On NCMR: Day 3

(Photo: tpaperny)

Day 3 of the National Conference on Media Reform, I called in sick. I've had enough.

Memphis has been the proverbial epicenter for the debate on media reform for three days, but not enough has been said about the city itself. That bothers me.

Admittedly, I've been on edge since Friday, the precise moment occurring when Free Press co-founder John Nichols said Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton could have had strong consideration to be President of the United States if not for the media attacking him all these years. No, he wasn't laughing at all.

Granted, Nichols backtracked a little later, but the damage was done. His kotowing to a mayor with self-inflicted media scars is no different than the much levied accusations from reformers that Big Media tends to overlook the faults of POTUS and others in the power structure in order to advance their own agendas. And despite the Pepto of successful independent media models, acknowledgement of the erosion of diversity from newsrooms, the caution of media consolidation and more, I still felt uneasy by the star-gazing and double talk. The NCMR says its non-partisan but it isn't.

This conference has been a pseudo-Democratic convention, complete with a party presidential hopeful dropping in for a "surprise" appearance. (Do you think I'm that gullible?) I'm a lifelong Democrat, but as a journalist I can step outside of that allegiance because at times it's necessary for the sake of credibility.

Saturday's spoof of Bush, while funny, really showed that "media reform" is really just a code word for Democrats to control their own message -- one disguised as being for the people, but it's really not and it can't be as long as the media is supposed to exist separate of the political paradigm. Media reform, in my mind, is supposed to ensure that separation.

This conference was about elections, not newspapers and TV stations. Again, for three days the media reform debate has been centered in Memphis, but how much of it has focused on Memphis? Case in point, I spoke with Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow!, a top-notch TV news program that offers counter-perspective on national and international issues, about the prospect of her show being aired in Memphis. Here's what she said (and pardon the sideways view, it's unintentional then again it is kind of poetic):

Afterwards, she asked me if I thought MLK weekend was a big deal in Memphis. I said not really and that it always bothered me when people choose to evoke Dr. King's principles on this weekend instead acknowledging them year-round. It just rings false when people do that. Then, she asked me if I had ever been to the National Civil Rights Museum; I said yes and added that the Freedom Awards is a bigger deal to the museum and the city than this weekend. That's when she mentioned--perhaps to highlight my naivete--that her show had been doing live broadcasts from there since Friday. (Another broadcast will happen on Monday.) I guess I was supposed to be embarrassed but I wasn't.

As I considered it, the conversation raised another question: what has Goodman, or any of these out-of-town reformers, really learned about Memphis? Have they merely focused on Beale Street, the Rendevous, Graceland and the Lorraine? Does their knowledge stop at the point of Dr. King's assassination? Is this all they know -- or better yet, discovered in their own reporting? Did they even bother to look?

After all, it is a national conference, focused on national issues; however, the focus is expected to trickle down -- on its own. But why not give it a strong push? Why not make the host city a case study? Why not go beyond the cliche and acknowledge WDIA or the travesty that has become the Tri-State Defender or protest the fact that CA employees have gone FOUR YEARS without a contract?

See, what's sickening is that more than 3,000 reform-minded individuals have come here without doing their homework and as a result they'll likely leave without making an impact on the city or its media.

(As an aside, I'm curious as to how many Memphians actually registered for the conference or watched the free stuff on the Net. That figure would be telling. For certain, the local media coverage has been elementary at best, noting news items and star sightings but really invoking no serious discussion about these real issues among Memphians. But I digress.)

This conference has done nothing to rid CA Editor Chris Peck of his delusions. If anything, it has encouraged him.