This morning at the Big Tent, Air America and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow hosted a discussion with Dr. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. The subject of the talk is how the internet is impacting the 2008 elections.

Maddow started out with pointing out that for the last several elections, broad claims have been made that the internet was making a major difference - but has it? Eric Schmidt responded that it is becoming more and more the case. His example of how the internet has recently made a big difference was how in the 2006 Senate races the GOP candidate in Virginia used the word "macaca" to describe a person of color, and it got around on Youtube, which may have been the pivotal point in that election. The viral nature of that video made a big difference in the shift of power in the US Senate.

Is that just increasing? It seems to be the case. More and more citizen journalism is emerging, and here at the Big Tent that is certainly evident.

I have to give a lot of credit to the American public. As the mainstream media headed down in quality, we the people decided to take action and instead of just whining or resigning ourselves, we decided to create our own media.

There is no better example of that than here in Denver right now. The hundreds of bloggers at the Big Tent, the public access show producers crawling all over town with cameras, and the alternative media are all doing what the mainstream media isn't.

While the big cable news networks are focused on parsing the words in speeches to try to determine the impact on the horse race for president, the citizen media is out there reporting on everything from what is going on with the police in Denver during the DNC to how well the "greenness" of the convention is working.

Yesterday at the Big Tent events in Denver, we held a workshop titled "Is Civil Discourse a Civil Right?". Right to left in the photo are:

• Alex Nogales, President and CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition,
  
• Cathryn Hazouri, Executive Director of the ACLU of Colorado,
  
• Mark Lloyd, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Affiliate Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University,
  
• and yours truly acting as the moderator.

We had a lively discussion about how access to the media, including media ownership, public access and net neutrality impact the communities fighting for their civil rights. Alex Nogales pointed out how Latinos in America have their civil rights violated day after day by the impact of hate speech on radio and TV. Cathryn Hazouri pointed out that from the perspective of the ACLU, she opposes censorship of the media to deal with hate speech, but does support the idea of a modernized version of the Fairness Doctrine so that issues are presented in a truly fair and balanced way. Among other issues that Mark Lloyd talked about, he brought up how the Digital TV Transition might impact low income and minority communities more than others, and take away their access to the information they need to participate in our democracy, unless they get the word now about how to be prepared for the transition.

This is just a short snapshot of the event, we went over our allotted hour. It was videotaped, so we hope to get that video out online in the future and possibly distributed on public access.  

In general though, while these discussions might not be happening over at the DNC Convention, they ARE happening here in Denver at the Big Tent.

Veteran journalist Dan Rather is currently on stage at the Big Tent in Denver speaking on the dangers of media consolidation.

(remember, live streaming coverage can be found at http://www.commoncause.org/bigtent.)

He is pointing out something we discussed in our media reform plan for a new administration that the founders of this nation explicitly protected the press in the Bill of Rights because it is the role of the press to inform the public about what the government is doing right or wrong.

Rather says that his experience is that consolidation and corporatization of the media has led to a media that focuses more on safe stories and regurgitating the administration's message as to what they want the people to hear. And of course, that is what the media is NOT supposed to do.

He says the reason the mainstream press isn't more critical is that they are afraid of being accused of editorializing simply by researching and reporting facts that don't fit with what the administration wants people to hear.

His key message is that we NEED citizen journalism, we NEED owners with the guts to take any heat from talk radio, and we NEED to stop media consolidation.

Today is the Common Cause sponsored Media Symposium at the Big Tent in Denver. The goal of the day is to bring issues of media reform to the alternative media that is gathered here at the Big Tent as well as to many of the DNC delegates who are in town.

We have gotten started today with an address by FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein (introduced by Common Cause President Bob Edgar). Commissioner Adelstein made a clear call for stopping and reversing media consolidation, increasing media diversity and protecting net neutrality. He specifically called for the tax certificate for minority media ownership, which we called for in our recent plan for media reform in a new administration. As the day moves forward, come back to view more reports on the day's activities at our media symposium.

I am sitting here in Denver at The Big Tent seeing something that could not happen without net neutrality.

At this event (which we co-sponsored) there are hundreds of citizen journalists using the new media to create real time coverage of the Democratic National Convention, coverage about the coverage, commentary about it, commentary about the commentary, etc. The Internet's neutral nature is what allows this to thrive.

There are people here blogging for scores of different major websites like Daily Kos and Slate.com and smaller websites like www.turnmaineblue.com. There are people using videocameras to create content to post to youtube and other video websites. And through the online forums as well as the personal interaction here, we are seeing the same kind of "newsroom" collaboration that we are losing at the newspapers all across America as big corporations like News Corp gobble up local papers and force them to cut back on reporting and just fill their papers with nationally produced content.

The kind of collaboration you saw in "All the President's Men" is alive and well, and it's here in the Big Tent. But as I said earlier, without net neutrality, this could all go away.

Where do the two major party candidates stand on the media reform issues we highlight in our new report, "Media and Democracy in America Today: A Reform Plan for a New Administration"?

It's a mixed bag.

McCain has a strong record of supporting Low Power FM Radio, increasing diversity of media ownership, funding public broadcasting and free air time for campaigns. However, he has opposed stopping media consolidation and is against net neutrality.

Obama on the other hand has been a vocal supporter of net neutrality and has actively opposed media consolidation. While generally good on most of the issues we highlight in the new report, he has less of a record to show for it.

And there are gaps in our knowledge. That's why we would like to hear from their campaigns and anyone else who can tell us where they stand on issues like reforming the processes at the Federal Communications Commission and if they support PEG Access TV.

We have a full chart of their stands on the issues we raise in our new report - as far as we know them. Check it out, and let us know if you have any more information.

Today I am proud to release Common Cause's plan for media reform. The report, titled "Media and Democracy in America Today: A Reform Plan for a New Administration," lays out a plan of action for the next President and Congress to take to ensure the media performs its appropriate role in our democracy.

This was a major undertaking, and I want to thank all who participated from within and without Common Cause to help put it together. Now the key thing is to make the recommendations in this report a reality.

That's going to take several things.

It's going to take other bloggers and journalists to spread the word about what needs to be done.

It's going to take politicians to listen to the people and take action on these recommendations.

And the biggest thing is that it is going to take the public to make some noise about how important these issues are to our democracy!

We're here to help facilitate the making of noise by you the people. Let's have our voices heard.

The text of our press release follows below: