Panels & Speakers

MC's: Dennis Bernstein of Flashpoints on KPFA & Granny Ruth of the Raging Grannies

Introductory Address — Fighting the Battle of the Story

• David Solnit
  David Solnit is a direct action organizer in climate justice, global justice, and anti-war movements who is currently working with the Mobilization for Climate Justice West and Courage to Resist, which supports soldiers who stand up to war. He is a puppeteer and art and street theater maker. He edited Globalize Liberation and co-wrote Army of None and The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle.

Race and Gender in the Media

• Malihe Razazan, of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa
  Malihe Razazan is a producer and co-host of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa on KPFA and producer of Your Call on KALW 91.7 public radio station in San Francisco. She is also a member of Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association (AMEJA). Find out more at vomena.org/blog and yourcallradio.org.
• Willie Ratcliff, of the SF Bay View
  Willie Ratcliff's lifelong struggle for economic equity for Blacks and other people of color, an issue ignored and maligned by mainstream media, turned him toward independent media and led him to becoming the publisher of the Bay View in 1992 and serving on the KPFA Local Board for six years, 2001-2007. The Bay View, the voice of Black Liberation, aims to equip and inspire Black people and all people to rise up and fight for freedom and justice, to build unity within the community and solidarity with other communities.
• Jean Melesaine, of Silicon Valley De-Bug
  Jean Melesaine is a queer Samoan women who was raised all over the Bay Area from San Jose to San Francisco and now resides in Berkeley. DeBug hired her as a staff writer/photographer after she was released from jail and she has grown to be the associate editor. She has taught workshops from Atlanta to Brazil. She also is a founding member of One Love Oceania, a collective of queer pacific islander women. Who work around/with Pacific Islander community issues and queer p.I women in chowchilla prison.
• Rachel Jackson, of New Year's Movement for Justice
  Rachel Jackson is an organizer with the New Years Movement for justice, a group co-founded by Jack Bryson, to work for justice for Oscar Grant and all the young people victimized by BART police on New Year’s Day, 2009. Ms. Jackson will discuss the contradictory role of mainstream media in this case and the crucial role of independent media since this campaign for justice started nearly two years ago.

Objectivity and the Economy in the Media

• JR Valrey, of Block Report Radio and the SF Bay View
  JR Valrey, known as Minister of Information JR, is host of Block Report Radio, associate editor of the San Francisco Bay View newspaper, producer of the film "Operation Small Axe" that has spread the stories of Oscar Grant and Lovelle Mixon nationwide, accomplished in photography and multi-media generally and a fierce proponent of independent media.
• Kellia Ramares, author
  Kellia Ramares was a member of the KPFA News Department from March 1999 to July 2010. Currently, her main project is The End Of Money: A Critique of Paying, Owing and Working for a Living. The purpose of the project is to get people throughout the world to ask, "Why must we pay to live on the planet we're born on?"
• Tiny, of the Poor News Network
  Indybay feature: An Interview with Tiny from POOR Magazine
  Tiny (aka Lisa Gray–Garcia) is a poverty scholar, revolutionary journalist, PO' Poet, spoken word artist, welfare QUEEN, lecturer, mixed race mama of Tiburcio and daughter of Dee and the co–founder and executive director of POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork. POOR is a grassroots, non–profit, arts organization dedicated to providing extreme access to media, education and arts for youth, adults and elders struggling with poverty, racism, disability and border fascism locally and globally. Tiny is a teacher, multi–media producer, and author of Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America, published by City Lights. For more information see www.tinygraygarcia.com.
• Renee Yang Geesler, of KPFA's First Voice Apprenticeship
  Renee Yang Geesler is a community media activist and producer. As the Co-Director of the First Voice Apprenticeship Program, Renee has been involved in bringing women and people of color into media and works in partnership with Pacifica community radio station KPFA and other community media outlets. She is also the Senior Producer of KPFA's Apex Express, Asian Pacific Expressions (www.apexexpress.org).

Internet Law, Privacy, & Security

• Kevin Bankston, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
  Kevin Bankston is a Senior Staff Attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a Fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, specializing in free speech and privacy law with a focus on government surveillance, Internet privacy, and location privacy. He regularly litigates issues surrounding location privacy and electronic surveillance, and is currently a lead counsel in EFF’s lawsuits against the National Security Agency and AT&T challenging the legality of the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program. Before joining EFF in 2003, he was the Justice Brennan First Amendment Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, where he litigated Internet-related free speech cases. He received his J.D. in 2001 from the University of Southern California and his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas.
• Chris Conley, of the American Civil Liberties Union
  Chris Conley is the Technology & Civil Liberties Fellow at the ACLU of Northern California. He is both an attorney and a computer scientist and focuses on using diverse approaches to address issues that arise at the intersection of privacy, free speech, and emerging technologies. Most of his time is spent working on the ACLU-NC’s online privacy campaign, Demand Your dotRights!
• Tracy Rosenberg, of Media Alliance [See Keynote below for informaton on Tracy.]

Keynote Address — Looking Forward to the Future of Independent Media

• Tracy Rosenberg
  Tracy Rosenberg has worked as Media Alliance's Executive Director since 2007. She has organized and advocated for a free, accountable and accessible media system, focusing on the protection and sustainability of alternative media outlets, monitored the mainstream media for accuracy and fair representation and facilitated the training of numerous nonprofit organizations and citizen's groups in effective communications. She also worked at Pacifica Radio as a program coordinator, volunteer facilitator and community election supervisor.

Workshops

• LA-IMC & the 2000 DNC Retrospective, with Anna and Chris from Los Angeles IMC
• Street Photography, with Bradley from Santa Cruz IMC
• Pirate Radio, with Danielsan from Freak Radio Santa Cruz and Paul from Berkeley Liberation Radio
• Your Personal Story: Writing Commentary for Radio, with Renee Yang Geesler, Courtney Supple, and El Taino from KPFA's First Voice Apprenticeship
  [In the commentary workshop people can record their own commentaries. If time allows, there will be a demonstration of editing and mixing at least one, and we will play them later on Full Circle, our show that plays on fridays at 7pm.]

Get Your Groove On!

From 8pm until midnight, we are throwing a benefit party ($10 donation | cash bar, 21 and up) featuring DJ Pubic Frenemy spinning all night, the Po Poets a capella, Eddie Falcon, Ras Ceylon with Unity and Sinista Z as Gideon.Force, and Audiopharmacy. We have a kick-ass sound system and it's going to be a lot of fun!

More info: