Last Blog – Protest

Of all the stories in this book I found the chapter on nuclear energy to be the most compelling for me. It is not surprising that the government would spend millions, even billions of dollars, on something that a large part of the public had little to no knowledge of. The government continued their nuclear energy campaign despite numerous protests at all of the major nuclear plants around the country. This was amazing to me because I find it outrageous that the news of an uproar in anger through protest would be so covered up by historians who should be giving Americans unbiased information. I also found a lot of parallels amongst the NRC and the FCC today. Both these government organizations were given the task of regulating the industry, instead they let the industry control them. Both the media industry of today and the nuclear industry of the past four decades were immensely large industries with very deep pockets, fully capable of paying off their respective regulatory government organizations. Both the FCC and the NRC were given the task of protecting the American from the harms of powerful corporations, instead they ended being the lapdogs of the industries. I think that it is extremely important that American citizens challenge the media industry just like they did with the nuclear industry. The question now remains how to accomplish such a task on a much larger scale? Hopefully Mr. Williams can provide some insight to this question, and perhaps draw some clear parallels between the strategies used by nuclear protestors and apply those similar strategies to the media industry. Nuclear spending has decreased tremendously over the past decade or so as clean energy sources have now taken primary importance.  I feel like this change in focus was greatly influenced by the protest that ensued throughout the country during the 1980s and 1990s. This gives us hope for the future, maybe with a little determination and shear manpower we can force a change in the media, cause clearly we need it.

Conversely, lessons from this movement could be used in the music industry. Currently the music industry is under the control of only a few major record labels. The days of independent labels had ended until the invention of Youtube and social networking. Now musicians are able to gain some attention from self-advertising to the public but in the end these music labels are the ones that decide who can make a career from their songs. I would ask Eesha how principals taken from this story could apply to the music industry’s current issues?

The Little Guy

For me, the story that I enjoyed most while reading this book was chapter four, the story of the Shoreham nuclear power plant and how the citizens used their local newspaper and resources to over throw the major corporations.  I enjoyed this because I myself come from a small town and I know that if ever my community were in need of something, I would love to see us rally together and take a stand.  This is what we see less and less in the media, the unity of smaller towns and newspapers to stop a global giant.  What we see today is the corporate giants taking over everything and anything in order to gain profits.  The era of the little guys is over, so my question to Eesha, is how do you keep a small media source or company alive in this current time?

Local journalism that made a difference

The most compelling story for me is the story about the media coverage of the Shoreham nuclear power plant on Long Island.

For me the impressive thing about this story is that in a large part thanks to one single reporter, Karl Grossman, who covered the issue of the Shoreham nuclear power plant for a family owned local newspaper, The East Hampton Star, a grassroots movement got sparked and continually supported in taking on the big fight against nuclear power culminating in the closing of the Shoreham nuclear power plant., preventing an accident that could kill thousands of people and leave hundreds of square miles uninhabitable.

With his almost weekly published articles in The East Hampton Star over a span of almost 10 years, Karl Grossmann has inspired grassroots actions, emphasized concerns, protests and strategies and reinforced citizen’s confidence to believe in their power to stop the nuclear plant while other media outlets, local or widely-read daily newspapers on Long Island like the New York Times or Newsday either ignored the issue completely or if they were covering the issue they would not express any opinion contrary to the interests of LILCO (Long Island Lighting Company) who built the Shoreham plant or the nuclear industry at large.

Comments made by activists like “Without Karl Grossman’s reporting, Shoreham would not have been closed” or “It was a combination of word-of-mouth and reading the Start that inspired me to get involved” and “Karl Grossman was a critical factor. A few small papers helped us. The major media betrayed us” show how much impact local journalism can have in supporting a cause that is important for a certain community. The story also shows that larger media outlets, like The New York Times, have to play by the rules of their financial supporters, putting their financial well-being before a truthful and balanced coverage of certain issues connected with their supporters.

In this case, however, the ignorance of the major media outlets had no influence in stopping the local journalism, especially in person of Karl Grossman, to speak out for a cause and to help build a grassroots movement that ultimately brought about the closing of the Shoreham nuclear plant.

How can it be ensured that especially local journalism does not have to cautious about what they are reporting concerning controversial issues like this, meaning without having to fear about their financial well-being if they express critical remarks?

Wal Mart

I really liked the Wal Mart story because I remember hearing about this a few years ago.  I was really surprised to find out that most of their workers are females.  I would really like to know why they make up the majority.  It is really upsetting to find out that Wal Mart is so successful because they don’t pay their workers enough money and they pressure their suppliers into giving them their merchandise for a cheaper price.  It’s terrible that most of their workers don’t make enough money so they are forced to rely on food stamps or that a company as successful as Wal Mart doesn’t have a health plan for all of their workers.

I’m really happy that St. Petersburg, Florida was able to stop a Wal Mart from being built on the wetlands, but I would have liked for the focus to have been on the conditions for the workers because that’s where it seemed like the chapter was heading.  It was really nice to see that a town had enough power to stop such a giant and well known corporation like Wal Mart.

I would like to ask Eesha Williams why the radio seems to be friendlier to local causes than newspapers.  In a lot of the stories he mentioned that the radio played a huge part in supporting local causes.  Why are newspapers more reluctant to support local causes than radio programs?

Blog 7

After reading about how Cecilia Lanman used access to local media outlets to create a movement that ended up saving a huge natural monument I was deeply moved. Lanman used what small media outlets that she had access to in order to save a irreplaceable natural location.

Lanman managed to organize a peaceful protest of thousands in order to prevent a logging company from cutting down the redwood forests outside san Francisco.  Even after local newspapers tried to reduce the efforts of the protest, Lanman managed to rally enough people not only to stop the logging, but also to influence the US Government to purchase the land that was going to be logged and turn it into a preserve, so that the Redwoods can be appreciated by generations to come.

It is inspiring stories like these that reinforce the fact that small public media outlets will always be an important influence in our culture.  Eesha took a local scale event like the protest and showed how it effected not only our culture and natural landscape, but actually resulted in a fundamental change to the protection of our natural resources.

Last Blog

The story that I found most compelling was the story about Wal-Mart. I had not realized how controversial it was when developing new Wal-Marts. It is such a prevalent and common company, so it was interesting to learn a bit about its history, especially history that is controversial and usually not advertised to the general public.

I was amazed to know that by 2005, Wal-Mart became the biggest company on Earth. I did not realize how popular it was. I feel that all the buzz is usually around Target or K-Mart, I never really hear much about Wal-Mart. This chapter had a lot of interesting facts as well. One that really stood out to me was that as of 2005, two out of three Wal-Mart workers were women. I am curious to know why that is? One conclusion that I came to was that the Wal-Mart spokespeople stated that they expected their workers to have another source of income from a spouse. Therefore, they more likely hired women because since men tend to make more money than women in general, they figured women already had income from their spouse, consequently they could pay them low wages.

I was shocked to find out that many Wal-Mart’s employees’ wages and benefits were so low that they qualified for food stamps, healthcare and other programs. I had no idea that their employees were treated so terribly. It reminded me of labor workers when reading. Also, I didn’t realize how sneaky Wal-Mart was. For example, they lobbied tax breaks and used tax payer money to buy land for stores and warehouses. This shows me how unethical Wal-Mart is. I am still very surprised that I had never heard of this before, especially because Wal-Mart is such a popular company.

It was interesting to read about how some suburbs turned Wal-Mart down such as in St.Petersburg and Inglewood. I feel that I always here about new Wal-Marts being built, not rejected. It was refreshing to read about a community coming together and rejecting something that they did not want and that did not fit into their community. It was admirable that activists in Florida decided to save their Wetlands and not let Wal-Mart destroy the environment. The St.Petersburg Times was helpful to the environmentalists and positively helped save the wetlands. This is media I enjoy reading about, not celebrities and reality TV stars.

 

How can media expose certain controversies without being harsh and degrading to the company and still have a positive outcome? For example, Abercrombie and Fitch only hires employees that are attractive even if they are poor workers. How would this issue be exposed to project a positive change?

Power to the People!

“‘In Florida, activism is rare. I wanted to let people know that it’s normal to care about stuff and want to do something about it. Activists aren’t crazy.'” -Andrew Stelzer

Eesha Williams’ story about the battle against Wal-Mart is especially interesting to me. I grew up in southwest Colorado, Telluride and Durango, and have watched corporate developer move into Durango (included Wal-Mart) and also seen them successfully barred from Telluride.

In the mountains of Telluride, the closest corporation is several hours away by car. Telluride sits in a box-canyon, with only one direction to sprawl: west on the valley floor. For over a decade the town of Telluride fought to raise money to buy the valley floor, in order to preserve the land and likewise prevent development. After raising $50 million dollars, and a 6-1 vote of the Colorado Supreme Court, Telluride won.

Durango on the other hand has more room to sprawl. I have witnessed the exponential development between the rural fields of Bayfield (just 20 miles east of Durango) and downtown Durango. While several small businesses have withstood competitors and successfully established a loyal customer base, many businesses struggle to survive and eventually close. There is one Wal-Mart in Durango, and while it seems convenient to purchase all one’s necessities at one location, I also wonder what impact Wal-Mart has had on all of the local competitors who have lost business due to its establishment. I am also wary to support Wal-Mart due to its low values—its history of mistreating employees and of ignoring its negative impacts on the environment.

As a journalist I am excited to read about small, local news sources, such as the WMNF radio station and The St. Petersburg Times, which have been able to make such a huge impact on their communities. I especially think that WMNF covered the Wal-Mart debate in an effective and extremely ethical way. Through interviewing a variety of specialists on air, Stelzer was able to expose listeners to multiple negative effects of the proposed Wal-Mart, without actually telling the listeners what to think. Also, the radio station provided listeners with vital information on where, when, and how to get involved with the debates—once again giving power to the people, and connecting them to the information necessary to take action.

Questions for Eesha: With the continuing advancement of media conglomeration, how can we help multiple local media sources survive? In your opinion, what is the most effective media medium for reaching people, at the local, state, and international levels?

Last blog: Wal-Mart

Reading the story about Wal-Mart disgusted me. While there were many issue right off the bat such as how rapidly they grew and their means of maximizing profit the first thing that really caught my attention was the difference between the Chinese factory worker and the CEO of Wal-Mart. How can someone in good conscience accept a salary of $32 million when the people who are making the products that person’s company sells only gets paid 40 cents and hour? As I turned the page it only grew worse.

While I knew about some of these issues, although not in great detail, this was the first time I had heard about the sexism occurring at Wal-Mart. Not only does it appear they discriminate against having female managers, but they also expected women to work there as extra means of support with another main source of income through a spouse.

When I reached the part about the news coverage of those standing up to Wal-Mart I was relieved to find that someone was doing something about this. It really shows how much impact something small can have even when they are standing up to the biggest corporation. My concern was however, that not all the local media was covering this issue and I don’t understand why not? Why wouldn’t a media source want to cover not only such a big issue but also an important local issue?

 

Blog 6 edited

                The story about Wal-Mart was the most compelling to me. I did not know that by 2005 Wal-Mart had become the biggest company on earth (123). The way Wal-Mart achieved its success made me disgusted. They achieved their success by paying their employees very low wages and pressuring suppliers to lower their costs (131). Wal-Marts were built on huge plots of land and large parking lots were built with them. At the same time that these workers received extremely low wages, the CEO in 2008 was to receive a $32 million dollar salary in addition to other compensations (123).   The fact that two out of three Wal-Mart workers were women in 2005 was interesting to me. The company had to pay $50 million in overdue wages to 69,000 employees to settle court cases in 2001 (124). All of these statistics caught me by surprise. Even though Wal-Mart seemed to be successful, in my opinion it really was not because of all the problems that were created by the way these Wal-Mart stores were operated.

                The story of how activists in St. Petersburg Florida stopped a Wal-Mart form being built was very compelling to me. It was great to see that a group of people were able to defeat the world’s biggest cooperation and different means of media attributed to this defeat. Andrew Stelezer, a radio reporter, at WMNF was a major contributing factor to this defeat. He focused on the views and strategies of anit-Wal-Mart activists. His interviews with these activists were informative to the people listening.  People found out how Wal-Mart did not have suitable and affordable health care for its employees. There was also another Wal-Mart only 4.2 miles from the site where they were trying to build this new Wal-Mart (127).  This is absurd to me because there is no need for two Wal-Marts to be within a 5 mile radius of each other.

                The site in St. Petersburg where the Wal-Mart was to be built was on a wetland that was home to many rare species of animals. The radio station WMNF made sure the listeners were aware of this. Andrew Stelezer also made sure the viewers knew the exact day, time and location of the public hearing where the vote of weather this Wal-Mart should be built or not. He also gave out the phone number so people could get more information about the hearing.  On the day of the hearing he gave out this same information in another report so that new listeners could have the chance to attend the hearing. All in all, the radio station was a huge contributing factor as to why so many people knew about this new wal-mart that was supposed to be built. It is amazing to me how the media can have such a huge effect on people both positive and negative. However, in this case the media had a positive effect on in its listeners because hundreds of people had turned up at the hearing to put their two cents in.

                The St. Petersburg Times daily newspaper was another source of media that helped in the defeat of Wal-Mart. They published several articles along with letters in response to those articles about the location of the new Wal-Mart. This newspaper however, left activists out of its reports unlike the radio station WMNF (131). It amazed me how only two sources of media were able to get the attention of the people living in St. Petersburg who were affected by the location of this Wal-Mart and get them to respond in a way that defeated the creation of the new Wal-Mart.

How would you use the media to inform people about how little women’s sports are covered in the media and get this to change?

Strikes and Medias Effects

Was it the thousands of workers that went on strike or was it the media’s coverage of the 2006 Houston Janitor strike that won the workers higher wages and better working hours? Of course a lot if the effort can be attributed to the workers who risked their jobs to strike for a wage increase from $5.15 and hour to $7.75 as well as an increase from 4 hours to 6 nightly, but a big influence to the success of the strike came from the media’s coverage of the whole event.
Media isn’t always fair; often certain media outlets are owned by the same company and thus express the same views. Williams show this by bringing up the multiple newspapers that covered the 2006 Houston strike. A few of the media outlets that covered the strike were; The Houston Chronicle, The Houston Press, Rumbo, and KPFT. Williams makes it apparent that the Houston Press “did not publish any articles about the strike, according to its online archives. The press was owned by a national media conglomerate” (116). Where as both Rumbo and KPFT were owned by Local Latinos that supported the cause. This draws a focus to the fact that media can be very biased toward whatever cause they support. You have the contrast between The Houston Press and Houston Chronicles who do not support and don’t even report the strike (Houston Press) with the local newspaper Rumbo and the local radio station KPFT who both support the strikers and help to get the struggles of the workers out into the public to draw attention to the cause. “Robert Ramos was the primary reporter who covered the strike for Rumbo. In a 2007 interview he said, ‘I believe that the media must show the realities of our world that usually go unnoticed” (116). For Ramos and the newspaper, this meant reporting the strikers and their fight for fair wages and longer hours, which is a very serious problem in our world.
For Williams, I’d like to ask is it really realistic to report the on goings of a strike in major newspapers? Are there not other causes just as worthy as the strikers cause that go unnoticed and don’t get publicity? I agree that media has a large impact on people, and how they view events, but how would you go about changing this so that newspapers are not one sided? It seems that although the Houston Chronicle was against the strike and Rumbo was very for it—there was no real middle ground. I’m curious to how you would go about creating a media source that just reported the facts, with no opinions attached. Is it even possible to create such a media source—cover issues from all angles? Or do you think viewers, listeners, and readers need to be told what to think about certain issues?