Funferal

Don’t mourn, organize!

So, here we are. The mood around here is as you would expect. Several people have seriously enquired about options in other countries, and my mailbox this morning was full of suggestions – amazing just how many people came up with the ‘secede, and join with Canada’ motif.Apart from that, there was a “World Party” called in cities around the world, including here in Urbana, and activists have started the hard task of picking themselves up and re-focusing on tasks. In terms of media I’ve seen two commentaries stressing the opporunities and tasks for independent media – one from Stephen Marshall of GNN in which he speaks of the vacuum left by mainstream media and in essence issues a call-to-arms to potential muckrakers, independent journalists, and publishers. The second is from Paul of MediaGeek, in which he predicts shrinking FCC budgets, and fewer positive developments such as LPFM. The result may be unexpectedly positive:

The combination of no more LPFM licenses and a shrinking FCC budget should mean good things for unlicensed radio. No doubt the FCC will continue to go after the most prominent and public broadcasters, but will probably have to conserve resources to do so. That should leave things clearer for more clandestine broadcasters. 

Whether things will fall that way is unclear. What is clear is that disappointment is natural, and people should create space to express their frustration, but organizing to win the many battles ahead must also start now. The problem, of course, is that so much attention has been paid to national issues and debates, while so much of what is to come in the near future will be the ‘small potatoes’ of local issues.