[Imc] media d-day

[Paul Riismandel]

Adbusters is promoting this campaign 
(http://adbusters.org/magazine/38/d-day.html):

Media D-Day
PARTY IN THE MEDIA BLIND SPOT
It is 10:23 a.m. on October 19, 2001, and a TV editor pulls another press 
release off the wire. What's this? "Media Democracy Day." A teach-in is 
planned, a debate (ho-hum) - but wait-just-a-New-York-minute. There's also 
a protest newspaper being illegally dropped in to the vending boxes of the 
local daily. And two dozen people angry about media mergers plan to risk 
arrest by locking themselves to the front doors . . . of a certain TV 
station . . . today, at 10:30 . . .
This is the beauty of Media Democracy Day, an international brainstorm 
launched this year by Canadian activists: it's a media event that puts the 
media's feet to the fire. So who will cover it? And how?
For too long, activists have been the trained tiger in the mass-media 
circus. Told that only the media-savvy make the primetime, we fine-tune our 
performances and amp up our stunts; in return, we get a few column-inches 
of ink or a glimpse of our banners on the evening news. Meanwhile, the 
gatekeepers let slide a tidal wave of entertainment, advertisement, 
jingles, journalism and pop analysis that props up consumerism, boosts the 
"progress" economy, cheerleads corporate culture, cranks up the spectacle, 
and never fails to remind us that oil company CEOs care about the 
environment, too.
The mainstream media has rested on its mythical claim "to comfort the 
afflicted and afflict the comfortable." But it is the comfortable, while 
the list of the afflicted includes every bench-warmer in consumer 
democracy's elimination dance: all those troubled by media convergence; any 
reporter who believes in "change from the inside"; advocates of independent 
and public journalism; all small presses; every subvertiser; all those with 
media-violence fatigue; anyone who believes airwaves and bandwidth are a 
public trust; every activist demanding "the right to communicate"; and each 
man, woman and child who can't find a damn thing worth watching on the tube.
It's quite a mob, and on October 19, it will begin to come together - the 
first global party ever held in a media blind spot. Expect pranks and jams, 
debates entitled "Should we still be talking to the mainstream media?", and 
anxious reporters calling HQ for advice. The question that day won't be 
whether the dog is wagging the tail or the tail is wagging the dog. No, the 
question this time is whether we can get the dog to bite itself on the ass.