Email sent. Brad Nominated!

undoubtedly bloggers should be represented ... unless they only want corporations and the admin to be represented ... and care none for the people.

Message sent.
I would like to suggest you contact Brad Friedman to speak at your media conference. He is among the best know of the Progressive Bloggers and has recently started a new radio show appropriately titled the Brad Show. He can be reached at the www.bradblog.com

FWIW my email:

"Greetings,

sincerely,
[name]"

sent my email:

A "National Media Reform Conference" with no
bloggers??
Surely you jest.
Who broke the Clint Curtis/Tom Feeney story? Brad
Friedman, of bradblog.com!
Who outed Jeff Gannon/Guckert? Bloggers!

Blogs are to 'mainstream media' what a fax is to a
quill pen!
what a filet mignon is to a rice cake!
what John Conyers is to Tom Delay!!!

There are other great bloggers, but Brad Friedman must CERTAINLY be invited. In my humble opinion.

no offense to rice cakes or quill pens.

Joan #5 well said!

Amazing, very cool. Thanks for posting.

KIRA
(and anyone else who hasn't heard and is interested)

You are a great Bradblogger and I would like you to be on the "planning committee" for the First Annual Brad Blog Blogathon. If you want to know what it's all about, please e-mail me at the link provided by clicking on my name at the top of this post.

I've contributed to FreePress, and am convinced that they're a sincere bunch who do want to reform the media. But their approach to this convention was very corporate, very celebrity-oriented, and restrained in their indignation toward big media. Sort of like John Kerry's campaign for president.

They first solicited me for this St. Louis convention about three months ago. If I signed up I would be privileged to hear so-and-so divulge his or her theory on this or that. I could also buy someone else's book and discover divine truth. The whole idea was to suggest I would be missing the opportunity of a lifetime if I failed to invest in this chance to educate myself about the media...AND LEARN WHAT THEY PLAN TO DO TO IMPROVE THEMSELVES.

Nowhere in any of the promotion was there a sense that the people in attendance MIGHT POSSIBLY BE BETTER QUALIFIED TO SPEAK THAN THE BIG NAMES THEY WOULD BE LISTENING TO (Brad Friedman, for example). No bloggers, no ordinary citizens, no harsh media critics. Very corporate.

Presumably, that's because the promoters needed funding, and the companies paying the bill care more about image than reform. Did Coca-Cola, IBM, or Citicorp ever sponsor a citizens' revolt against anything?

RLM #10 That gives me the clear picture.

It seems that Coca-Cola et al. think they are preserving the status quo, however, the actual status quo includes the blogosphere big time.

They are untrue to their own mantra!

Absolutely. It would take an entire blog to list the ways Coca-Cola defiles the concept of a good corporate citizen...but in a nutshell, they involve fraudulent accounting practices, blatant efforts to deny shelf space to competing products on store shelves, selling of ultra-high-caffeine sodas to the teenage market, forcing their way into schools to sell Coke to kids, lying about cyclamates (my wife, a Diet Coke addict, died of cancer at age 56), and buying foreign operations to destroy competition.

That's why I cited them first. Citicorp is no better, and IBM only marginally so. Ralph Nader is 100% right in his criticisms of Fortune 500 companies, and how they monopolize major-party politics and the media. In fact, they ARE THE MEDIA, in that every major newspaper and TV network is a corporate oligarchy or part of one.

The Democrats decided "If we can't beat 'em, we'll join 'em." Their 2004 campaign was focused not on the public interest, but on fundraising. Last night I got my fourth call in the last ten days from "Friends of John Kerry" (really, a call center manned by people who never met him). They want $$$$$$$$. That's all they care about. $$$$$$$$. Political issues are the carrot to keep you on the phone, but the ultimate goal is $$$$$$$$. I told the woman, "I will not discuss politics with you until John Kerry addresses the issue of election fraud. Goodbye."

DONE Brad.

Greetings,
As a media major, I am disheartened to learn that you have not included any reputable bloggers at your conference. In light of the following article, I request that you allow at your conference, insight from people who are reporting news without having a corporate dollar as a bottom line.

My suggestions; Daily Kos, Brad Blog, Raw Story, and the America Blog

The ONLY way we have any alternate news is surfing the net, and from these American bloggers. Bloggers ARE media.

Thank you.
JPentz

In other media-related items, Robert Parry's newest column suggests that the growth of progressive radio may have something to do with the Mystery of the Democrats' New Spine.

Love 'ya Brad. Email sent.

Hi, Winter #14. Of course, there are people who who pretend to be pro-Democrat/anti-Bush, who are in fact supporters of Bush policies. These are the anti-truth people, who want to silence any opposition to right-wing propaganda, and wouldn't want any competiting "progressive" radio shows on the air.

The Democratic party has been quite useless...they are, in effect, Republicans. If the Black Caucus has enough support, in numbers, from the American people, now might be the right time to break away from the D. Party and become an independent party. Jim Jeffords of Vermont is one of my great heros. It felt wonderful when he got up, walked away from the R's at that crucial moment, and became an independent...he's a man of principle...a hero.

Sent my email:

You have chosen some great people to speak at the conference, however there are no representatives from the Blogosphere on your program. Surely you must know this is a mistake.

Brad Friedman of Bradblog.com is one of the frontrunners in breaking important stories our defective media continues to shove under the carpet in lieu of White House propaganda or sleazy "infotainment."

For a conference on Media Reform to ignore journalists from the Blogosphere is almost unforgivable. Please remember the top stories that have been broken in recent months are by bloggers and in my opinion, Brad Friedman as one of the founders of Velvet Revolution is one of the most important to include.

Thanks for listening!