The Big Dream of Media Justice by Malkia Cyril

Published on: January 17, 2007
Published by: Amy Sonnie

Introducing….the Big Idea! The Big Idea is the home for big stories, big dreams, and big frameworks about the movement for media and social justice.  

This past weekend, over 3,000 people celebrated the birthday of assassinated Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King in Memphis, Tennessee by dreaming BIG about ways to transform our media system at the National Conference on Media Reform.  Young people, people of color, women, queer folks, the disabled community, immigrants, and anti-racist whites joined together to landscape the problem of an undemocratic media system, share strategies for change, and develop a collective vision for media justice. There were conversations about ensuring that net-neutrality “doesn’t have a neutral impact on the people,” reframing the concept of the public interest, connecting legal tactics to local action, bringing media academics and activists into real collaboration, corporate media accountability, race and representation, and the role of artists in a movement for media change.  

The Youth Media Council, as part of the Media Action Grassroots Network, participated in or led panels about hip-hop activism for media justice, local action for national impact, media justice throughout the world, media diversity, how to challenge a broadcast license, youth organizing for media reform, media monitoring for justice, and online tools for media justice.  Shouts outs are in order.  Free Press did a great job in beginning to work together with those most impacted by media consolidation and bias, and yeah- we still have a long way to go.  Big ups to Reach Hip-Hop, the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, People’s Production House, Laura Flanders, Davey D, and all the lawyers, Beltway lobbyists, artists, organizers, and media producers.  Together with the Youth Media Council, Media Alliance, Reclaim the Media, the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, Media Tank and the Media Empowerment Project- we helped to re-focus the dreams of thousands beyond media rights and reform, and onto a vision of media justice.  

Like Dr. King, we dreamed real BIG.

Then I came home and celebrated January 15th- both the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King and the second anniversary of my mother’s death.  And I had a dream.

I dreamt that back in my mom’s heyday as a Black Panther in Brooklyn, when biased and inaccurate coverage of the Black Panther Party justified unacceptable cruelty toward black activists by the state- folks recognized the profound influence of U.S. media on the lives of people of color and held those journalists accountable to our communities.  

I dreamt that when our news stations violate the most basic of ethical standards by televising the hanging of a man, regardless of his crimes, opposition would drip from the tongues of audiences across the country.  I dreamt that our outrage would leverage real influence, and the resulting impact would remind Big Media of their obligation to the public interest and hold our news accountable to the journalistic standards they promised to abide.

I dreamt that it was common knowledge that the recent coverage of the hanging of Saddam Hussein was as criminal as the fast-tracked hanging itself.  Just like the hanging, which violated international law, the never-ending pictures of Saddam with a noose around his neck violated international standards for communication rights.  It reminded me of the nightmares of many African-Americans for whom the celebration of the hanging of brown folks is burned into our historical memory, tattooed on our sleep.  The crimes of Saddam were made possible in part by his relationship to the Bush regime, and according to the Wayne Madsen report, Bush wanted Saddam put to death before he could reveal embarrassing secret arms deals.  Sounds more and more like an assassination, doesn’t it?  Whether the hanging was just jurisprudence or violated the law, the coverage of that hanging was full of gaping holes.  Instead of asking questions about why the process occurred so quickly, or investigating the United States role, the press quietly accepted the U.S. inaccurate version of itself as liberator and bystander to the barbarism of the “third world”, as it has so frequently in coverage of the U.S. was against Iraq.  

I dreamt about media justice replacing a media system that generates profits from the dehumanization of people of color, the hyper-sexualization of women and girls, the fear of crime, and the blaming of the poor.  I dreamt there was a balm in Gilead, that here inside an empire that denies human rights to the vast majority of its residents, every-day people stood up to media corporations, demanded fair representation, and held our outlets accountable.

And then I woke up to realize that it wasn’t just a dream.  Whether fighting Comcast in Philadelphia and San Francisco, testifying before FCC Commissioners in Oakland, Seattle, New York, and North Carolina, opposing state franchising and rules promoting cross ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations- our communities are fighting back.  We will not be sold a lie.  Just as we understood the impact of coverage of the Vietnam war on the people that nation then, we understand the impact of the war against Iraq on the Iraqi people today, and we will not stand idle while journalists who dare to investigate are murdered, while images of state murder and torture go unquestioned, while musicians are forced by the music industry to create music that denigrates their communities while crime waves are fabricated and in fact created by their over-representation on television.  

We will not stand idle because we know, as we demonstrated at the 2007 National Conference on Media Reform, that a just media system just can’t wait.  Join the movement for media justice today and dream BIG.