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Join the Media Carta movement!

One of the biggest challenges in the battle for media democracy is winning the legal right to walk into our local TV station, put down our money and say, “Give me 30 seconds of airtime, I’ve got something to say.” Right now, regular people can’t do it. Why? Because the private networks controlling our publicly owned airwaves won’t let us. They decide what gets on and what doesn’t; if your message doesn’t fit their political or commercial interests, they’ll simply refuse to air it. They're the world’s most powerful censors.

Adbusters readers know that this is why we’ve launched the Media Carta Legal Battle in Canada’s courts. Why Canada? Quite simply, it is among the most media-concentrated countries in the English-speaking world. Single-market consolidation rules are lax. Cross-ownership regulations are virtually non-existent. Together, five media companies own the majority of newspapers and nearly every television and radio station in the country. Meanwhile, government regulators seem more interested in approving the newest specialty cable sports channels than in protecting open discourse and the public interest.

While our lawsuit is hitting CanWest and the Canadian government from above, citizen action on the streets will generate the vocal public debate that’s needed to turn things around. What kind of action? Anything that gets people talking. Anything that gets them asking, seriously, what sort of impact media concentration is having on Canada and around the world. Above all, anything that ramps up the financial and political pressure on media owners and regulators.

At MEDIACARTA.ORG, we’ve just started getting warmed up. Visit the site to download designs for newspaper-box stickering and to craft letters of support to send to the media bosses. Then take a moment to come up with ways to help mobilize and support media activists around the world; send your ideas to websubmissions@adbusters.org.

Remember – you can keep on top of all of the latest developments in the case by picking up the latest issue of Adbusters or by popping in on the campaign headquarters!