Call me a dreamer, but I am passionate about the key role
of independent media in sustaining a vibrant community. Big ideas,
creative ideas, out-of-the-box ideas rarely find their way into the
mainstream media. They are strained out - or tamed - long before they
hit prime time.
Several years ago I interviewed
for a national magazine one of Australia's most favored sons, Tim
Winton. Winton is a novelist who was nominated for the prestigious
Booker Prize twice before he turned 40. When I interviewed Winton, he
had just written Cloudstreet, perhaps his signature novel.
One of the key characters in Cloudstreet is a woman who gets so fed up
with her family that she takes up to living in a tent in the backyard
of the family home. I asked Winton how he conjured up the concept of
the character.
To my surprise, he said that his grandmother lived in a tent in his
backyard when he was growing up on the West Coast of Australia. When I
asked him if the neighbors thought that peculiar, he replied, "No, that
was just grandma." He went on to lament that the push of media around
the globe, with such narrow messages, "has squeezed all the
eccentricity out of life." Winton then added, with a sad voice,
"Everyone just wants to be normal."
Yes, we celebrate individualism. But the truth is, I'm anxious to meet
one. Most of the people I meet dress like a Gap ad - or
self-consciously dress anti-Gap - aspire to own an IPod, and have made
it a personal goal to travel to Australia in the next five years.
Certainly I do not blame the corporate media entirely for our
lemming-ness, but it certainly does not encourage free thinking.
In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S, according to the Media Reform Information Center.
By 1992, fewer than 25 companies owned and operated 90% of the mass
media - controlling almost all of America's newspapers, magazines, TV
and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and
photo agencies. Today, the number of major media players has fallen to
six.
Ok, to be honest, I do get some
satisfaction sitting around with a coffee mug in hand and whining about
trends that I find alarming. But eventually I do get around to doing
something to change it!
That is why I am launching an independent distribution campaign for
people who are looking for creative and free-thinking media. A number
of filmmakers, songwriters, and other artists lament to me that in the
current media environment that they cannot find market interest in the
stories that they really want to tell. On the other side of the coin,
how many of you, like me, are tired of the same formulaic films and
music?
My first independent media project will be geared for kids. No doubt my
choice has something to do with the fact that I have four children, and
I find it so hard to lead them to stories with model characters. Allow
me to be blunt - so much of kids' programming in the mass media is
trash. And the commercials that attach themselves to kids' media are
even worse.
I therefore am thrilled to distribute
Boomerang!, a 70-minute CD in the format of a "magazine." Imagine a
child you care about receiving a CD each month in which kids discuss
topics like nanotechnology and affirmative action...takes children into
King Tut's Tomb, then unlocks the very different mysteries of virtual
reality...where your child learns about deficit spending at Freddie's
Rhubarb and Banana Sandwich Stand, sits in on an interview with a
13-year old novelist, then matches wits with a neighborhood sleuth.
It's NPR for kids, yet more fun.
Suppose I told you this monthly CD series has been heralded by the
American Library Association and won the coveted Parent's Choice Award,
and that its 30,000 subscribers listen to each issue an average of 16
times?!
Boomerang! makes its home in the rural, California town of Pescadero.
The performers and hosts are all local kids. It is privately owned and
plans to stay that way.
If you have a child in your life - a son or daughter, niece or nephew, grandchild or godchild - give them a gift subscription.
Not only will you enrich their lives, you are putting your own stake in
the ground to support independent media. Shop - and strengthen - your
values.
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