Alternet: How Progressives Can Win

[Ian David]

How Progressives Can Win

"I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee. We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people."
-- Bill Moyers, Final PBS "Now" Episode, Dec. 17, 2004

Dear Friend,

I am writing to you because Bill Moyers is right: A serious media crisis threatens our democracy. The conservative media message machine dominates our public discourse, undermining humanistic values and, as studies have shown, making people ignorant with propaganda masquerading as news.

It's time progressives have a media system that can compete with the right, and tell the truth. We hope you will help AlterNet fight back.

Conservatives Dominate Media

Conservatives have dramatically increased market share in American media through a vast network of Fox News, Sinclair television stations, talk radio -- Limbaugh on 600 stations alone -- fast-growing religious broadcasting, newspapers, web sites, columnists, and commentators.

Conservative media works together seamlessly to ensure that conservative messages are read, heard, and seen every day, repeatedly, by both core conservatives and the 60 million people who voted conservative in 2004.

Without the conservative media machine, George Bush would probably have lost the last election. Without a more effective progressive media machine, conservatives will probably go on winning.

In contrast to the conservatives who have invested hundreds of millions of dollars over the past 30 years, progressives have failed to sufficiently invest in an independent media structure. It's time to change this pattern and invest much more in media of our own. This crisis requires new thinking and action.

"Echo" - The Next Wave in Media

AlterNet is working with independent media partners to help create an alternative -- a powerful progressive media "echo chamber" to challenge and overcome conservative dominance in the marketplace of ideas. This is a big job, and we need your help.

"Echoing" means collaborating to increase the reach and impact of facts and ideas that support progressive ideals and goals and undermine conservative claims. Echoing means repeating messages that communicate our values and our vision in as many places and as many ways possible.

Imagine the clear framing of a progressive vision or a hard-hitting investigative article shown on cable, satellite, and pay per view; downloaded to your TiVo; distributed on DVD; streamed on the internet; broadcast on the radio; and printed in magazines and webzines, all at the same time.

Five years ago it wouldn't have been possible to tackle the big media machine. Today, the technology revolution makes it far easier to produce quality media faster and cheaper. Meanwhile, the Air America radio network is growing and Link TV, Democracy Now and the powerful array of progressive bloggers and web sites are all finding new audiences and increasingly working together.

We Need Your Support

AlterNet will continue to provide the high quality journalism, sharp opinions, and smart analysis that you expect. But that isn't enough if we are to win in the future. We hope you agree.

AlterNet, through our Echo Chamber Project, is working to bring together the smartest tech minds in the progressive sector to help chart the new technology landscape. Our aim is for progressive media to reach more people in more different ways -- even on their cell phones and handhelds.

Can you help support our immediate projects?

* PEEK - a blog on the blogs, so people can go to their computers in the morning and know what the blogosphere is saying.
* The first true online Progressive Media Guide, a daily catalog of all the significant media events that national progressive audiences can access via streaming, television, video, or DVD.
* Publishing our new book, Start Making Sense: Turning the Lessons of Election 2004 into Progressive Victories in April. We'll go on the road with the book for readings and debates working to broadcast the dialogues the book generates on TV and the internet.

We need your support to accomplish these goals and more. We can no longer be victims of the right-wing media machine. Please donate today to help AlterNet become an important hub in a new, powerful, and growing progressive media echo chamber.

Donate and join us to build a progressive media machine for the long haul.

Sincerely,

Don Hazen
Executive Editor, AlterNet

P.S.: Want more information about right-wing media? View in-depth statistics on conservative media dominance.

More:
http://www.alternet.org/echo/

[PROGRESSIVE1]

1. A Million Kicks!

I want a left wing echo chamber that spouts the leftist view! We need to counter the right wing hate machine!

[Capn Sunshine]

2. Imprortant point that gets lost often

The "Left wing echo chamber" is SUPPOSED to be borderline "extremist", much as the right wing echo chamber is.

So if you're hesitant to support this idea, remember the point is to make centrists look like centrists again.

The right wing echo chamber has moved things so far to the right that they have succeeded in making reasonable populist centrists look like a fringe group.

THAT is what the echo chamber is for. It helps everyone left of Rumsfeld articulate their desires for the country more effectively, because they goalposts are where they should be and the playing field is level.

So, do not fear the extreme left; they serve a vital purpose.