Santa Cruz Media Summit: Jan. 25-27 at UC Convention Center

Santa Cruz Media Strategy Summit

January 25th - 27th, 2008

Publicizing Truths with Consequence
- Independent Media Power vs. the Corporate Coup

Confronting Corporate Control of Our Countries, Cultures and Consciousness

Web Site for this Event: http://www.truthemergency.us

We the undersigned urgently invite the most concerned members of the independent media community (and your brightest friends) to join us in Santa Cruz to reinvent the "free press" in America and resuscitate courageous journalism as a democracy restoring force.

Larisa Alexandrovna, Ed Asner, David Altheide, John Parry Barlow, Dennis Bernstein, Khalil Bendib, Kristina Borjesson, David Cobb, Peter B Collins, Katherine Dodds, Frank Dorrel, Ronnie Dugger, Bonnie Faulkner, Mike Ferner, Robert Fitrakis, Brad Friedman, Richard Greene, David Ray Griffin, Kyle Hence, Naomi Klein, Kalle Lasn, David Lindorff, Janice Mathews, David Mathison, Jason McKain, Ray McGovern, Cynthia McKinney, Kelly Omeara, Peter Phillips , Coleen Rowley, Bryan Sacks, Danny Schechter, John Scott, Barbara Trent, Sarah Ruth van Gelder, Tracy Van Slyke, Elizabeth de la Vega, Aldo Vidali , et al.


PURPOSE
A collaborative gathering of media veterans, scholars, activists & whistleblowers to assess and deploy our most powerful tools and messages to rectify history, awaken a critical mass, and effectively expose the accelerating corporate coup d'état.

VISION
Truth movements that arise after pivotal events like electoral fraud, 9/11, key assassinations and false flag ops can/should become more than forensic inquiries into a single heinous crime. They can also expose wider patterns of illicit control, deception and propaganda, and use their revelations to rouse entire societies to reject a malignant status quo.

Consequently, this is not a media conference to dissect or condemn the conglomerates, demand reforms, or even celebrate the increasing vigor of independent journalism. It is intended as a strategy session for already active and influential players to coordinate their most revealing messages, forge tactical alliances, introduce new distribution technologies, and mutually enhance each other's strongest work.

All participants will play an active role in nominal group processes over the weekend that will prioritize sources, analysis methods, and distribution models for trustworthy news dedicated to renewing activism and democracy in America.

QUESTIONS IN NEED OF FAST ANSWERS
· · What role can and should the independent media be playing in our crisis-driven age
- and how can we collaborate to maximize its force?
· · What master narratives should we be focusing on
- how can we best communicate both unspeakable knowledge and emboldening hope?
· · What are the most promising tools and models out there for reporting, distributing, and maximizing
the impact of deeply revelatory news?
· · What are the most credible transformative goals we as a community can target in the political circus of 2008?
· · How can we develop a collaborative infrastructure to supplant the corporate media and strengthen all our work?
· How can we support each other? How can we support ourselves?

Short briefings will be offered on these topics by experts in each field, but all participants are responsible for the outcome because we still don't have the answers we need.

TARGET PARTICIPANTS
Leading media activists, A/V producers, authors, bloggers, journalists, scholars, whistleblowers, celebrities, publishers, broadcasters and funding angels.

GOALS
Ø Gather key media constituencies needed to inject trans-formative truths into 2008 political news and electoral debate ;
Ø Honor brave audacious "truth war veterans" (casualties & survivors) and learn from their experiences.
Ø Devise coherent decentralized models for distribution of suppressed news, synergistic truth-telling, and collaborative strategies to popularize deeper historical narratives.
Ø Strategize collective action that establishes independent news media as a realistic and viable substitute for corporate news, and diminishes the domination of Fox, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, and the mainstream newswires

Bring your best ideas, an open mind, and an urgent desire for change. In sum, we hope to discover in this moment of Constitutional crisis, ecological peril and widening war, if a roomful of top investigative journalists, whistleblowers and Indy-media all-stars can transform the way Americans perceive and defend their world.

-----------------------------


Location:
University Inn & Conference Center
611 Ocean Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Phone: 831-426-7100
Toll Free: 1-866-827-2466
Registration cost: $50
Room rates: Single occupancy: $90; Double: $45: Triple: $30 (plus 10% tax)
Website:
http://www.truthemergency.us

Santa Cruz is located on California's Monterey Bay – 75 miles south of San Francisco, 45 miles north of Monterey
and Carmel, and just over the coastal mountains from Silicon Valley and the San Jose International Airport.
Detailed maps available here !


Contact Co-Organizers:
Janice Matthew - 816-268-3386
Peter Phillips - 707-664-2588 - phillipp [at] sonoma.edu

Sponsored by
Project Censored : http://www.projectcensored.org , Be the Media : bethemedia.org
and 9/11 Truth.org : http://www.911truth.org