New Public Media

Last week, I was invited to speak at the National Alliance of Media Arts and Culture conference in Boston. This organization of media and arts leaders represents hundreds of thousands of community media centers, arts educators, artists and filmmakers. Here’s some of what I told NAMAC about the importance of artists and media makers getting involved in politics and policymaking:

I’m here to report on what’s happening in Washington.

Washington is changing. It has been a different place. Even that swampy, muggy August weather hasn’t seemed so disgusting this year. There’s still optimism in the air.

I’m here to tell you that if you care about media and the arts, it matters who is in the White House. It matters who controls Congress.

Maybe most of all, it matters who gets appointed to those sometimes invisible but oh-so-important places like the NEA, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Federal Communications Commission.

That’s because decisions being made right now — and in the next few years — at the White House, in Congress and at these agencies are going to shape the future of all media for a generation.

They will decide …

… If the Internet will remain open and free;

… If everyone will share in the benefits of broadband;

… If we’re going to have a world-class public media system; and,

… If we’ll have any hard-hitting public service journalism.

The good news is we now have friends in some of these key jobs. You know them. They will read your e-mails and return your calls. They want your ideas. They want to do the right thing.

Yes, Washington is changing. But there is a whole lot of Washington that still needs to change.

The only way we’ll defeat organized money is with organized people. That’s what Saul Alinsky said. But I think there’s another secret ingredient. It’s a resource that we have in abundance here today: It’s creativity.

And that creativity can change policy.

Crisis and Opportunity

Most people still get their news and entertainment from traditional media. Yet years of mega-mergers and concentration have consolidated distribution channels and destroyed local art and music scenes.

Runaway media consolidation has left media companies deeply in debt and journalism in crisis. Tens of thousands of journalists have lost their jobs in the last two years; newspapers are shutting down; and local coverage is being replaced by the same cookie-cutter content coast-to-coast.

But that crisis gives us an opportunity. We have an opportunity to re-imagine our current public broadcasting system and rebuild it as new public media that are committed to newsgathering and community service.

We need to start by expanding our definition of public media. Yes, it’s PBS and NPR. But it’s also community radio and Low Power FM stations, public access cable channels, noncommercial satellite networks, and independent producers, publications and Web sites.

Did you know that we now spend just a little more than $400 million per year in public money on public media?

That works out to just $1.37 per person. Throw in the budgets for the NEA and NEH, and you’re still looking at pocket change. By comparison, Canada spends $22 per capita, and England spends $80.

Or think of it this way: Each of us in this room spent $565 to bail out AIG. Imagine what our new public media system could be with just $5 per person.

The Creativity Stimulus

Unfortunately, when the stimulus bill was being debated earlier this year, media and the arts were mostly shut out. The NEA did get $50 million. But public broadcasting missed the boat.

And yet, when Obama released his budget, the leaders of public broadcasting sent out statements thanking him just because he didn’t cut their funding.

We can’t settle for spare change any longer. There’s going to be a second stimulus package at some point. And when it comes, we need to make sure it’s not just an economic stimulus. It should be a creativity stimulus, too.

We need to put people to work building roads and repairing bridges and laying those high-speed Internet fiber lines. But we also need to put people to work building community organizations, and writing plays and making art. The artist's paycheck is every bit as important as the banker's paycheck or the auto worker's paycheck.

What we need now is real change, not more spare change.

If you want real change, not spare change, you can’t beg for it.

If you want real change, not spare change, you have to stand up.

If you want real change, not spare change, you have to get involved.

If you want real change, not spare change, you have to be at the table when decisions are made.

If you want real change, not spare change, you’re going to have to fight for it.

If you want real change, all of us are going to have to become lobbyists.

If we can harness just some of the creativity and energy in this room and channel it toward making policy change, we will win. And when we start winning on these media issues, we will start winning on all the other ones that matter, too.

Let’s get to work. Let’s work together. Thank you.