It's said that politics creates strange bedfellows. I was reminded how true this can be when I traveled to D.C. in recent weeks to figure out why several advocacy groups and legislators with histories of advocating for minority interests are lining up with big telecom companies in opposition to the FCC's efforts to pass "Net Neutrality" rules.
Net Neutrality is the principle that prevents Internet Service Providers from controlling what kind of content or applications you can access online. It sounds wonky, but for Black and other communities, an open Internet offers a transformative opportunity to truly control our own voice and image, while reaching the largest number of people possible. This dynamic is one major reason why Barack Obama was elected president and why organizations like ColorOfChange.org exist.
So I was troubled to learn that several Congressional Black Caucus members were among 72 Democrats to write the FCC last fall questioning the need for Net Neutrality rules. I was further troubled that a number of our nation's leading civil rights groups had also taken positions questioning or against Net Neutrality, using arguments that were in step with those of the big phone and cable companies like AT&T and Comcast, which are determined to water down any new FCC rules.
Most unsettling about their position is the argument that maintaining Net Neutrality could widen the digital divide.
First, let's be clear: the problem of the broadband digital divide is real. Already, getting a job, accessing services, managing one's medical care-just to mention a few examples-are all facilitated online. Those who aren't connected face a huge disadvantage in so many aspects of our society. Broadband access is a big problem -- but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with Net Neutrality.
Yet some in the civil rights community will tell you differently. They claim that if broadband providers can earn greater profits by charging content providers for access to the Internet "fast lane," then they will lower prices to underserved areas. In other words, if Comcast - which already earns 80 percent profit margins on its broadband services - can increase its profits under a system without Net Neutrality, then they'll all of a sudden invest in our communities. You don't have to be a historian or economist to know that this type of trickle-down economics never works and has always failed communities of color.
Our campaign to hold Glenn Beck accountable for his race-baiting and fear-mongering has been a great success, with 62 advertisers making it clear that they don't want their brands linked to Beck's vile rhetoric. Up until now, however, there's been a question of what the real consequences are for Beck and for Fox, especially as Beck's ratings have soared. It's starting to become clear.
Today, we're announcing that Glenn Beck's show has lost over 50% of its advertising dollars since just before our campaign started. From our press release about the news:
The advertising boycott of Glenn Beck has cost the controversial host over half of his estimated advertising revenue since it was launched by ColorOfChange.org a month ago. This according to data analyzed from industry sources.
Estimated advertising revenue [the total amount of advertising money being spent during a block of commercial time for a program] was collected on a week-by-week basis for a period of two months. According to the data collected, the amount of money spent by national advertisers on Beck's program per week was at its highest at approximately $1,060,000, for the week ending August 2, 2009. ColorOfChange.org launched their campaign at the end of that week and since then, 62 advertisers have distanced themselves from Beck. Data collected for the week ending September 6, 2009 shows Beck's estimated ad revenue at $492,000, equal to a loss of $568,000.
"Fox News Channel has consistently claimed they haven't lost revenue as advertisers abandon Glenn Beck, but the numbers prove otherwise," said James Rucker, Executive Director of ColorOfChange.org. "Fox News Channel has a limited amount of ad positions. If 62 companies refuse to run ads on two of their 24 hours of programming, they are losing inventory. No matter how high Beck's ratings have been lately, advertisers still see Beck as toxic and don't want him associated with their brands. There is no way that Fox News Channel is making the money they should be making with Glenn Beck."
Our campaign is working. Respectable companies don't want to be associated with Beck or support his show with their dollars. It's resulting in a major loss of funding for his show, and at the same time making it clear that Beck's race-baiting and fear-mongering are far outside the mainstream.
The longer Beck stays isolated, the more of a problem he'll be for Fox, and the less he'll be able to spread his lies and distortions. If we can keep the pressure on, Fox will have to make a choice: 1) drop Beck because it doesn't make business sense to keep him; or 2) communicate to the world that they're so intent on providing a platform for race-baiting and fear-mongering that they don't care if they lose money (a serious problem for a public company like News Corporation, the owner of Fox).
Thanks for everything you've done to make this effort a success -- none of it could have happened without the more than 200,000 of you who have stepped up to be a part of this campaign. More than ever, it's time to keep the pressure on. You can help by joining us in thanking the advertisers that have stopped supporting Glenn Beck, and calling on those whose ads are still running on his show to follow suit.
Eight years ago today, two planes flew into the World Trade Center, another crashed into the Pentagon, and a fourth landed in a Pennsylvania field. The raw power of that day came to be symbolized by a date composed of three numbers. Three numbers that evoked the shock of being attacked, the horror of the sounds and images on our television sets, and the heroism of so many men and women. Three numbers that framed the events of the last decade and seemed like they would define my generation.
But eight years ago, many in my generation couldn’t vote. We didn’t choose the President, his wars, or his policies. In fact, young Americans have largely rejected the politics of fear and division that dominated those formative years of our political consciousness—voting 2 to 1 in favor of Barack Obama. Today we remember the victims and honor our heroes, but we also have a new President, new crises, and three new numbers: 3-5-0. 350.
Watching the Glenn Beck show this past month, one might have assumed that Van Jones had assaulted Beck, insulted his wife, and stolen his kids' lunch money. Beck devoted time on a whopping 16 shows to crafting a distorted, despicable portrait of Van that few who know him would recognize. As political smears go, it was as serious as it gets.
But make no mistake: this attack was not about Van Jones. Beck, in league with big business groups, is seeking to derail the President's progressive agenda, and taking out Van became the vehicle for undermining clean energy and green jobs.
There was another, more personal motivation too. Beck was trying to change the subject from the previous week, when headlines were dominated by dozens of major advertisers dropping his show. Beck had no choice but to up the ante, and at the same time indirectly take on the group responsible for his shrinking ad roster. His distortions not surprisingly found purchase on other Fox News shows, spread to the mainstream media, and rather than let this circus distract from the relaunch of health care and the rest of the President's agenda, Van chose to fall on his sword.
In the fallout, one thing is certain: wherever Van decides to go from here he will be a force. But now that he has left the White House, it's time to change the subject back to Beck.
About four hours after the announcement that his controversial, politically charged ninth album was number one in the country, Nas was on a small podium in front of Fox News headquarters in New York City protesting what he sees as racist attacks against Black Americans and presidential candidate Barack Obama. In a brief prepared statement, the multi-platinum rapper pointed out examples of what he and ColorOfChange see as a long racist smear campaign against the Obama family: The onscreen graphic that referred to Michelle Obama as the Senator's "baby mama"; Bill O'Reilly casually using the phrase "lynching party" to refer to attacks on the Senator's wife; referencing to the couple's infamous fist thump as a "terrorist fist jab." Said Nas, "Fox poisons this country every time they air racist propaganda and try to call it news. This should outrage every American that Fox uses hateful language to talk about the person that may be the first black president."
Fox News wouldn't accept the petitions, so they brought the petitions to Steven Colbert. Watch what happens tonight.
ColorOfChange.org endorsed Donna Edwards and has been important in a variety of fights, including most prominently the Jena 6 protests and the Fox News-CBC Institute dispute. The group has around 400,000 members and uses tactics developed at Moveon to organize explicitly around identity fights.
They are a serious though less well-understood player; to give you a frame of reference, Color of Change has about as many members as the NAACP.
With Markos chiming in, it's worth putting some stats up on the growth of African-American politics on the web. ColorOfChange.org has 400,000 members, which is 80% of the size of the NAACP in a few short years. I expect that the group will outgrow the NAACP within the year, based on its savvy strategy of picking media fights and engaging in elevating clear examples of institutional racism along with steps that individuals can take to fight it. I wrote about the growth of black internet politics in July (before the Jena 6), and it's something we should factor into our strategic calculations. It's based on some very simple trends.
The ''Home Broadband Adoption 2007'' study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that high-speed Internet usage among black adults soared from 14 percent in 2005 to 40 percent this year. By comparison, home broadband usage among whites rose from 31 percent in 2005 to 48 percent this year.
That's around 10 million African-Americans who are in the process of radically changing their information habits. Broadband usage changes the game more than dial-up, since broadband users are much more likely to become content creators, and begin the process of self-empowerment (which leads to political empowerment). That's an opportunity to build power for the progressive movement, to begin the process of institutional reform. 10 million people is a lot of power.
The intersection between black radio, black institutions, black blogs, and online organizing continues to fascinate. It reminds me of the mutual distrust and overlap between the wonkosphere of the Nation, the American Prospect, and the New Republic fighting and working with Moveon, single issue groups like NARAL, and the newer activist blogging set. It is surely true that complaints along the lines of 'there's no multiracial dialogue' within the progressive movement are no longer valid. Perhaps this was true two years ago, but it's not true anymore.
The emergence of newer political groups shouldn't be a surprise. In January of 2002, Pew found that 'a broadband elite' of male technophiles was largely responsible for most user-generated content. That period corresponds to the rise of the early blogosphere, which was composed of a broadband elite of male technophiles, a group from which the Dean campaign drew heavily from 2002-2004. In 2006, that trend had reversed such that "users living in households earning under $50,000 in annual household income are slightly more likely than those in higher-income homes to say they put content online - by a 46% to 41% margin." Much of this change was youth-oriented, as youth use the internet for content sharing and have lower incomes. Still, user-generated content has broadened outward from its early technophilic group. It's also worth noting that this new generation is much more diverse, so the internet is naturally remapping itself around multi-cultural groups.
Similarly, Power Shift and Step It Up, launched by Bill McKibben, are remapping the environmental movement around a new internet infused generation. The largest environmental protest since Earth Day in 1970 was planned entirely online, with 1400 marches. They did it again this year, and the goal of 80% reduction of carbon emissions by 2050 - a truly radical proposition - is now conventional wisdom in policy-making circles.
This process of new political formation of civic structures is only going to accelerate as the expertise spreads outward throughout the population. McKibben learned from the blogs before launching StepItUp, just as Color of Change emerged from Moveon before innovating around its niche. The entire campaign infrastructure of the Democratic Party is about to move online within the next few years, down to the Mayoral level, and an entire activist generation has learned how to fundraise online. From Moveon in 2000, the expertise of how to pitch has just spread everywhere, and that's moving outward to other groups that want to have a political impact. Even simple things like how to read a poll, or how to make a political argument to strangers, have diffused. In a few years, walk lists and phone banks will become commodities for anyone who wants one, and progressives will figure out how to engage in labor disputes using online communities.
Other demographic chunks coming online in large numbers are rural citizens, Latinos, and those with lower incomes. These are traditionally less empowered within the political system, but if the trend of empowerment and knowledge diffusion continues, that should change. Remapping our broadband universe has profound political implications, as it opens up space for new blogging and organizing communities. Many, though not all, are progressive, since progressives have been underrepresented in traditional media channels.
For political, strategic, and ideological reasons, building out a universal high speed infrastructure will should be a core policy goal of the progressive movement. It helps create the conditions where the public can operate as a collective of citizens instead of consumers, and will help accelerate the creation of new political structures in time for us to handle the climate crisis, pandemics, and the resource wars that are coming.
The Jena 6 protests, which were some of the largest protests around civil rights in years, were organized by ColorOfChange.org. Because of its success, the group has been attacked by DJ Michael Baisden, who accused the group of taking money meant for the Jena 6. Baisden has been forced to apologize, as Howard Witt reported.
Only one national civil rights group, Color of Change, has fully disclosed how the $212,000 it collected for the Jena 6 via a massive Internet campaign has been distributed. The grassroots group, which has nearly 400,000 members, has posted images of cancelled checks and other signed documents on its website showing that all but $1,230 was paid out in October in roughly equal amounts to attorneys for the Jena youths.
You can see all this information here. What I find fascinating is how the group outdid the NAACP. Here's Jill Tubman:
NAACP: 500,000 members, almost $20,000 raised for Jena 6, 0% of funds disbursed to families and lawyers to date
Color of Change: 400,000 members, over $200,000 raised for Jena 6, 100% of funds disbursed to date
Color of Change raised about $10k of the money that went to Donna Edwards last week, and began working on the CBC with the fight against the Fox News/CBC Institute debate. This is a very important group, because it is serving as a bridge for African-American activists who have not had a way to involve themselves in the political process. It serves as a Moveon-style organization, working among black radio, black blogs, and political elites.
ColorofChange and its dynamic director James Rucker has arrived as a serious force in progressive politics.
