Elanso

I just took over as the chair of Free Press, a non-profit that is the largest media reform group in the U.S. -- we just finished the bi-annual conference for Media Reform.

Why should Free Press's work matter for Boing Boing readers? The fact is that while media and tech issues have sort of have been thought of separately, they are coming together. People in the media reform movement care about things like growing media consolidation, the many failures of journalism (particularly over the last 8 years) and the general trend of news being turned into entertainment. But here's the trick: as the internet takes over everything (or just about) suddenly all of these problems of media policy are only answerable in a discussion about the internet.

That's why the challenge, for me, as chair of Free Press is to try and make sure that the power of the media reform movement gets translated into the internet age. What does this mean in practice? Defending the media's role in the internet age, in my view, begins with defending the ability of bloggers and other small scale critics and journalists to be heard through an open and neutral internet.

It almost goes without saying that the media, in the U.S. or anywhere, is the first line check on abuses of public and private power. But figuring out exactly how that's going to work as the mainstream media undergoes a total industry reboot is the big question for the next decade.