I attended this past January the third National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis. The conference is organized by Free Press, a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Through education, organizing and advocacy, Free Press promotes diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media, and universal access to communications.

More than 2,500 attended the four-day long gathering. Another 1,000 participated online. Since this conference followed the mid-term electoral victories, there was a different energy among the attendees as compared to the '06 Conference, who like many progressive activists felt the wind was changing direction.

Media reform and civil rights issues intersect today like they've never done before. The Right's mastery of media manipulation and the continuing consolidation of media ownership are just two issues that threaten our democracy. I was also there to fuel my thinking on EJS's Race, Media and Popular Culture program.

The first thing I do when I arrive at a conference is roam the site and connect with people I know. At this particular event, I ran into a bunch of familiar faces: Ivan Roman and Joe Torres of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (Joe is actually now working for Free Press); Jen Soriano of the Youth Media Council; Ludovic Blain; Lark Corbeil of Public News Service; Tracy Van Slyke and Joel Bleifuss of In These Times magazine; and Syracuse law professor LaVonda Reed-Huff (in the cab on the way over).

I then caught some of Rev. Jesse Jackson's keynote. He spoke about Dr. King and how the historic "I have a dream" speech has been too often reduced to that quote. But, said Jackson, "His speech was about broken promises." About how Lincoln promised emancipation. About how Congress promised civil rights through the 14th Amendment. About how African Americans and other people of color still don't have the federal right to vote, but that voting rights is a states rights issue.

Rev. Jackson's talk was particularly strong on tying civil rights issues with media reform issues. At the end of the first day, I attended a terrific reception co-sponsored by the Institute for Public Accuracy, Progressive Communicators Network, Project Think Different, Public News Service, and The Praxis Project. The short program during the reception focused on "Powerful Results from the Grassroots."

I then joined Laura Efurd and Ruth Williams of the Community Technology Foundation of California at dinner. Laura is a native of Hawai'i like me. Her father was the pastor at the Baptist church I attended as a little kid.

At the conference evening event, I ran into Mark Cooper, research director, of the Consumer Federation of America. Mark was one of the speakers at our 2005 national conference at UCLA, which focused on corporations and social justcie. Mark shared with me his successful efforts to extract a Net Neutrality commitment from AT&T in the company's merger with Bell South.

Two of the sessions on the second day were particularly interesting.

Panelists of a session on community wireless Internet discussed the developments in municipal and community Internet and the use of the public airwaves for wireless broadband. The session content examined the technologies, politics and policies involved, both locally and nationally, in increasing access to and ownership of affordable, high-speed Internet -- particularly among underserved communities.

The presentation by Sascha Meinrath of the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network was illustrative in that he focused on how the infrastructure and the telecom policies developed by carriers and cable companies work to marginalize communities of color and poor communities.

"Bubbling Up: MySpace, YouTube, Social Networking and Political Change" was a session about how these and other similar services are making an impact in online activism.

Moderated by nonprofit entrepreneur Allison Fine, the panelists included James Rucker, of ColorofChange.org, Dina Kaplan of BlipTV and Joan "McJoan" McCarter of DailyKos.

Rucker pointed out that despite the widespread popularity of YouTube, there's no easy way to tell a story around the video and to anchor the content as information presented by a reputable source. That's why in part, he says, people still turn to sources like CNN, not only because stories are told by personalities people "trust," but also that news is filtered for them.

Kaplan shared some success stories of videoblogging on blip.tv., including Alive in Baghdad (ongoing video reports that empower Iraqis to share their stories with the world through their own words, rather than through the canned, soundbite-driven news packages), John Edwards sharing his presidential campaign launch through Rocketboom, and presidential candidate Tom Vilsack's videoblog.

Kaplan also described how easy it was for the average Net user to create video content: "Just shoot a video on your phone, upload it and you're a citizen journalist." I think that is an example of how the citizen journalist concept has been oversimplified. Dan Gillmor in this audioblog reveals that the distinction between the mainstream journalist and the citizen journalist was blurring.

The conference deserves high marks for the content. But the best aspect of the gathering was simply the fact that it attracted such a broad range of activists, journalists and media professionals and gave us an opportunity to network and build coalitions.