New Orleans-based journalist Jordan Flaherty writes on the current crisis in the mainstream media system and the response of grassroots media.
Excerpt:
The story behind the statistics is this: consumption of media hasn't gone down -- if anything, it's gone way up. But as more and more people have become accustomed to getting their media online and for free, who will fund journalism?
Corporations will continue to make money off of media. And they will certainly fund a certain amount of journalism as a part of this. But for independent media-makers, will this work continue to be financially sustainable? And will new models of funding work for them?
As technology has made most kinds of media creation easier, the range of people doing this work has grown. At the Allied Media Conference, an annual gathering of radical media, it appears the future of media is alive and well. From hip-hop artists to radio activists to video journalists, radical educators, and a network of women of color bloggers, the several hundred participants at last year's gathering were younger than most conferences, with many high school students who are already deeply involved in challenging work, and the gathering had much more of a queer energy than most media gatherings. The conference was also majority people of color, and very much focused on organizing and social movements.