Help us Fix Media Now!
Please support local journalism by gifting a local newspaper to your friends and family this holiday season. You can use our database of local journalism for this personalized gift.
At our meeting on December 11, 2023 our nominees for the Media and Democracy Project Bright Spots Award in local journalism will be:
Amjambo Africa. Their mission is to help New Mainers thrive and to help Maine welcome and benefit from new neighbors. Founded and run by Somali refugees, Amjambo is one of the Local Journalism Directory’s most multilingual outlets publishing in English, French, Kinyarwanda, Portuguese, Swahili, Somali, and Spanish. Amjambo Africa strives to link community together.
El Paso Matters expands civic capacity. They inform and engage with the residents in El Paso, Ciudad Juárez and neighboring communities to create solutions-driven conversations about complex issues shaping their region. A recent article alerted residents to the lack of potable water coming from their taps.
Melissa del Bosque and Todd Miller of the The Border Chronicle try to move away from the cynicism of “Border Theater” and the manipulation of USA voters, towards the beauty of the borderlands and the ingenuity of the people who live and travel through here. They focus on the big issues challenging their region, such as climate change, economic inequality, government surveillance, and the rapid growth of the border security industrial complex.
Award winners for Bright Spots can be found on our Substack.
Conspiracy theories, outright lies, and targeted propaganda have exploded online and across our media environments. For some of the nation’s and world’s most pressing issues, such as climate change and immigration, verified information is often difficult to accessby design. To recognize when journalists don’t give us contextual, accurate, fair and unbiased, sourced news, we must know what disinformation is and the ways in which it is spread, develop a healthy skepticism that leads us to question information, and an understanding of the ways we can use it to hold media accountable for what they publish. The truth, the stakes, and actions needed get lost in euphemism, denial, and neutrality. Join us for MAD Monday on December 11, 2023, and hear about some of the basics and tools available for you to use to accomplish this.
Community News and Small Business Support Act has new co-sponsors! This bipartisan effort has four new co-sponsons, for a total of 31 co-sponsors. Please call, write, email, fax or otherwise contact your US Representative and ask them to support and/or co-sponsor HR4756, the Community News and Small Business Support Act. This bill allows certain small businesses and employers of journalists tax credits for advertising in local media and for the wages of not more than 1,500 local news journalists in any calendar quarter.
As always, please sign on to the Media and Democracy Project letter to the FCC, in support of our Petition to Deny a broadcast license to FOX for WTXF29 Philadelphia.
Help us fight for a more pro-democracy media and a better-informed America.
ACTION #1 Sign-on to our letter asking for the FCC to hold a hearing for FOX broadcast license for WTFX29 Philadelphia.
Sign onhere
ACTION #2 Praise Media and Democracy Hero: Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer again for highlighting what post-truth journalism in a society fixated on conspiracy theories could look like.
ACTION #3 Ask your Representative to support HR 4756 Community News and Small Business Support Act
Upcoming Events (all meetings are via Zoom)
12/11 Monday 7:00p ET Our Media and Democracy Project bi-weekly General Meeting – newcomers are always welcome. We will discuss different ways you can help #FixMediaNow Sign up here
01/10 Wednesday, 7:00p ET Special Event: Margaret Sullivan, joins Media and Democracy Project in January!
Sign up here
Thank you for all you do! Please share this Newsletter.
In community,
Noelle, Brian, Jonathan, Holley, Cecily, Carolyn, Milo and the entire Media and Democracy Project