Via our local chapter, Films For Action Eugene aims to provide a definitive online space where people can find out what's happening in the Eugene social change community. In these times of great change, we believe the role of media must expand - that there is a vitally underserved need for a local news and event hub that is dedicated to representing the voices of the people and groups that...
Films For Action is proud to present a screening of ‘The Economics of Happiness’, a documentary about the worldwide movement for localization.Both hard-hitting and inspiring, the film demonstrates that millions of people across the world are already engaged in building a better world – that small scale initiatives are happening on a large scale. The film shows that countless...
A dangerous thing can occur when you start learning about what's really going on in the world. The problems start to seem so complex, and you're just one person, doubts begin to creep in. You sincerely want to help change the world, but from all this knowledge you start to believe that the world is too out of control and too big to change, so you end up not doing anything.What aspiring...
So, I was trying to get my friend to read a recent issue of Adbusters magazine."You've got to read this!" I said.
The most memorable reporting I've encountered on the conflict in Iraq was delivered in the form of confetti exploding out of a cardboard tube. I had just begun working at the MIT Media Lab in March 2006 when Alyssa Wright, a lab student, got me to participate in a project called "Cherry Blossoms." I strapped on a backpack with a pair of vertical tubes sticking out of the top; they were...
I came across an article a few days ago written by John Hockenberry, an award-winning journalist who once worked for NBC’s Dateline and is now a fellow at MIT’s Media Lab. Titled “You Don’t Understand Our Audience”: What I learned about network television at Dateline NBC, this article is a relentless, burning indictment of everything that’s wrong with the...
Try as they might, Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock can only make so many flicks. If it seems like those are the only two documentary filmmakers who stir the pot on a regular basis, perhaps it’s time to give Films For Action a look.Lawrence resident Tim Hjersted fired up FFA four years ago as a forum to present activist-minded films to local audiences. FFA’s website (filmsforaction.org) has...
The United States is ranked 36th in the world in terms of press freedom, up from 48th last year, according to a report released Wednesday by Reporters Sans Frontieres.The US is tied with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cape Verde, South Africa, Spain, and Taiwan in the 36th spot. Iceland, Luxembourg, and Norway are tied for first. Iran, China, Vietnam, Cuba, and North Korea are all featured among the ten...
Media Accountability Day, October 1, marked the annual release of the news stories that were not covered by the corporate-mainstream media in the US. The list, just announced by Project Censored at Sonoma State University in California, includes the twenty-five most important uncovered news stories of the year selected by over 200 academics.
It’s official. The Federal Communications Commission published its order today lowering the hammer on Comcast for derailing Internet users’ Web access and then pretending that the cable giant was doing nothing wrong.
Two cups of McDonald’s iced coffee (BUY!) sit on a Fox TV news desk, a punch-you-in-the-face product placement (BUY!) to chase down your morning news. The funny thing is, the coffee is not actually real. The Las Vegas Sun comments on a growing trend in news stations across the country.
The decline of newspapers is not about the replacement of the antiquated technology of news print with the lightning speed of the Internet. It does not signal an inevitable and salutary change. It is not a form of progress. The decline of newspapers is about the rise of the corporate state, the loss of civic and public responsibility on the part of much of our entrepreneurial class and the...
If we could, we’d stick their photos up in a national “Nauseam.” They’re the media corporations, CEOs and politicians who top this year’s “Media Hall of Shame,” and their antics over the past year make us sick. Free Press unveiled the top contenders of the Hall of Shame on June 7 in Minneapolis during the National Conference for Media Reform. Media giants Viacom, AT&T, Comcast and Verizon elbowed...
After airing a five-minute segment on the recent controversy surrounding racy photos of a teenage Disney star, longtime Nightline anchor Cynthia McFadden left the viewing audience with these words to ponder: “Just another distraction to keep our minds away from the things that really matter.” With grim resignation, McFadden did her best to project the image of a grizzled...
Like most Americans in their mid-twenties, I am a child of the computer age. That I did not immediately jump on the Facebook wagon is not due to an innate dislike of technology or an irrational fear of the web, but merely because I graduated from college before Facebook became a university fad. I was, like an ever-decreasing number of people, happily oblivious to this social networking website...
Scientists ordered to lie by Bush administration; Pentagon suspends its illegal retired military analyst program; Rumsfeld's propaganda; Federal Elections Commission paralyzed; Seattle now U.S. leader in Green building + more.
This year, American voters will select a new President, 535 House Representatives, and 35 Senators. The winners will determine the duration of the war in Iraq, the fate of universal health care coverage and policies on issues from climate change to immigration, torture to fair trade. Citizens are not the only ones with stakes in the outcome. The Big Media companies that provide most Americans...
After having their plans rejected once by British planning institutions, a small group of families has been granted permission to build a small ecovillage in the Welsh countryside. The tiny village, to be called Lammas, is planned to cover a 74 acre site of pasture and woodland.
The New York Times has exposed a secret Pentagon campaign to infiltrate the media with pro-war propaganda.The scheme reaches all the way to the Bush White House, where top officials recruited dozens of "military analysts" to spread favorable views of the war via the news. Many of these propaganda pundits didn't reveal that they were working from Pentagon scripts or lobbying for companies seeking...
Well if you've been a regular visitor to this website or many of our film screenings, the fact that traditional journalism *is* out of touch with reality... isn't exactly news. However, it is encouraging to see that a majority of American's are similarly discontent with the state of our media today, and the field is ripe for a mass movement to reform the news industry in this country. Here are a...