Free the Media!

[Commentary] It’s time to get back to our roots -- the grassroots -- and organize citizens into a media-reform movement so big and so bold it cannot be denied. We are more certain than ever that Americans can be organized around ideas for sweeping media reforms. They include:

• Increase public funding for public media. Newspaper and broadcast layoffs, cutbacks and closings have gutted newsrooms, and digital media are not coming close to filling the void. We are as excited by the investment Pierre Omidyar is making in a new venture with Glenn Greenwald as we are by every serious investment in serious journalism. But there will never be enough enlightened billionaires to fill the information voids that have opened. We need enlightened policies.
• Give the Internet back to the people. The Internet has spawned the greatest wave of monopoly in history. Thirteen of the thirty-two most valuable publicly traded US firms are primarily Internet companies, and many of those thirteen have a market share in their core activities approaching that of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil monopoly in its prime. This is simply untenable for democratic governance.
• Restore privacy. Coverage of the NSA scandal has focused on data mining by the government. But private corporations and political consultants have access to the same information, and they’re using it to manipulate our choices as consumers and citizens. The restoration of privacy rights may begin with limits on the NSA, but it should extend to strict regulation of, and limits on, the digital data that can be collected from us, and how corporations and politicians can use those data to manage discourse.