Area News

FCM Sponsors Event With Community of Reason

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Friends of Community Media is now a co-sponsor for the Oct. 29th session of Community of Reason. This program (2-4 PM CST) will feature Romary Daval, General Secretary of “Un Bout des Médias” (translates – a purpose for the media), speaking to us via Zoom from Paris.

“Un Bout des Médias” is roughly a French counterpart to the U.S. Freepress.net but their activism program seems to be getting more traction than the media reform movement in the US is getting. They actively raise funds for nonprofit journalism organizations giving journalists more power in editorial decisions than may be possible in the U.S. due to legal structures.

For information:

 

http://www.communityofreasonkc.org/

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What Happens in Kansas – Doesn’t Stay in Kansas – Threat to Journalism

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Article on 8/26/23 from the Washington Post about the police raid on the newspaper in Marion, Kansas.

Headline:  “Police raid – what really happened”

“In New York and Washington, word of a police raid on a small Midwestern newspaper caught the immediate attention of a cluster of organizations devoted to asserting First Amendment rights and promoting the safety of journalists around the globe.

“Over the years, these groups have stood up for reporters detained by police while covering stories or pressured by prosecutors to reveal their sources, they’ve gone to court to challenge government officials over access to public records, and they’ve raised concerns about an overt strain of antipathy toward the media increasingly displayed by some politicians and public officials since the dawn of the Trump era.

“Yet an actual raid by police represented a kind of government intrusion on media operations that none could remember seeing in this country.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/08/26/marion-county-newspaper-police-raid-what-really-happened/

“Seized But Not Silenced”.

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Marion County newspaper that was raided by police – someone had a motive


Article from Associated Press by Jim Salter 8/20/23

Headline:  “Court documents suggest reason for police raid of Kansas newspaper”

“The police chief who led the raid of a Kansas newspaper alleged in previously unreleased in court documents that a reporter either impersonated someone else or lied about her intentions when she obtained the driving records of a local business owner.

“But reporter Phyllis Zorn, Marion County Record Editor and Publisher Eric Meyer and the newspaper’s attorney said Sunday that no laws were broken when Zorn accessed a public state website for information on restaurant operator Kari Newell.”

https://www.aol.com/court-documents-suggests-reason-police-183901188.html

Support for Local Media Outlet Requested

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Local Journalism is difficult. From “Tony’s Kansas City” 5/20/23

https://www.tonyskansascity.com/2023/05/kansas-city-beacon-blog-bemoans.html

From an article in the independent Kansas City Beacon by Stephanie Campbell 5/19/23

https://thebeaconnews.org/stories/2023/05/19/independent-kansas-city-journalism/

Headline:  “Investing in local news to bridge divides, empower citizens and create lasting change in Kansas City”

“The future of journalism (lulz) is nothing more or less than begging rich people to pay big bucks for a digital mirror that merely offers slanted opinions & biased reports which satisfy the fickle sensibilities of our ruling elites.”

 

FCM Website Attacked by Bots.

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The Friends of Community Media website (ourfcm.org) was recently under an attack seemingly by DoS bots (dedicated denial of service), designed to overload the system.  This was done with fake bot email addresses.


Many of these were fake email addresses with an address that had the domain name appended to the email address as .ru – an extension representing Russia. The FCM website  required registration before viewing. Each of these fake emails became registered and started to fill up the FCM WordPress database.

This was a mistake and made the site vulnerable.

With this attack up to10 new registrations a day started occurring starting in January, 2023. These eventually mounted up to over 5,000 fake addresses which had to be manually deleted.

To respond, the admin of ourfcm.com stopped people requiring to be registered on the site. Also, a message was sent back to some of the phony emails that said, “Mumakhala ngati nyani akuphanguka” – an appropriate phrase in another language. Responses to the FCM message were kicked back as not being real email addresses.

Unfortunately many sites like this one, are subject to attack by the deniers of free information-flow that can challenge authoritarians and dictators.

Friends of Community Media Annual Meeting

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Greetings:

      April 8, 2-4 PM, is the time for the 2023 annual meeting for Friends of Community Media.  This will be a hybrid event followed by a pot luck in the Oak Room of Oak Hall, 4550 Warwick Blvd, KCMO 64111.  Zoom credentials appear below.

      People who wish to attend in person are asked to RSVP, so I can notify the Oak Hall reception staff of whom to admit.

      Help us plan a series of events featuring local media leaders discussing media reform to improve democracy.

* McChesney recommends distributing 0.15% of GDP (roughly $100 per person per year) to local new organizations via local elections.

* This is comparable to the US Postal Service Act of 1792, which helped catapult the US into its leadership position in the world today.

* Most cities could fund this by matching what they spend for accounting, advertising, media and public relations.       Dues are $10 per year.  FCM members who have not contributed at least

$10 since January of this year can pay in person or via the PayPal “Donate” button on the “Donate” page: “https://ourfcm.org/donate/“.

      The key agenda item will be to elect four people for 2-year terms on the Board.  The terms of Spencer Graves, Lynn Norris, and Richard Thompson end with this meeting.  Susan Sarachek was on our board but is no longer with us.  (Tom Crane, Craig Lubow, and Greg Swartz were elected to 2-year terms last year.  Their terms will expire with the 2024 annual meeting.) 

Other agenda items will include a proposed series of public events with local media leaders, a fund raiser at Hamburger Mary’s scheduled for April 29 (Saturday), Grassroots Radio Conference,

Also considered will be the past, future, and management of this website.  A more detailed agenda will be distributed as we get closer.

Hope to see you then.      Spencer Graves, President, Friends of Community Media. 408-655-4567