by Anita Sands Hernandez
How do ya suppose we got SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS for geriatrics? T'weren't here in the thirties? How did we get WELFARE for single mothers? MEDICARE? We didn't have them back when your parents were young. How did we get MEDICAL & dental BENEFITS at our jobs? How'd we nail those HIGHER SALARIES, LOWER WORKING HOURS? Safer CONDITIONS? Get employee contributions to retirement plants?
ACTIVISM BY ordinary citizens like yourself attained these benefits! CITIZENS MADE WAVES! READ HOW they did it at "THE GOOD FIGHT"
To create change so that in the future your kids can get their teeth fixed, get scholarships at universities, not have to work a full time job when they're in school full time.......we need to GET ONTO THE AIRWAVES WITH COMPLAINTS, IDEAS, PATHETIC STORIES of KIDS with straight A's who can't afford College or SOLDIERS who came back to our city with no legs. Maybe these veterans have fascinating STORIES to tell about the war. Or locate Oldsters who got their homes taken away by some heartless LOAN company. Stories about immigrant children dying of disease with no medical care. TAKE THEM TO THE MEDIA! YOU BE THE TRUTH PUBLIC RELATIONS GROUP!
Such publicity can be engineered by YOUR CHURCH
GROUP! or do it yourself with your family and friends.
GIVE PARTIES to raise money for your activism group. LEARN the art
of giving COMMUNITY PARTIES, BAKE SALES, SWAP MEETS (On high school grounds/
parking lots on weekends.) Or a huge summer time, six week RENAISSANCE
FAIRE where all depts of University make a booth. Raise money in
any of these ways for that liberal FM station that has the political shows,
maybe one in your town, or maybe a nataional one like AIR
AMERICA and AMY GOODMAN's DEMOCRACY NOW, which you can listen
to on your PC while you type at othe things. All of them now are INTERNET
based so you can listen in any city.
The airwaves belong to the people. For a democracy to work, someone has to see what's going on and get the info onto the AIR. Audiences and citizens want to be well-informed but you have to realize that SO DO THE BROADCASTERS, THE MEDIA. They want the jolting, gripping, human interest stories.
They'd love for you TO POINT OUT THE TRUTH OF any new, happening story to the radio talk jocks and TV news producers behind the scenes. You want to get their EMAIL and use it, ESPECIALLY for when they make a big error. For instance, just today, MAY 1, 2007, BUSH went on the air saying that CIVILIAN DEATHS WERE WAY DOWN in IRAQ. Well, APRIL was the bloodiest month of the entire war. So we're getting LIES from the WHITE HOUSE & horribly unbalanced bland, pablum coverage by NBC, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and CNN deprive Americans of the information they need to make wise choices. Today they carried the president's stupid lie. BBC saw right through it and gave me the true facts. What's wrong with our MEDIA?
What can we do to get the truth out?
1. FOLLOW THE CIVILIANS: Seek out
ordinary people who are abroad. Your
group can literally 'Embed' deputized reporters in US hospitals (Walter
Reed, etc,)
and soldiers who've come back from IRAQ living in your neighborhood
to
cover the daily lives of Iraqis. Cover ALL casualites and the cumulative
impact of sanctions, war and now occupation. Tell TV bosses it's not
their
job to hide the dark side. This includes the huge impact of depleted
uranium
shells on Iraqi civilians, Gulf War veterans and, potentially, U.S.
troops.
ON ISSUE REPORTAGE, find the sob
stories, teens who can't go to college,
huge $ parking tickets/ parking costs at colleges. Huge BUS rates these
days
Seniors with no co-pay on medicines. My pal pays 120$ the GOV pays
5$ so
he can't buy his medicine, a liver cancer 'survivor' but barely! That
kind of thing.
THE EXCITING THING about finding
such people, 'witnesses' we'll call them
is that the MEDIA is anxious to meet them, hear their experience, put
it on the
front page. It's got human interest!
2. FOLLOW THE MONEY: Call for in-depth
coverage of war profiteering by
companies
and
individuals who promoted this war or contributed heavily to
Administration campaign coffers and for daily reporting on the devastating
impact of huge federal budget cuts in education, healthcare, veterans
benefits, childcare, poverty relief and transportation as money shifts
to
these companies. You can't carry this story to the newspaper as THE
PAPER
depends on advertising revenues, but your group can instigate EMBARGOS,
PICKETS and NOISE! That will generate some PUBLICITY, BAAAAAD
PUBLICITY for the corporation. CLICK ON URL underlined above to
see who these corps are!
PHONE UP EVERY FAMOUS NEWS REPORTER
& GET HIS DIRECT EMAIL exciting
him by saying that you're working with a soldier who just came back
from IRAQ..or whatever
to LURE them into giving you that EMAIL. Then, every time your group
gets a hot story, send it
off to him with a powerful, personal note. "Dear Joe, I sent you the
story on the Senior with no
medical coverage, now I've got a story on a little girl......"
Here's how to reach them:
ABC NEWS CHIEF David Westin. 212.456.6200. fax: 212.456.4292....
NEWS DIRECTOR Mimi Gurbst. 212 456 4050 fax.212 456 2795...... ABC
SWITCHBOARD (ASK FOR NEWSROOM) 212.456-7777. NEWSROOM fax 212.456.2795
MSNBC NEWS CHIEF Mark Effron. 201.583.5101. fax: 201.583.5199
mark.effron@msnbc.com ..... MSNBC NEWS DIRECTOR Alison Hawley. 201
583
5155. fax. 201 583 5512......MSNBC SWITCHBOARD (ASK FOR NEWSROOM)
201.583.5000 fax: 201.583.5590
NBC NEWS CHIEF Neil Shapiro. 212.664.4773. fax: 212.664.2264[
neal.shapiro@nbc.com ....NEWS DIRECTOR Thomas Ferraro 201 583 5231
fax.
201 583 5222....NBC SWITCHBOARD (ASK FOR NEWSROOM) 212.664.4444. fax:
201.583.5453
CBS NEWS CHIEF Andrew Hayward. 212.975.7825. fax: 212.975.7429.
mg3@cbsnews.com ....NEWS DIRECTOR Marty Gill 212 975 6121 fax. 212
975
4114....CBS SWITCHBOARD (ASK FOR NEWSROOM) 212.975.4321 fax: 212.975.1893
CNN NEWS CHIEF Walter Isaacson. 404.827.5111. fax: 404.827.4215.
walter.isaacson@cnn.com NEWS DIRECTOR Kim Bondy. 404
827 1500. fax. 404 827 1099...CNN SWITCHBOARD (ASK FOR NEWSROOM).
404.827.1500. cnnfutures@cnn.com
PBS FACTUAL PROGRAMMING CHIEF Sandy Heberer 703.739.5036... NEWS CHIEF
SANDY
SOWERS 703-998-2150 newshour@pbs.org ....PBS SWITCHBOARD (ASK FOR
NEWSROOM) 703.998.2600.
: FOX NEWS CHIEF: John Moody. 212.301.8560. fax: 212.398.8726.
john.moody@foxnews.com .... NEWS DIRECTOR
Kathleen Ardleigh 212 3013186 fax. 212-301-5067....FOX SWITCHBOARD
(ASK
FOR NEWSROOM) 212.575.4670. fax: 212.301.8274
Besides the daily calls, WHENEVER YOU SEE OR
HEAR BIASED COVERAGE, CALL THE
NEWS CHIEFS AND/OR NEWSROOMS AND INSIST ON
RESPONSIBLE, IN-DEPTH JOURNALISM. Have all members of your group target
that newsman and complain.
There is plenty every day to call about. Calls are best because they
must halt misinforming the public while they deal with you. If you can't
reach policy makers, fax or e-mail.
To contact via phone (highly encouraged along with emails): Chairman
Powell
(202) 418-1000
To have MediaTank.org send an email message to the FCC calling for a
halt to
media conglomeration and breakup of the media giants that are abetting
this
war, go to http://mediatank.org/fcc_webform2.html
To Contact the Commissioners directly via E-mail
Chairman Michael K. Powell: mpowell@fcc.gov
Commissioner Kathleen Q. Abernathy: kabernat@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: mcopps@fcc.gov
Commissioner Kevin J. Martin: kjmweb@fcc.gov
Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein: jadelste@fcc.gov
To Write letters to any or all commissioners:
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554
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