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The National Conference for Media Reform (NCMR) is the largest conference devoted to media, technology and democracy in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Sponsored and presented by the media reform organization Free Press

Free Press (organization)

Free Press is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, national organization working to reform the media in the United States.It was founded in 2002 by media scholar Robert W. McChesney, The Nation contributor John Nichols, and Josh Silver, current CEO of the Democracy Fund, a foundation challenging the influence...

, the conference brings together activists; students; policymakers; journalists; scholars; educators; media makers and other concerned citizens who are working for better media.

The fifth NCMR was held on April 8-10, 2011, at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston. The event featured roughly 300 speakers and performers and an estimated 2,500 attendees, who gathered to share ideas and strategies, develop new skills, network and built momentum for the media reform movement.

Previous conferences were held in Madison, Wis. (2003), St. Louis (2005), Memphis, Tenn. (2007) and Minneapolis (2008).

2003

The first NCMR was held in 2003 in Madison, Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin

Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....

, and was attended by more than 1700 people.. Participants included Robert W. McChesney

Robert W. McChesney

Robert Waterman McChesney is an American professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication. His work concentrates on the history and political economy of communication, emphasizing the role media play in democratic...

, Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman is an American progressive broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author. Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, an independent global news program broadcast daily on radio, television and the internet.-Early life:Goodman was born in Bay Shore, New York...

, Juan Gonzalez

Juan Gonzalez (journalist)

Juan González is an American progressive broadcast journalist and investigative reporter. He has also been a columnist for the New York Daily News since 1987...

, Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein is a Canadian author and social activist known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization.-Family:...

, Sherrod Brown

Sherrod Brown

Sherrod Campbell Brown is the senior United States Senator from Ohio and a member of the Democratic Party. Before his election to the U.S. Senate, he was a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Ohio's 13th congressional district from 1993 to 2007...

 Al Franken

Al Franken

Alan Stuart "Al" Franken is the junior United States Senator from Minnesota. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which affiliates with the national Democratic Party....

, Jeff Cohen

Jeff Cohen (media critic)

Jeff Cohen is a journalist, media critic, professor, and the founder of Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting , a media watchdog group in the US. He was formerly a lawyer for the ACLU and authored or co-authored five books that criticize media bias, mainly written with Norman Solomon...

, John Conyers, Jr., Charles Lewis

Charles Lewis (journalist)

Charles Lewis is an investigative journalist based in Washington D.C. since 1977. Charles Lewis founded the Center for Public Integrity and three other nonprofit organizations and is currently the executive editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University School of...

, Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders

Bernard "Bernie" Sanders is the junior United States Senator from Vermont. He previously represented Vermont's at-large district in the United States House of Representatives...

, Russ Feingold

Russ Feingold

Russell Dana "Russ" Feingold is an American politician from the U.S. state of Wisconsin. He served as a Democratic party member of the U.S. Senate from 1993 to 2011. From 1983 to 1993, Feingold was a Wisconsin State Senator representing the 27th District.He is a recipient of the John F...

, Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....

, Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers is an American journalist and public commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the United States President Lyndon B. Johnson Administration from 1965 to 1967. He worked as a news commentator on television for ten years. Moyers has had an extensive involvement with public...

, and Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson

Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to...

.

2005

The 2005 NCMR was held on May 13-15 in St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

 at the Millennium Hotel. More than 2000 people attended.

Booksigners included Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman is an American progressive broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author. Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, an independent global news program broadcast daily on radio, television and the internet.-Early life:Goodman was born in Bay Shore, New York...

, David Bollier

David Bollier

David Bollier is an American activist, writer, and policy strategist. He is co-founder of the , Senior Fellow at the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, and writes technology-related reports for the Aspen Institute...

, Laura Flanders

Laura Flanders

Laura Flanders is a British-American journalist who presents the current events show GRITtv, broadcast weekdays on Link and Free Speech TV....

, Eesha Williams, Victor Navasky

Victor Navasky

Victor Saul Navasky is a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He was editor of The Nation from 1978 until 1995, and its publisher and editorial director 1995 to 2005. In November 2005 he became the publisher emeritus...

, David Brock

David Brock

David Brock is an American journalist and author, the founder of the media watchdog group, Media Matters for America, and a Democratic political operative...

, Juan Gonzalez

Juan Gonzalez (journalist)

Juan González is an American progressive broadcast journalist and investigative reporter. He has also been a columnist for the New York Daily News since 1987...

, Sut Jhally

Sut Jhally

Satvinder "Sut" Jhally , is a professor of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is one of the world’s leading experts on cultural studies, advertising, media, and consumption. He is the producer of 40+ documentaries on media literacy topics and the founder and executive...

, John Nichols

John Nichols (journalist)

John Nichols is an American journalist and author. He is a political correspondent for The Nation and associate editor of The Capital Times. Books authored or co-authored by Nichols include: The Genius of Impeachment and The Death and Life of American Journalism.- Biography :Nichols holds a...

, Robert W. McChesney

Robert W. McChesney

Robert Waterman McChesney is an American professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication. His work concentrates on the history and political economy of communication, emphasizing the role media play in democratic...

, Bob Hackett

Bob Hackett

Bob Hackett is a Republican member of the Ohio House of Representatives, representing the 84th District since 2009.-Career:Hackett, a graduate of Columbia University, served two terms as a Madison County Commissioner and is the founder and a former managing partner of Central Ohio Financial Mgt...

, Kembrew McLeod

Kembrew McLeod

Kembrew McLeod is an American journalist, artist, activist, and professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa.He is best known as a performance artist or "media prankster" who filed an application in 1997 to register the phrase "Freedom of Expression" as a trademark in the United...

, Jerry Mander

Jerry Mander

Jerold Irwin "Jerry" Mander is an American activist and author, best known for his 1977 book, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television...

, Siva Vaidhyanathan

Siva Vaidhyanathan

Siva Vaidhyanathan is a cultural historian and media scholar, and is currently a professor of Media Studies and Law at the University of Virginia. Vaidhyanathan is a frequent contributor on media and cultural issues in various periodicals including The Chronicle of Higher Education, New York Times...

, Peter Grant, Patti Smith

Patti Smith

Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....

, Al Franken

Al Franken

Alan Stuart "Al" Franken is the junior United States Senator from Minnesota. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which affiliates with the national Democratic Party....

 and Jim Hightower

Jim Hightower

James Allen "Jim" Hightower is an American syndicated columnist, activist and author.-Life and career:Born in Denison, Texas, Hightower came from a working class background. He worked his way through college as assistant general manager of the Denton Chamber of Commerce and later landed a spot as...

.

More than 100 other presenters included Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers is an American journalist and public commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the United States President Lyndon B. Johnson Administration from 1965 to 1967. He worked as a news commentator on television for ten years. Moyers has had an extensive involvement with public...

, Bill Fletcher

Bill Fletcher

Bill Fletcher is a Republican politician from the U.S. state of North Carolina. Fletcher was the Republican nominee for North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction in the North Carolina Council of State election, 2004....

, Chellie Pingree

Chellie Pingree

Rochelle M. "Chellie" Pingree is an American politician. She is a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, representing since 2009. The district includes most of the southern part of the state, including Portland and Augusta.Pingree was a member of the Maine Senate from...

, Jennifer Pozner, Robert Greenwald

Robert Greenwald

Robert Greenwald is an American film director, film producer, and political activist.-Early life:Greenwald was born and raised in New York City, the son of Ruth and Harold Greenwald. He attended the city's High School of Performing Arts...

, Arianna Huffington

Arianna Huffington

Arianna Huffington is a Greek American author and syndicated columnist. She is best known as co-founder of the news website The Huffington Post. A popular conservative commentator in the mid-1990s, she adopted more liberal political beliefs in the late 1990s...

, Janine Jackson

Janine Jackson

Janine Jackson is the program director of FAIR , and the co-host and co-producer of FAIR's syndicated radio show CounterSpin --a weekly program of media criticism airing on more than 150 stations around the country.Jackson graduated with a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and has an M.A...

, Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein is a Canadian author and social activist known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization.-Family:...

, George Lakoff

George Lakoff

George P. Lakoff is an American cognitive linguist and professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972...

, Federal Communications Commission

Federal Communications Commission

The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

 (FCC) Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein

Jonathan Adelstein

Jonathan Steven Adelstein, the Administrator of USDA's Rural Utilities Service, is a former Commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission....

 and Michael Copps

Michael Copps

Michael Joseph Copps is a Commissioner on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission , an independent agency of the United States government. He has served as one of the commissioners of the FCC since May 31, 2001, and took on the additional role of acting chairman on January 20, 2009...

, National Organization for Women

National Organization for Women

The National Organization for Women is the largest feminist organization in the United States. It was founded in 1966 and has a membership of 500,000 contributing members. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S...

 President Kim Gandy

Kim Gandy

Kim Gandy is an American feminist and was the president of the National Organization for Women from 2001 until 2009. In 2009 Gandy was a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government...

, Representatives Maurice Hinchey

Maurice Hinchey

Maurice Dunlea Hinchey , is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1993. He is a member of the Democratic Party...

 (D-N.Y.), Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders

Bernard "Bernie" Sanders is the junior United States Senator from Vermont. He previously represented Vermont's at-large district in the United States House of Representatives...

 (I-Vt.), Jan Schakowsky

Jan Schakowsky

Janice D. "Jan" Schakowsky is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1999. She is a member of the Democratic Party.The district includes many of Chicago's northern suburbs, including Evanston, Skokie, Wilmette, Park Ridge, Des Plaines and Rosemont...

 (D-Ill.) and Diane Watson

Diane Watson

Diane Edith Watson is a former US Representative for , serving from 2003 until 2011. She is a member of the Democratic Party...

 (D-Calif.)

2007

The 2007 NCMR was held in January in Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

. Notable speakers included Bill Moyers; actors and activists Jane Fonda, Geena Davis and Danny Glover; civil rights leaders Van Jones and Rev. Jesse Jackson; and policymakers Rep. Ed Markey, Sen. Bernie Sanders and FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein. About 3,000 people attended, according to the daily newspaper in Memphis. (source: http://www.commercialappeal.com/videos/detail/media-reform-conference/ )

2008

The 2008 NCMR was held on June 6-8 at the Minneapolis Convention Center

Minneapolis Convention Center

The Minneapolis Convention Center is a large convention center located in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is located one block away from Nicollet Mall near Orchestra Hall. The Minneapolis Convention Center has a quadruple-domed roof and because of its volume can host multiple events on the...

, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...

. The conference program's five themes were: media policy; media reform activism and movement building; journalism and independent media; civil rights-social justice and media; and media and democracy: the next frontier.

2011

The 2011 NCMR was held in April in Boston, Massachusetts. Presenters included Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman is an American progressive broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author. Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, an independent global news program broadcast daily on radio, television and the internet.-Early life:Goodman was born in Bay Shore, New York...

, Juan Gonzalez

Juan Gonzalez (journalist)

Juan González is an American progressive broadcast journalist and investigative reporter. He has also been a columnist for the New York Daily News since 1987...

, Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald is an American lawyer, columnist, blogger, and author. Greenwald worked as a constitutional and civil rights litigator before becoming a contributor to Salon.com, where he focuses on political and legal topics...

, Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi is the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and served as the 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011...

, Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders

Bernard "Bernie" Sanders is the junior United States Senator from Vermont. He previously represented Vermont's at-large district in the United States House of Representatives...

, Bob Edgar, Robert W. McChesney

Robert W. McChesney

Robert Waterman McChesney is an American professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication. His work concentrates on the history and political economy of communication, emphasizing the role media play in democratic...

, David Shuster

David Shuster

David Martin Shuster is an American television journalist who has been an anchor for MSNBC and who has also worked for Fox News and CNN. He anchored MSNBC Live weekdays from 10-11am and 3-4pm ET and filled in for Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow on their respective shows...

, Carole Simpson

Carole Simpson

Carole Simpson is a broadcast journalist, news anchor, and author- Biography :Simpson, a graduate of the University of Michigan, began her career on radio at WCFL in Chicago, Illinois. She moved to television at Chicago's WMAQ and onto NBC News in 1974, becoming the first African-American woman...

, Katrina vanden Heuvel

Katrina vanden Heuvel

Katrina vanden Heuvel is the editor, publisher, and part-owner of the magazine The Nation. She has been the magazine's editor since 1995. She is a frequent guest on numerous television programs...

  and Jeff Cohen

Jeff Cohen (media critic)

Jeff Cohen is a journalist, media critic, professor, and the founder of Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting , a media watchdog group in the US. He was formerly a lawyer for the ACLU and authored or co-authored five books that criticize media bias, mainly written with Norman Solomon...

.

External links

• Freepress.net – Official Website (Home page) of the Free Press
  Free Press (organization)
  Free Press is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, national organization working to reform the media in the United States.It was founded in 2002 by media scholar Robert W. McChesney, The Nation contributor John Nichols, and Josh Silver, current CEO of the Democracy Fund, a foundation challenging the influence...
  
  , sponsor and presenter of the NCMR.
• The National Conference for Media Reform (NCMR) – Official Website (Home page), sponsored, presented, and hosted by the Free Press
  Free Press (organization)
  Free Press is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, national organization working to reform the media in the United States.It was founded in 2002 by media scholar Robert W. McChesney, The Nation contributor John Nichols, and Josh Silver, current CEO of the Democracy Fund, a foundation challenging the influence...
  
  .