Why Open Media Boston is Psyched for NCMR

When Free Press asked Open Media Boston to join the local host committee helping to organize theNational Conference for Media Reform (April 8-10 at the Seaport World Trade Center), we jumped on the opportunity. As a forward-thinking Boston news weekly, how could we not? NCMR is a huge media reform confab happening right here in our town. And naturally, as part of the new wave of online community news publications sprouting up around the country, we feel it's imperative that we do everything we can to make the event a success - for a number of good and related reasons.

For starters, although our fair city is a major media hub, we haven't had a significant media reform network operating here since Boston Media Action folded tents in 1992. There have been some serious attempts at creating one in the past two decades, but nothing has really gotten off the ground.

The result has been that the voices of many of Boston’s communities have been largely missing from the debates on a host of critical issues over the last couple of decades - from outrageous media mergers like Comcast/NBC to failures to protect free speech on the Internet to assaults on public media and public access media centers.

In addition, we've all watched as some of the titans of the news industry have collapsed over the last couple of years. The Rocky Mountain News (totally out-of-business), the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (online-only since 2009) and other outlets are no longer filling a necessary space in the information ecology of their regions. Absent large news organizations with hundreds of reporters, what's come to be called a "news vacuum" is growing ever larger. Without a Fourth Estate, albeit a flawed one, to shine light on corporate malfeasance and the resulting government corruption, democracy itself is threatened. If ways cannot be found to sustain news production and distribution – now that the rise of the Internet has forever changed the advertising game – then the news vacuum will continue to grow on all levels.

There is a real danger that within ten years, most "news" available in the United States will be warmed over PR copy emanating from one corporate source or another. Independent reporting could be consigned primarily to niche publications with limited funding. And government will well and truly be on sale to the highest bidder from the smallest town hall to the Capitol.

NCMR provides a great opportunity to address these kinds of issues, kick start a new Boston media reform network, and connect people across the country who want to build a democratic media – helping preserve our democracy in the bargain. Free Press has offered the local host committee a panel slot at the conference to hold a discussion between interested Boston area media reform folks and our colleagues from existing media reform groups in other cities. Open Media Boston is spearheading this effort, and we look forward to leapfrogging off that panel to found a Boston media reform group later this year.

Ultimately then, we're on the local host committee of the National Conference for Media Reform because we like to think big … and we know that thousands of other people like us are going to be on hand to dream similar dreams and organize to make the best of them a reality.

So if you're already registered for NCMR, excellent.

If you're not already registered for NCMR, what are you waiting for? It's going to be great!

Jason Pramas is Editor/Publisher of Open Media Boston

This editorial was originally written as a blog entry for the National Conference for Media Reform.