Media and Corporate Power: Beating Back the K Street Juggernaut

Panel presentation featuring John Bonifaz, Director, Free Speech For People, Bob Edgar, Jay Harris, Josh Silver, Katrina vanden Heuvel.

When: Saturday, April 9, 2:00-3:30p

Where: Cityview Ballroom

After 40 years of sustained and organized growth, the political infrastructure representing corporations and special interests has achieved overwhelming control of U.S. political discourse and policymaking. The FCC’s recent blessing of a loophole-ridden Net Neutrality rule and the Comcast-NBC merger – after the president promised a better outcome – demonstrate the supremacy of corporate lobbyists on the most critical issues that affect media, along with the environment, health care, finance and consumer protections. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision made matters worse by allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts on elections. These two issues: fostering an informed and connected society, and making politicians accountable to regular people, rather than to corporations and the super-rich, represent the most critical “structural” reforms necessary to make all other reforms possible. Join top leaders who are taking on the “corporate complex” with a discussion of promising legal, policy, communications and organizing efforts under way across the country.

Can’t make the conference? Follow along on Twitter using the hashtag, #NCMR11

Photo by spatuletail / Shutterstock.com