Media Action Center is a group of of concerned residents throughout the U.S. led by former Emmy-winning broadcaster turned media reformer Sue Wilson. We have successfully influenced policy at the Federal Communications Commission and at local TV and Radio stations throughout the country for more than a decade to ensure We the People are truly served by the publicly owned airwaves. (See the archive of our work under "older posts.") We successfully forced Entercom to give up its $13.5 million license to KDND for killing a woman in a radio water drinking stunt. We have a long-running action to label Alex Jones' radio show as the fiction it is, which has taken Jones' program off dozens of radio stations nationwide. We educated the Supreme Court in FCC v Prometheus Radio on critical information to #SaveLocalNews.

Please see MAC's 2018 Comment to the FCC (below) to learn why these actions are crucial to Democracy. Find full journalistic coverage of the Supreme Court case and our Amicus brief, Sinclair Broadcasting's shell game, Alex Jones, the Strange v Entercom trial and other public interest media issues at SueWilsonReports.com. For background on how we arrived in this era of disinformation and what to do about it, see Wilson's 2009 documentary Broadcast Blues.

IMPACT!


December 12, 2011, Occupy Sacramento joined the Media Action Center and Sacramento Media Group in an action we called "Occupy Clear Channel." Activists in eight cities joined in the action. 
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We held a press conference in front of KFBK, the Clear Channel station which launched Rush Limbaugh, protesting its secret middle of the night decision to put Right Wing talk radio on a third giant frequency in Sacramento, while offering zero opportunity for alternate political speech.   We asked that Clear Channel hold a public forum for the public to air its grievances.



We then marched past Sacramento Sheriffs to enter the radio station to perform inspections of the Public Files.  (Because radio airwaves are public property, stations must allow the public into their stations during normal business hours so they may see and report to the FCC whether the station is operating in the public interest.)  

Teams of three went in for hours, going through files and finding surprising lapses.
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On the same day, teams in the following cities did simultaneous inspections: 
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Sacramento, CA (adopted home of Rush Limbaugh)
West Palm Beach, FL (newly adopted home of Rush Limbaugh)
Sarasota, FL
Jacksonville, FL
Washington, DC
Madison, WI
Milwaukee, WI
San Francisco, CA 
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Ten days later, the action appears to have had an impact.  
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Timeline: 
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December 12:  We occupy Clear Channel stations from coast to coast.   
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December 14:   Clear Channel management in Sacramento agrees to a meeting (but not yet the public meeting we requested.)
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December 15: a Milwaukee Media Action Center team leader who has been unsuccessfully writing letters to Clear Channel asking for Progressive talk in his community, receives a personal response from management that Clear Channel has rethought its position and will offer the community a progressive station, (albeit on obscure HD radio.)   Press reports follow.
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December16: Clear Channel announces it is rethinking plans to convert San Francisco's 960 AM to yet another conservative talk station.  
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December 21: It is now confirmed that Clear Channel will keep most of 960 AM in a progressive format. 
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We are encouraged, and will continue to engage with Clear Channel stations throughout the nation to improve the political balance we hear on our radio airwaves.