Watch it live online!

Today and tomorrow St. John's University School of Law in NYC is hosting a symposium titled MAKING HISTORY: Race, Gender and the Media in the 2008 Elections.

This symposium will investigate the subject of race, gender and the media in the 2008 elections. Many democracies, such as the United Kingdom, Argentina, India, Israel, the Philippines, Pakistan, Liberia and other countries have or have had women heads of state, and other countries, like Peru and Bolivia, have elected presidents who are members of racial minority groups. However, the United States has never elected a woman or a person of color as president and has traditionally discriminated against both women and minority voters and candidates. In 2008, we stand poised  to witness the historic event of a black male or a white woman heading the presidential ballot on behalf of a major political party.

WATCH LIVE
All sessions of the MAKING HISTORY Symposia will be broadcast live via the St. John's University Web site. Viewers are also encouraged to submit questions to panelists for any session.

The Democratic Party has released its national platform and includes a healthy plank about media and democracy, according to TV Week. The platform reportedly includes support for a number of issues we at Common Cause have been advocating for. These include:

Net Neutrality,
Clarifying broadcasters' public interest obligations, and
Increasing the diversity of the ownership of the media

It also calls for the creation of what would probably be a cabinet-level position of Chief Technology Officer, which sounds like a very good idea. Right now we are deeply concerned that nobody is in charge of the digital TV transition, but if there was a CTO, that person would ultimately be responsible.

We commend the Democratic Party for embracing these goals. We look forward to seeing what the Republican Party platform says as well as what Senator McCain's media platform is.
 

On Saturday, March 29th, about 150 Californians came together on a beautiful sunny day in Pasadena to discuss how the media impacts their community.

The event was called Media, Democracy and Justice - A Southern California Regional Summit and featured a couple dozen expert speakers and panelists. There was discussion about how journalists are impacted by media consolidation, how communities of color lose their voice in our corporate media system, how the loss of net neutrality would hurt our democracy and many other subjects.

There was also considerable discussion about improve the state of the media and take it into our own hands by such means as Low Power FM radio, supporting alternative press, taking advantage of social networking systems, and coming together to create a media justice movement.

The best thing to come out of the day was that there was a clear sense that people want to stay involved and continue the fight for improving the media. Common Cause will make sure people will stay connected and have a forum in which to work together.

Some photos of the event are available online here.

Many thanks to all who attended, sponsored, and participated in the event!