"Media Regime Change" with McChesney, Nichols, Mander and Chideya

Join Media Alliance for an evening with
Bob McChesney, John Nichols and Jerry Mander:

"Media Regime Change - Obstacles & Opportunities"

* Moderated by Farai Chideya, host of “It’s Your Call” on KALW 91.7 fm / Information Radio *

Wednesday, May 5, 7PM
Wheeler Hall, UC Berkeley

Join Media Alliance in welcoming Robert McChesney - author of the new book The Problem of the Media - for a discussion of the problems and possibilities of a new media system. McChesney will be joined by John Nichols, D.C. correspondent for The Nation magazine, and Jerry Mander, the president of the International Forum on Globalization. Award winning journalist Farai Chideya, host of the KALW's (91.7FM) locally produced, nationally syndicated program "It's Your Call" will moderate the discussion.

Key topics of the evening will include the many ways citizens can intervene to make this a vastly superior media system, and the role of corporate and alternative media in shaping the 2004 electoral season.

When: Wednesday May 5, 7PM
Where: Wheeler Hall, UC Berkeley
Tickets: $7 General Public / $5 Media Alliance members & students / First 100 students FREE w/ student ID.

Advance tickets on-line at http://www.media-alliance.org , or by calling 415.546.6334, x300.

Co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, the International Forum on Globalization, New College Media Studies MA Program, and supported by KPFA Radio, 94.1FM.

* * *

Farai Chideya is a multi-media journalist and the host of “It’s Your Call” on San Francisco's KALW 91.7 FM/Information Radio. In conjunction with San Francisco State University, she is also re-launching PopandPolitics, an online journal of news and opinion founded in 1995. Chideya is a former correspondent for ABC News and a commentator to CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and BET and has contributed stories to The New York Times, Time, Spin, Vibe, O, Mademoiselle and Essence. Her political coverage has ranged from labor issues to following the President as a pool reporter on Air Force One. Chideya's new book, Trust: Reaching the 100 Million Missing Voters (Soft Skull, 2004), shows why half of Americans are cut out of the political system--and what we can do about it. Chideya's stereotype-shattering 1995 book, Don't Believe the Hype: Fighting Cultural Misinformation About African-Americans (Plume Penguin) is now in its eighth printing.

Robert W. McChesney is a Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and author or editor of several books, including the award-winning Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy: The Battle for the Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928-1935, Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy, and, with Edward S. Herman, The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism. McChesney's most recent books are multiple award-winning Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times and, with John Nichols, Our Media, Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media. His work concentrates on the history and political economy of communication, emphasizing the role media play in democratic and capitalist societies. McChesney also cofounded Free Press, on the web at http://www.mediareform.net

John Nichols, The Nation's Washington correspondent, has covered progressive politics and activism in the United States and abroad for more than a decade. He is currently the editor of the editorial page of Madison, Wisconsin's Capital Times. Nichols is the author of two books: It's the Media, Stupid and Jews for Buchanan.

Jerry Mander the President of the International Forum on Globalization (IFG) which is an alliance of 60 organizations in 20 countries doing public education and campaigns on global economic issues. He is also the program director for the Foundation for Deep Ecology, and is a senior fellow at Public Media Center, a non-profit advertising company working only for environmental and social causes. His books include Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1977), In the Absence of the Sacred (1991), and The Case Against the Global Economy And For a Turn Toward the Local, co-edited with Edward Goldsmith (1996). Jerry Mander is President of the International Forum on Globalization, an alliance of 60 organizations in 20 countries doing public education and campaigns on global economic issues.

Praise for The Problem of the Media:
"If Thomas Paine were around, he would have written this book."
- Bill Moyers on McChesney’s The Problem of the Media

"Robert McChesney, in The Problem of the Media, follows in the great tradition of Upton Sinclair, George Seldes, I.F. Stone, and Ben Bagdikian."
—Howard Zinn

"Bob McChesney continues to smoke the media barons out of their holes with his latest bombshell, The Problem of the Media."
—Amy Goodman

"In this beautifully written and meticulously researched work, McChesney uses our history to show us what's wrong with the present."
—Lawrence Lessig