Conclusion

This conference is about media education, media literacy, about how a literate population is empowered to affect local, state, national, even international policy. It is a conference in which some 3000 people from all over the world have come together to engage in open, thoughtful dialogue, hear some great pep talks, and become motivated to bring civic action back to their own communities.
In the past three days, I have attended panel discussions and workshops on understanding policy process, creating your own community radio station and media literacy/education.
I have heard some important speakers who are leaders and activists on a national and world scale, including Dennis Kucinich, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rev. Jesse Jackson, author/philosopher Bill Moyers, actor/activist Danny Glover, and as I’m sitting here at the end of the conference, we are waiting for Kim Gandy, president of NOW, and Jane Fonda to take the stage to send us off. I’ll try to get a picture.
It has been an exhausting, yet energizing conference. I have met some fine characters who are active in today’s media movement, including Anthony Riddle, who serves on the national board of ACME, Action Coalition for Media Education, and Amy Goodman, whose radio and TV show, “Democracy Now!” reaches millions of Dish Network, radio and internet households worldwide.
I have taken some time to tour the National Civil Rights Museum, just blocks from my hotel, which is the assassination site of another great activist leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, and where, prior to his death, served as the Memphis HQ for his activities here. I have always considered Dr. King as one of my biggest heroes, so it is especially poignant for me to walk in his footsteps and honor his legacy by coming to this conference.
There is a Soviet poster of a blindfolded man about to walk off a cliff. The caption says, “to be illiterate is the be blind.” We are blind; we have been blindsided by our own nationalized, corporate media. Remember this the Soviet government-controlled media telling citizens to learn to read, so that they can be informed. What are our media outlets doing? What exactly is public information? Our own so-called free market journalists have been bought off by powerful companies that want to control what you see, hear, read and know. They have robbed us of our basic right of information, in an age when information knowledge is critical to process.
--- After a brief introduction by NOW’s Kim Gandy, Jane Fonda is taking the podium and the crowd is standing up and cheering.