The Northampton-based group Free Press held a public meeting in Washington, DC on May 14 about how the public can successfully lobby the government to increase public funding for journalism, and to create universal high speed internet access. Among the speakers at the event were Susan Crawford, a member of President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council and a graduate of Yale Law School. This one-minute video shows part of Crawford’s speech, and the line of people waiting to use computers with extremely slow internet connections at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, also on May 14. That public library is located about half a mile from the White House.

Obama said on May 9: "Many hard-working journalists across the country have lost their jobs in recent days, weeks, and months…. Thomas Jefferson said that if he had to choose between government with newspapers or newspapers without government, he'd choose the latter.… A government without newspapers, a government without a tough and vibrant media, is not an option for the United States of America."

Free Press www.FreePress.net was founded by Robert McChesney, John Nichols, and Josh Silver. McChesney and Nichols are the authors of a recent cover story in The Nation magazine that included ways the public can help increase public funding for journalism to levels closer to the "per capita" funding levels that exist in other rich nations. Their article is at:

www.TheNation.com/article/death-and-life-great-american-newspapers

video by Eesha Williams