Jeff Perlstein helped launch Indymedia in Seattle and now runs Media Alliance in San Francisco, which fights local and national policy battles. "We've all made independent media and we continue to," Jeff says, "and we've seen the limitations due to structural constraints. We've seen that we can't just grow the organic garden we want, and stop there. We also need to confront the polluters harming our neighborhoods every day - the big corporations - and the government that is perpetuating this toxic media environment."

Prometheus Radio Project, an outgrowth of the IMC that covered the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, helps community groups around the country launch licensed low-power FM radio stations at the same time that they lobby for expanded access to the FM band.

Low Power FM islow-cost radio with a three- to seven-mile diameter signal, ideal for community-based programming. Currently awaiting a floor vote, Senate Bill 2505 would reverse a prior bill that put major restrictions on licensing LPFM stations.

“It might seem impossible to win an expanded LPFM service when most of the decisions are going to be made by profoundly pro-corporate, conservative congressmen and senators,� Hannah Sassaman of Prometheus Radio Project said. “But the voices of angry, committed people got that service established in the first place, and almost 1,100 licenses have been granted to groups all across the country.�

Prometheus and Media Alliance, along with MediaTank in Philadelphia and Reclaim the Media in Seattle are also building national coalitions in preparation for the fight over a new telecommunications bill in Congress. Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC, a 2004 court decision, halted the FCC’s June 2003 decision to relax ownership restrictions for television, newspaper and radio industries. But rather than revert to the old rules, the decision mandated new ones.

The issues on the table in the coming year go beyond the corporate media to the very lifelines of grassroots media. Local groups in coordination with advocates in Washington, DC, have their sights on expanding low power FM, maintaining broadcast spectrum for wireless internet, and renegotiating local cable franchise agreements to bolster public access.

Community radio, the Internet, and public access cable are the primary means for distributing grassroots media outside of print publications like The Confluence(). Anyone who wants to get an alternative message out is going to have to fight to keep those lines of communication open, so it is not surprising to find alternative media in the middle of these battles.

As they fashion the new telecommunications act this year, Congress will decide what to do with unlicensed spectrum, the slice of the airwaves that is currently open to public use and innovation.

The Champaign-Urbana Wireless Network has been using unlicensed spectrum to build wireless networks that could offer alternatives to local telecommunications monopolies. At the same time, they are working with the national organization Free Press to lobby for spectrum policy that will protect those types of projects.

“Regulations that prevent local decision-making and pre-empt consumers’ choices about what sort of networking solutions they can implement are fundamentally anti-democratic,� Sascha Meinrath of CUWiN said.

Meinrath is also a member of Urbana-Champaign Indymedia, choosing to work on both Indymedia and policy reform. “If we don't fight these policies,� Meinrath said, “we're going to end up with a system that offers inferior services for higher prices compared with what we could build ourselves.�

To strengthen the public claim to the broadcast spectrum, Prometheus is planning a “Spectrum Roadshow� for later this year. This touring workshop will give communities the tools they need to build their own wireless networks, share broadband internet access, and start internet radio stations. The Roadshow will also address the regulatory issues that could restrict these tools and how to join the fight to preserve them.

Prometheus, CUWiN and others have found that as people become active producers of their own media, they become stronger agents for changing the entire media system. That makes media outlets like Indymedia that are open to direct public participation – including many public access centers, community radio stations, and local print publications – critical ways of engaging new people in the broader movement to transform our media.