Friends of Community Media – Assist citizen participation in the media

Biographical Sketch, Craig Aaron

January 20, 2022 by enarcmot

Craig Aaron of freepress.net will make a presentation sponsored by All-Souls and Friends of Community Media on February 6th at 10 AM via Zoom. Credentials will follow in a future post. Here is his biographical sketch.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH – CRAIG AARON

Craig Aaron, who will be speaking on a Kansas City Zoom presentation February 6^th at 6:00 PM CST sponsored by Friends of Community Media and the All-Souls Forum, has been a leader in the efforts to improve democracy in media for many years.

For more than 15 years since 2011, with his leadership with Free Press and Free Press Action, he has led national campaigns to safeguard net neutrality, stop media consolidation, oppose unchecked surveillance, defend community media, and support quality journalism. In his work in Washington he speaks often to policymakers on media and technology issues.

A prolific author, he has written for The Columbia Journalism Review, The Daily Beast, The Guardian, Huffington Post, MSNBC, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Politico, The Progressive, The Seattle Times, Slate and many other news outlets. Craig was also a yearlong fellow from 2018-19 at the Rockwood Leadership Institute and sits on the advisory board of the Media, Inequality, and Change Center.

Before joining Free Press, he was an investigative reporter for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch and managing editor of In These Times Magazine. He is the editor of two books, Appeal to Reason: 25 Years of In These Times; and Changing Media: Public Interest Policies for the Digital Age. Mr. Aaron is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism of Northwestern University.

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Craig Aaron of FreePress.net to Host an FCM Program With All-Souls on Zoom on 2/6/21 in Kansas City

January 19, 2022January 17, 2022 by enarcmot

INFORMATION ON HOW TO ATTEND THIS EVENT WILL FOLLOW SOON.

NATIONAL MEDIA REFORM ADVOCATE TO MAKE APPEARANCE

AT KANSAS CITY ALL-SOULS FORUM

On February 6^th,2022, at 10 AM CST, national media reformer, Craig Aaron, will make a presentation at the All-Souls Forum sponsored by the Friends of Community Media, a non-profit group. The event will be accessible to the public.

The national trend of shrinking local media and journalism coverage as in many newspapers like the Kansas City Star, disturbs Craig Aaron of FreePress.net, who said that this has severe consequences for our concept of democracy.

A major organizer of National Media Reform Conferences held in Memphis, Denver, St. Louis, Boston, and Minneapolis, Aaron brought together many icons of national media including Phil Donahue, Dan Rather, Robert McChesney, Jane Fonda, and FCC administrators to make the case for a more accurate and responsive media.

Results from these events were crowned after a ten-year effort to pass legislation that created hundreds of new local radio stations in our communities, the creation of media reform groups across the nation, efforts to encourage local media outlets, and the importance to the public of net-neutality.

The February presentation on February 6^th will outline why citizens should be alarmed at how the media are changing, the control by fewer and fewer corporations, and the decreasing coverage of events in local communities both rural and urban. The event will also show how citizens can take action to make the media more responsive to local and national needs.

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