A good third of the PK staff is shipping up to Boston for Free Press’s fifth National Conference for Media Reform (NCMR) this weekend. Not only are we excited about the Shake Your Media Maker Dance Party, but we’re also looking forward to participating in a wide variety of panels with our public interest colleagues. From wireless and spectrum policy to copyright and remix culture, the issues that PK staff will be covering run the gamut. If you’re joining us at NCMR, we’ll also have a table set up in the exhibit hall this year (where you can find this awesome t-shirt)!
Not at NCMR or anywhere near Boston? Fear not: here’s the livestream. Be sure to tune in at 3:40 PM on Saturday, April 9 for an interview with Gigi Sohn and Mehan Jayasuriya.
Here’s a quick overview of what the PK staff will be up to at NCMR:
PK President Gigi Sohn is speaking on the panel How to Fix the Broken FCC Saturday afternoon. Motivated by frustrations over the FCC’s lack of decisive action on important issues, the panel will discuss and seek to explain problems with the FCC’s current decision-making process that lead to such delays.
Also on Saturday, Mehan Jayasuriya, Director of Outreach and New Media, will be moderating a panel called Copyright, Copyleft, Copycenter: Can Copyright and Remix Culture Co-Exist? As curator of this year’s World’s Fair Use Day, Mehan is perfectly situated to lead a conversation on ways that copyright shapes and limits the ways that artists create new works.
On Friday, our Director of Government Affairs Ernie Falcon is speaking on the panel In the Belly of the Beast: Washington Insiders and Outsiders Talk Effective Advocacy, which will seek to answer the question, “In a policy environment saturated with corporate influence, how can public interest groups and grassroots activists achieve legislative and regulatory victories?”
Harold Feld, PK’s Legal Director and in-house expert on all-things spectrum, will be speaking on two panels regarding wireless policy. On Friday, he is participating in the panel Putting the ‘Public’ Back in the Public Airwaves, which will be a deep dive into the inner workings of spectrum policy as it stands and how to move forward. Harold will also be on the panel Mobile Voices, Mobile Justice: A Strategy Session on Telephones, Wireless Policy and Social Change on Friday. This panel will address how spectrum policy effects disadvantaged populations—“prisoners, low-income communities, immigrants, youth and communities of color”—for whom mobile access to phone calls and the Internet is “a privilege, not a right.”
Check out the NCMR website for the full agenda.