NEW YORK: Shallow “drive-by” journalism, suppression of news stories, a lack of diversity — is all business as usual for the media giants, say organisers of Media Democracy Day (MDD).

The problem, according to the groups behind Friday’s MDD, a worldwide movement that started last year in Canada, is that “the current media system has been abducted by a group of 6-9 mega-media conglomerates”.

AOL Time Warner, as an example, controls over 12 film and television companies, multiplex cinemas in 12 countries, 29 cable/digital providers, 24 book brands, 35 magazine titles, 52 record labels, theme parks and stores in 30 countries, four professional sports teams, AOL US, AOL International, and eight other major Internet portals. At last count,” says MDD literature.

A very small group of very big companies controls almost all of the American media, they point out, and continued mergers mean the group gets smaller while the companies get bigger.

Already, “quite a limited range of political opinions and perspectives are given space and time in mainstream press and media”, says Rachel Coen of FAIR, a US media watch group.

“It becomes more limited the more mergers and consolidation occurs.”

The US government body responsible for regulating the media and preserving diversity is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). According to Coen, “the FCC is utterly failing the American public, but it’s doing a fairly good job protecting corporate interests”.

So if the FCC isn’t going to stop the corporate-media juggernaut, who is?

This is where the MDD comes in. It includes events in over 20 cities in countries from Australia to Bangladesh.

In Rosario, Argentina, a poll to run from the 18th to the end of October, will ask people, “what news have you looked for in the media but not found?” A report will summarise the results, and a newspaper will be published containing that news and photographs.

In Barcelona, Spain, supporters will go on an “Undemocratic Media Bicycle Tour”. Organisers say they will visit offices of newspapers, radio and TV stations and press agencies, “stop in front of them, make some noise, and attempt to stop their work and reclaim attention”.

They will be accompanied by “Projectorcycle” and ”Screencycle,” which will show ‘incriminating’ video evidence of media bias.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, more than 350 media educators and activists will meet for the founding summit of the Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME).

“We’re going to kick off with a toast to Media Democracy Day,” says Eliza Dichter, who helped plan the ACME summit, and is also co-founder and senior editor of Clear Channel, a media interest network.

“What’s really exciting,” says Dichter speaking about ACME, ”is that this is the first time that media educators, media reformers and policy activists can all get together (to) work in harmony and learn from each other.”

ACME plans to harness this cooperation into three main fronts of action: educating, advocating independent media, and supporting media reform. All of these will be pursued at many levels, from the school board to Congress.

“Education is a crucial part of social change,” Dichter says. And media education is crucial to the purpose of ACME.

“In an age when most people get most of their information visually - through television, film, computers, video, etc - citizens need to know how to think critically about what they see and hear,” she says.

The coalition will also provide a forum for teachers, health officials and community leaders, who will then spread the information nationwide, she adds.

“A fundamental part of it,” says Dichter, “is teaching individuals how to use communications technology to create independent media.” This will include instructing people on how to use video, the Internet, public access TV and radio.

“By ‘independent media’ we mean anything that is outside of corporate mass-media.”

“In an age of second-hand experience,” says David Skinner, organiser of some of Vancouver’s MDD events, “when most of what we know, or think we know, about the world is taken from the media. We all have an interest in how the media are financed and controlled, and what values and interests they promote.”—Dawn/InterPress News Service.