....LMB: "The Kids Are Alright"....

June 10, 2004

Had an interesting experience yesterday. I was invited to speak at Ms. Bush's (no relation) journalism class at Josh Marshall High School (apparently the set for several John Hughes movies over the years). I'd like to say that they wanted me as a guest speaker for my expertise in news and media, but I wasn't. I was there so the students could get in some journalistic interview target practice. The teacher likes having folks from all walks of life come in for these sessions, hopefully I didn't bore anybody.

The kids had researched me, so there were a lot of references to stuff I've written on the site, and some of my other projects, which was a bit of a trip. The first question was about what impact I thought George Tenet's resignation would have on the presidential election ("none"), and veered around from writing to protest to media to civil rights. A number of kids were very interested in immigration issues, but I confess to ignorance in that area, so my answers probably let them down. But overall, I think I did pretty well, even synthesizing a few new concepts on the fly, and managing to insert a few subversive ideas here and there. And the students either appreciated me coming in, or were super courteous. I apologize to the fellow who tried to talk to me at the end but was interrupted repeatedly by like 15 people who wanted to shake my hand and say goodbye.

But the main reason I'm writing this is that there is something I wish I'd said while there, and some of those students might come back here and see it:

Student folks: if any of you want to be DJs or news reporters for Kill Radio, you are welcome to join us. The studio's not that far from your school, over by Beverly and Vermont. And sometimes, we're rebroadcast in LA at 104.7FM. Write me if you're interested in KR.

And to finish off my high school subversion, I'll have to recommend that y'all read Days of War, Nights of Love as an rough, elegant little work on dissent, free thinking and free living, with lots of art, heart and anger.

Posted by Jake at 01:12 PM | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Thanks for coming to my class. Its cool that you took time off to talk to my class. I forgot that question I was gonna ask you before everyone started shaking your hand. Well it was cool talking to you and play my band on your radio station, we're good ole 77 punk. We're bringing back the punk scene in Hollywood/Silver Lake. -----Irwing.

Posted by: Irwing at June 19, 2004 11:12 PM

Thanks for coming to my class. Its cool that you took time off to talk to my class. I forgot that question I was gonna ask you before everyone started shaking your hand. Well it was cool talking to you and play my band on your radio station, we're good ole 77 punk. We're bringing back the punk scene in Hollywood and Silver Lake. -----Irwing.

Posted by: Irwing at June 19, 2004 11:13 PM

Thanks for coming to my class. Its cool that you took time off to talk to my class. I forgot that question I was gonna ask you before everyone started shaking your hand. Well it was cool talking to you and play my band on your radio station, we're good ole 77 punk. We're bringing back the punk scene in Hollywood and Silver Lake. -----Irwing.

Posted by: Irwing at June 19, 2004 11:13 PM

hey thanks for coming to our class u been an enlightening for most of us. and hope u could come back sometime

Posted by: John at June 24, 2004 09:38 PM
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Lying Media Bastards is both a radio show and website. The show airs Mondays 2-4pm PST on KillRadio.org, and couples excellent music with angry news commentary. And the website, well, you're looking at it.

Both projects focus on our media-marinated world, political lies, corporate tyranny, and the folks fighting the good fight against these monsters.

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contact: jake+at+lyingmediabastards.com

Media News

November 16, 2004

Tales of Media Woe

Senate May Ram Copyright Bill- one of the most depressing stories of the day that didn't involve death or bombs. It's the music and movie industries' wet dream. It criminalizes peer-to-peer software makers, allows the government to file civil lawsuits on behalf of these media industries, and eliminates fair use. Fair use is the idea that I can use a snippet of a copyrighted work for educational, political, or satirical purposes, without getting permission from the copyright-holder first.

And most tellingly, the bill legalizes technology that would automatically skip over "obejctionable content" (i.e. sex and violence) in a DVD, but bans devices that would automatically skip over commericals. This is a blatant, blatant, blatant gift to the movie industry. Fuck the movie industry, fuck the music industry, fuck the Senate.

Music industry aims to send in radio cops- the recording industry says that you're not allowed to record songs off the radio, be it real radio or internet radio. And now they're working on preventing you from recording songs off internet radio through a mixture of law and technological repression (although I imagine their techno-fixes will get hacked pretty quickly).

The shocking truth about the FCC: Censorship by the tyranny of the few- blogger Jeff Jarvis discovers that the recent $1.2 million FCC fine against a sex scene in Fox's "Married By America" TV show was not levied because hundreds of people wrote the FCC and complained. It was not because 159 people wrote in and complained (which is the FCC's current rationale). No, thanks to Jarvis' FOIA request, we find that only 23 people (of the show's several million viewers) wrote in and complained. On top of that, he finds that 21 of those letters were just copy-and-paste email jobs that some people attached their names to. Jarvis then spins this a bit by saying that "only 3" people actually wrote letters to the FCC, which is misleading but technically true. So somewhere between 3 and 23 angry people can determine what you can't see on television. Good to know.

Reuters Union Considers Striking Over Layoffs- will a strike by such a major newswire service impact the rest of the world's media?

Pentagon Starts Work On War Internet- the US military is talking about the creation of a global, wireless, satellite-aided computer network for use in battle. I think I saw a movie about this once...

Conservative host returns to the air after week suspension for using racial slur- Houston radio talk show host (and somtime Rush Limbaugh substitute) Mark Belling referred to Mexican-Americans as "wetbacks" on his show. He was suspended for a couple of weeks, and then submitted a written apology for the racial slur to a local newspaper. But he seems to be using the slur and its surrounding controversy to boost his conservative cred with his listeners.

Stay Tuned for Nudes- Cleveland TV news anchor Sharon Reed aired a story about artist Spencer Tunick, who uses large numbers of naked volunteers in his installations and photographs. The news report will be unique in that it will not blur or black-out the usual naughty bits. The story will air late at night, when it's allegedly okay with the FCC if you broadcast "indecent" material. The author of this article doesn't seem to notice that Reed first claims that this report is a publicity stunt, but then claims it's a protest against FCC repression. I'd like to think it's the latter, but I'm not that much of a sucker.

Posted by Jake at 04:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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