical ultrafluorescent, soulless rectangular space. The room fills up and everyone seems to be rarin' to go. The place reeks of leftist cool. Me, I'm wearing basic black. It hides the fat.

I meet Michael Masley. He's a master cymbalom player who has recorded with both Tom Waits and Ry Cooder. This self-described "Artist General" was voted the East Bay's best street musician in 2007. Masley's here, he tells me, to mount his case against Bush and Co. regarding war profiteering. A series of short addresses commence. Academy Award-winning documentarian Barbara Trent steps to the lectern, hoisting the Oscar she received for1992: The Panama Deception. Trent invites us to come up and touch it. Great photo op, but I forgot my camera.

Dennis Bernstein of KPFA radio'sFlashpointsshow advocates for "real tough reporting." He and his team are here to broadcast their show live. FourFlashpointscontributors flank Bernstein like a pride of fierce media lions.

These collaborators are precisely what's in short supply here. The foursome are all relatively young. They include a Native American/Chicano, a black man and two young women, one of whom is Mexican-American. Each points to what we can't help noticing: that the 300-plus attending this summit are overwhelmingly middle-aged and elder white folk.

Butterflies and Bumblebees
Summit co-organizer and former 911Truth.org director David Kubiak explains how the next three days are supposed to work. "Rather than have famous people restate their expertise, we're gonna suck the juice out of you guys, getting stuff from the outside in."

I'm excited about this grassroots beat-the-bushes approach, but wonder whether a sufficiently wide progressive net has been cast. We've noted the dearth of young people and minorities. And famous people can, after all, participate as equals by lending ideas and expertise without being placed atop a pedestal. Moreover, well-established progressive media sources seem an essential component for any broad-based media network to gain traction. Publications likeIn These Times, Mother JonesandThe Progressivelend immediate credibility to any such effort. So where are they?Flashpointsis a welcome presence, but why we don't haveDemocracy Now!, and perhaps Air America Radio's Tom Hartman broadcasting from the summit, too?

Kubiak's famous people reference notwithstanding, the summit does feature an impressive roster of journalists, publishers and documentary filmmakers, and even notable activists and politicians like Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney and the disembodied voice of Dennis Kucinich. But where's MoveOn.org, Daily Kos.com, the ethnic minority and labor movement pubs? Where are the emerging youth techies, podcasters and bloggers? It seems natural that all these folks be here. I'm sure the organizers have done their best with limited promotional resources. Shortcomings noted, there's still plenty of intellectual firepower here, and should we deliver the network goodies, chances are nonparticipants will hop on board as the network develops.

Kenoli Oleari and Mark Tognotti are our paid summit facilitators. They explain that we'll be breaking into randomly selected "Affinity Groups" to generate ideas and write them down on a board. Oleari addresses self-selected misfits. Butterflies get to flit around. Bumblebees take pollen from one group to another. "The Law of Two Feet applies in any case if your group isn't working for you," he says.

I'm assigned to Affinity Group No. 12. We are: two film documentarians, Masley, an AM radio host, media advocates, concerned citizens and me. Six women, five men. Salome Chasnoff, a documentary producer from Chicago, is our moderator. We're talking up personal summit goals. It's all pretty vague. I offer, "We are witness-participating in a birthing or a socioevolutionary step forward addressing all nature of old and emerging media, and replacing those rusty old media pipes with a new media conduit so our juices freely flow." They all stare at me like I'm nuts.

The Reptilian Arts
Saturday morning breakfast time, and I'm famished. Bagel and cream cheese, a banana, an apple, cottage cheese, fruit salad, OJ, milk, coffee--and one big-ass blueberry muffin. I meet Lenny Charles, whoseINN World Reportgoes head to head with Amy Goodman'sDemocracy Now!in New York City. Charles is doing good television work and doing it not on a shoestring but on a shoestringthread. He's anxiously hunting down investors. I let him know I'm broke.

Charles wonders how it's possible to coalesce disparate progressive media sources into timely, trustworthy, mutually cooperative and still fiercely independent pieces of a cross-media network puzzle. Take, for example, Amy Goodman'sDemocracy Now!Charles says hisINN World Reportcompetes for the same audience, though his operation's budget is a fraction of Goodman's. So does the progressive universe have room for the INNs of this world? Compared to network news, or even cable network news,Democracy Now!itself works on a shoestring budget. So, beyond mere coexistence, can the two competitors mutually assist one another in the name of progressive diversity? Perhaps by the end of the summit we'll find out.

During the morning's session, antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan relates a vignette illustrating corporate media sensibilities. Sheehan was camped out in Texas, hoping for an audience with George Bush. "People in Crawford kept talking about the media circus. One day [the media] followed me to the bathroom and I asked, 'Is this the media circus yet?' And they said, 'Yes, this is it.'"

Comments ensue. Investigative reporter Kristina Borjesson suggests we create a think tank charged with monitoring, deciphering and countering masters of "the Reptilian Arts," by which she means the machinations of mainstream media. She claims, "I'm the reporter with the prize for 'most likely to have her piece killed.'" Borjesson also points out the obvious: "Our problem is what makes corporations successful. They're organized." Meaning, of course, that we're not.

Danny Schector calls himself "The News Dissector." He's a journalist and founder of the MediaChannel. Schector's new film isIn Debt We Trust. Schector points out that we here at the summit risk the "danger of only talking to people who agree with us." I particularly like his trog-prog comparison. "The right wing is like the Marine Corps. The left is like the Salvation Army."

During breaks an comment periods, conversations swirl, indicating that references to 9/11 may not be mixing so well with fundamental media restructuring. My read is that while 9/11's a legitimate investigative issue anchoring the involvement of a significant number of people here, media restructuring is a step-by-step envisioning process. Many feel this process has little to do with investigative inquiry per se, and don't want to collate the two. I wonder if this rub has kept any potential participants away.

A Reptile on Main Street
We're back in Affinity Group 12 for a working bag lunch. Musician Masley bows out. Our focus, says he, isn't his. He should know, but I'm wondering just what our focus actually is. All bid Mike a fond adieu. Billy Sunshine from KRXA-AM (Monterey 540), too, has left. Later Billy comically contends he's neither flitting butterfly nor pollen-spreading bumblebee but rather big pigeon flying around dropping shit everywhere. We who remain in Group 12 discuss citizen journalists, consensus vetting, organizing into news/opinion forums and like vagaries, but we're still struggling to bring things into focus.

We break from our Affinity Groups and head for one of three themed breakout sessions. I opt to cover "Network/Technology." Russ Baker has taught journalism at Columbia, writes forThe Nationand is the author ofThe Bush Dynasty. His take on news gathering differs from the proponents of "citizen journalism," or what some call "community journalism." Baker says if everyone is a journalist and everyone is equal, then journalism itself becomes suspect, leading to a shortage of trustworthy information, and that "we need to get back to funding real investigative reporting."

Baker's lefty credentials aren't enough for this crowd. He may as well have suggested a return to child slavery.David Rubinson, former producer of Moby Grape and the Pointer Sisters, asserts that we need more "peer-to-peer communication, not through the gatekeepers, like you"--he points to Baker--"and the mainstream media, but through Napster, through servers. That old gatekeeper model, give me a break. Let's take the knowledge from the young people."

Baker responds that he's no gatekeeper and that "anecdotal reporting can lead to a lynch mob mentality. ...We need to distinguish between different forms of journalism."

David Mathison is a former VP at Reuters and an advocate of community-access television. He backs Rubinson. "We could see the print industry was going to be destroyed by the Internet. Their business model is obsolete," Mathison insists. "Let's not wait for some future date for this to take place. It's happening now."

The question of who is and who is not a legitimate journalist prompts recurring debate throughout the summit. Can or should a citizen (read "amateur") journalist be expected to meet accepted standards of the profession? Various components come into play. There's the training, edit/vetting and experience pieces. Also, the fundamental reliability of the information and the relative quality of its presentation need be addressed.

Then there's the money issue. Some contend that the journalist not paid for his work, has, necessarily, a p

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New Article

Truth emergency — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:11:46 GMT

Action Steps Video Part IV

New Article

Truth emergency — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 20:51:37 GMT

Video Part III

Part II

Truth emergency — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:26:27 GMT

Action Steps Video Part II

Action Steps Video Part I

Truth emergency — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:39:18 GMT

Action Steps Video Part I

Summit Action Steps Videos

Truth emergency — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:02:02 GMT

The entire video of the concluding action step reports is now posted below. It is broken into four parts because of the size. Also see full text transcript of session on Sunday page...

Conference

Truth emergency — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:41:25 GMT

This site is devoted to the Truth Emergency Conference held in Santa Cruz on January 25,26,27 2008.

Truth Emergency US

Truth emergency — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:38:08 GMT

By Peter Phillips and David Kubiak

Many economists now doubt that government measures can prevent a major recession given the severe slump in the housing market, the subprime mortgage crisis, growing unemployment, declining consumer spending, and record high oil prices. Even harder times for working people are undoubtedly at hand, yet mainstream corporate media continues to lavish more attention on the Super Bowl and celebrity misadventures than measures to protect Americans from grave personal economic harm. We are spun, mislead, propagandized and amused to death by our media conglomerates and as a result the US has become the best entertained and least informed society in the world.

There is a literal truth emergency in the United States, not only regarding distant wars, torture camps, and doctored intelligence, but also around issues that most intimately impact our lives at home. For example, few Americans know that there has been a thirty-five year decline in real wages for most workers in the country, while the top 10% now enjoy unparalleled wealth with strikingly low tax burdens.

George Seldes once said, "Journalism's job is not impartial 'balanced' reporting. Journalism's job is to tell the people what is really going on." Michael Moore's top-grossing movie Sicko is one example of telling the people what is really going on. Health care activists know that US health insurance is an extremely large and obscenely lucrative industry with the top nine companies "earning" $93 billion in profits in 2006 alone. The health-care industry represents the country's third-largest economic sector, trailing only energy and retail among the 1,000 largest US firms.

Nevertheless, 16%of Americans still have no health insurance whatsoever and that number will not soon decline, as insurance costs continue to rise two to three times faster than inflation. The consequences are immediate and tragic. Unpaid medical bills are now the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in the country, and the Institute of Medicine estimates that nearly eighteen thousand Americans die prematurely each year because they lack coverage and access to adequate care.

US private health care services differ markedly from other industrialized countries where single payer systems provide everyone with medical care as a basic human right. Unfortunately, objective media coverage and comparisons of single-payer public health care with our current profit-driven corporate system are almost non-existent at this time. To protect their bloated bottom lines, private insurance companies and HMOs invest heavily in lobbyists and corporate-friendly political candidates that promote their "indispensable" role in any future health care reforms. Besides their insider political influence, these firms deploy massive advertising budgets to discourage media investigations of the economic interests shaping our health policies today

Tens of thousands of American engaged in various social justice issues constantly witness how corporate media marginalize, denigrate or simply ignore their concerns. Activist groups working on issues like 9/11 truth, election fraud, impeachment, war propaganda, civil liberties/torture, and many corporate-caused environmental crises have been systematically excluded from mainstream news and the national conversation leading to a genuine truth emergency in the country as a whole.

Now, however, a growing number of activists are finally saying "enough!" and joining forces to address this truth emergency by developing new journalistic systems and practices of their own. They are working to reveal the common corporate denominators behind the diverse crises we face and to develop networks of trustworthy news sources that tell the people what is really going on. These activists know we need a journalism that moves beyond forensic inquiries into particular crimes and atrocities, and exposes wider patterns of corruption, propaganda and illicit political control to rouse the nation to reject a malignant corporate status quo.

This Truth Emergency Movement held its first national strategy summit in Santa Cruz, California Jan. 25-27, 2008. Organizers gathered key media constituencies to devise coherent decentralized models for distribution of suppressed news, synergistic truth-telling, and collaborative strategies to disclose, legitimize and popularize deeper historical narratives on power and inequality in the US. In sum this truth movement is seeking to discover in this moment of Constitutional crisis, ecological peril and widening war, ways in which top investigative journalists, whistleblowers and independent media activists can transform the way Americans perceive and defend their world.

Peter Phillips is a professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and director of Project Censored, a media research organization. David Kubiak taught mass media and memetics for 10 years at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan and is the former executive director of 911truth.org. For information on the Truth Emergency movement see: http://truthemergency.us/