Essential to understanding how the commercial media creates meaning is an analysis of what information is considered important: what information is considered relevant to the greatest number of viewers—in short, what is considered news.

2006 Year in Review and Looking Ahead to 2007

2006 was to be the year of major telecommunications deregulation, and for citizens in Indiana, the push from the Baby Bells to ease their entry into the video services market quickly became reality. It was also the year that we witnessed the largest telecom merger in history with the union of AT&T and BellSouth.

Bill Moyers

Held the weekend before Martin Luther King Day in Memphis, the city where Dr. King’s life was ended by an assassin’s bullet, the underlying theme of the third National Conference on Media Reform harkened to the struggles of the Civil Rights Era. Conference speakers and workshops focused on media justice and the plight of minorities of race, of gender, of economic class, and of media access.

Download the February/March 2007 issue of the Public Access of Indianapolis newsletter, The Right of Way.  The feature article is "Prominent Speakers Draw Inspiration from Civil Rights Movement at Media Reform Conference," by Kathleen Dobie. Other articles include an analysis of WISH-TV's evening news; "Radio Payola: A Youth Perspective;" a profile of new Cable Franchise Board member, Lara Beck; Video Art at the IMA; and an FCC update. (Adobe Reader required.) 

 The November/December feature articles are "FAIR: NewsHour Fails Public Broadcasting Mission," "Reviewing My Daily Constitution: Indianapolis,"and an editorial, "Where is Reality?" Download the full November/ December 2006 issue of The Right of Way. (Adobe Acrobat Reader required.) 

Sarah Chayes is an unconventional woman. Educated at Harvard, she was a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco, and a journalist for National Public Radio (NPR) in Paris, the Balkans, and Afghanistan during the US invasion after 9/11.

Most foreign journalists covering the conflict stayed with their colleagues in hotels; Chayes stayed with an Afghan family, learning their culture and gaining an understanding of the drives and fears born of tradition, necessity and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused by generations of violence and opposition to foreign occupation.