A 12-Step Program for Media Democracy

Jeffrey Chester and Gary Larson have drafted a "plan on behalf of a more democratic media system, a collective effort to ensure that alternative, independent voices will still be heard over the growing din of conglomerate media culture. " In the Internet age, they say, "The sad irony is that never before have we had such communications power at our disposal, in the form of new digital technologies that allow any of us to be producers as well as consumers of media content. The corresponding danger, of course, is that we've never had so much to lose, in ceding that power to the cable and telecom giants eager to make the new media as monolithic and market-driven as the old."