Adventures in activist post-modernism
Musicians to reporters: You stink. Now write about that.
It started as an absurd proposition. Invite reporters to a press conference (at the Ritz Carlton Hotel downtown no less) to tell them what a crappy job reporters have done covering the Iraq war and its aftermath, media consolidation and trade issues.
Then, at the behest of renowned singer/songwriters Steve Earle and Billy Bragg, and musician/activist Jenny Toomey, we were all supposed to go back to the office Sunday and plug their current Tell Us the Truth Tour, which draws attention to what a crappy job the Fourth Estate is doing protecting citizens’ interests.
Maybe they should have called it “The Biting the Hand That Feeds You Tour.” And yet, somehow it worked, thanks in large part to the earnestness of the musicians and the genuine and legitimate differences they had in trying to explain what might charitably be described as the remarkably credulous coverage of the run-up to the war in Iraq and the general lack of substantive coverage of this week’s Free Trade Area of the Americas meetings in Miami.
The press conference, and the show at the Variety Playhouse later that night, painted a clear picture of how abandoned by the mainstream press the American left feels and how unsure it is of how to fix it.
Toomey said she knows journalists at nearly every major newspaper in the country from her role as the head of The Future of Music Coalition. And for the tour, Tell Us The Truth retained a high-powered publicity firm. But it hasn’t helped her get journalists to write or talk about the tour.
“[The publicist] is being told, off-the-record, by major papers, ‘I’d love to talk about [the tour], but my editors will not write about it,’” Toomey said. The media companies want Federal Communications Commission deregulation that would relax ownership laws to move forward, and there’s a connection between that and the answers she keeps hearing from journalists. (Those changes have, thus far, been thwarted by Congress.)
“When [National Public Radio] is telling us that this is a partisan tour and that they’re not allowed to cover it ... after they’ve had this terrible run-in with [Fox shouting head] Bill O’Reilly, you understand that we’re in a climate that’s bigger than this tour.”
But that begged the obvious question, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution music writer Nick Marino asked it.
“I find it a little ironic that we’re all here writing about you guys dissenting,” he said.
“You’re the only representative from a mainstream daily that has showed up at a press conference,” Earle replied.
But Todd Gitlin, a journalism professor at Columbia University, who writes for Mother Jones, among other magazines, says he doesn’t see any major changes in mainstream media coverage of dissent or the Bush administration, despite consolidation concerns. Journalists have traditionally been cautious when it comes to people at all outside the mainstream, he says. Toomey and her cohorts are just finding that out first hand.
“The press corps usually starts out credulous,” Gitlin says. “It doesn’t change until there’s blood in the water.” He points out that the press has been more aggressive recently despite the outstanding media consolidation issues. “They are gutless, but it’s not gutlessness as a consequence of greed. It’s gutlessness period.”
Gitlin, like Earle, has a slightly different take than Toomey and says the focus of the mainstream press has more to do with advertisers than an FCC-related conspiracy. If media companies need to turn a 20 percent profit, you’re “basically going to be interested in what you’re advertisers are interested in.”
Toomey pointed out that the purpose of the tour wasn’t to castigate the press or engage in ideological debates with reporters. It was meant to create an atmosphere in which dissenters felt less isolated and inspired to action by the music.
“We send people home to think about changing the world, which is the audience’s job rather than ours,” Bragg said. “We’re in a very interesting time. We’re going to be the generation that gets to cast the new progressive idea outside the shadow of Soviet totalitarianism.
“Democracy is not passive. It is activist.”
kevin.griffis@creativeloafing.com
Then, at the behest of renowned singer/songwriters Steve Earle and Billy Bragg, and musician/activist Jenny Toomey, we were all supposed to go back to the office Sunday and plug their current Tell Us the Truth Tour, which draws attention to what a crappy job the Fourth Estate is doing protecting citizens’ interests.
Maybe they should have called it “The Biting the Hand That Feeds You Tour.” And yet, somehow it worked, thanks in large part to the earnestness of the musicians and the genuine and legitimate differences they had in trying to explain what might charitably be described as the remarkably credulous coverage of the run-up to the war in Iraq and the general lack of substantive coverage of this week’s Free Trade Area of the Americas meetings in Miami.
The press conference, and the show at the Variety Playhouse later that night, painted a clear picture of how abandoned by the mainstream press the American left feels and how unsure it is of how to fix it.
Toomey said she knows journalists at nearly every major newspaper in the country from her role as the head of The Future of Music Coalition. And for the tour, Tell Us The Truth retained a high-powered publicity firm. But it hasn’t helped her get journalists to write or talk about the tour.
“[The publicist] is being told, off-the-record, by major papers, ‘I’d love to talk about [the tour], but my editors will not write about it,’” Toomey said. The media companies want Federal Communications Commission deregulation that would relax ownership laws to move forward, and there’s a connection between that and the answers she keeps hearing from journalists. (Those changes have, thus far, been thwarted by Congress.)
“When [National Public Radio] is telling us that this is a partisan tour and that they’re not allowed to cover it ... after they’ve had this terrible run-in with [Fox shouting head] Bill O’Reilly, you understand that we’re in a climate that’s bigger than this tour.”
But that begged the obvious question, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution music writer Nick Marino asked it.
“I find it a little ironic that we’re all here writing about you guys dissenting,” he said.
“You’re the only representative from a mainstream daily that has showed up at a press conference,” Earle replied.
But Todd Gitlin, a journalism professor at Columbia University, who writes for Mother Jones, among other magazines, says he doesn’t see any major changes in mainstream media coverage of dissent or the Bush administration, despite consolidation concerns. Journalists have traditionally been cautious when it comes to people at all outside the mainstream, he says. Toomey and her cohorts are just finding that out first hand.
“The press corps usually starts out credulous,” Gitlin says. “It doesn’t change until there’s blood in the water.” He points out that the press has been more aggressive recently despite the outstanding media consolidation issues. “They are gutless, but it’s not gutlessness as a consequence of greed. It’s gutlessness period.”
Gitlin, like Earle, has a slightly different take than Toomey and says the focus of the mainstream press has more to do with advertisers than an FCC-related conspiracy. If media companies need to turn a 20 percent profit, you’re “basically going to be interested in what you’re advertisers are interested in.”
Toomey pointed out that the purpose of the tour wasn’t to castigate the press or engage in ideological debates with reporters. It was meant to create an atmosphere in which dissenters felt less isolated and inspired to action by the music.
“We send people home to think about changing the world, which is the audience’s job rather than ours,” Bragg said. “We’re in a very interesting time. We’re going to be the generation that gets to cast the new progressive idea outside the shadow of Soviet totalitarianism.
“Democracy is not passive. It is activist.”
kevin.griffis@creativeloafing.com