Looks like a busy May and June, for sure. The same week of the National Conference for Media Reform there will be two other events: Can Freedom of the Press Survive Media Consolidation? will be held May 10-11 on the U of I campus and features a progressive mega-star-studded lineup of speakers and the like. This event is free and open to all.
On the day before the NCMR starts in St. Louis, scads of academics will be stuffed into a single room to form the Academic Brain Trust, the goal of which is to build “an organization that will encourage and mobilize academic talent and resources to the cause of increasing informed public participation in the media policymaking process.”
I am ambivalent about being at ground zero for all of this, which is why I’m really looking forward to June, when the Allied Media Conference goes down in Bowling Green, Ohio. While the shindigs in May will talk big about media activism (and only then in the context of policy debates), the AMC is all about doing independent media. In this sense, the AMC is the largest national conference of its kind.
The Allied Media Conference would be an excellent opportunity for a microradio convergence – something that’s never really happened before, unless you count Seattle’s Mosquito Fleet (2002) and the East Coast Microbroadcasters Conference (1998). Given that the AMC is all about DIY, such a convergence would be welcomed with open arms there. I’m going to submit a proposal for a microradio workshop, covering the current scene, FCC and related legal issues, and station operations.
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