Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Free Press in St. Louis: Patti Smith, Medea Benjamin, Amy Goodman, Laura Flanders, Juan Gonzalez, Naomi Klein, Robert Greenwald, Robert McChesney ...

Doug forwards this announcement he got:

Time is running out. In three weeks, rock legend Patti Smith, Al Franken, Jim Hightower, and some 2,000 media activists are coming together for three jam-packed, inspiring days in St. Louis. Space is limited, so please register now.

See for yourself what the buzz is about. A full schedule of events and program information is now available at http://www.freepress.net/conference.

The list of exciting speakers and presenters continues to grow. You'll hear from:

FCC Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps,
Medea Benjamin of Code Pink,
David Brock of Media Matters for America,
radio host and author Laura Flanders,
Bill Fletcher of TransAfrica,
Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now!,
"Outfoxed" director Robert Greenwald,
author and activist Naomi Klein,
linguist George Lakoff,
Free Press founders Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols,
numerous members of Congress, and many, many more.

If you act quickly, you can still reserve a hotel room at the special conference rate. So take this opportunity to register now -- and remind your friends and colleagues to do the same.

We are at a pivotal moment, as millions of people are realizing that our media system is failing and our future hangs in the balance. Together, we can win. So don't miss this unique opportunity to strategize, share, inspire and build friendships. I hope you will join us in St. Louis and help make history.

P.S. Don't forget to cast your vote for The Big Media Hall of Shame and watch our funny new video. In St. Louis, we'll announce America's choice for the most shameful man in Big Media.

Sounds like some incredible speakers (and more than could all be listed in the subject heading, my apologies). If it's in your area or you're in that area visiting, this could be a really great event.

And Shirley came up with another reason for Jonah as to why it was important to use this space to publicize events like this: If it's not in your area, maybe it will encourage you to see what's happening in your area.

I'm going through the e-mails and there's a more to highlight tonight but while I'm doing that, Ava and I are working on a post for here. We were going to work on a TV review for next week's Third Estate Sunday Review but someone e-mailed Ava something that ties in with Adam Nagourney's whining which I noted we'd be addressing tonight. So Ava and I will be doing this post together. Hopefully, we'll find the humor shortly but right now we're still working on it.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

And Ava, as everyone already probably knows is one fifth of The Third Estate Sunday Review gang (along with Jim, Ty, Jess and Dona).