Telling the Real Story, Fighting Back
MMP's Working People's Media and Communications brought togther over a hundred leaders from across the region who stand up and fight for the lives of poor and working people daily. Together we reflected on the role the mainstream media often plays in distorting, ignoring and trivilalizing the struggles people of the region are coming up against and the fights we wage for our diginity and human rights. Below are remarks from the MMP Labor Committee on the role of media and communications in building a movement by and for the 99%.
In the short term we all understand that we need to get our stories told by the mainstream press. But in the long run we also know that we can’t expect a fair shake with them because they are fighting for the interests of the rich. This is why MMP believes it is critical that we build our own media and communications infrastructure to tell our own stories and wage our fight for the 99% of us who are struggling.
We see media as a weapon. It captivates the hearts and minds of our people, shapes public debate and understanding of the direction our society is headed. There are a few distinct differences in how media is being used against us and how we need to combat that.
The corporate media would have you believe that we are separate and divided. Our media shows the reality—that our struggles are interconnected and that we are part of a growing movement.
The corporate media attempts to make us invisible, and we show that we are the most of us.
They push an agenda on behalf of just a tiny percentage of wealthy and powerful people, we stand for the interests of the 99% of us who have been failed by that very system and agenda.
They limit our ability to see how bad of a shape we’re in, while we show how much more is possible and how hard we are willing to fight.
I want to show two examples of what media and communications can look like when its fighting for the interests of the 99%.
This Tumblr blog is of people demanding that their stories be heard. This emerged in relation to the Occupy Wall Street motion, and shows story after story of how people are hurting right now, as they claim their place among the 99%. Our media and communications needs to show the conditions that we’re facing, but it also needs to tell the story of how we’re organized and how we’re fighting back.
This is a clip from a video that shows Local 22 fire fighters union, one love movement, MMP and others coming together in May of last year. We were celebrating the lives of 2 young boys who died in a fire when their station was closed temporarily due to the city’s brown out policy.
And I want to lift up what Tim, the vice president of local 22 was saying in that video. The fights we need to be showing in our media are fights not just of isolated struggles, but of poor and working class folks who are taking the lead and fighting on behalf of the most of us, the 99% who are struggling in a system that doesn’t work for them.
MMP believes these kinds of communication tools help to build and cohere our power, but I also want to be clear that what we’re talking about is more than an air war. MMP’s work comes out of decades of people fighting to tell the stories of poor and working people in order to build a bigger movement and change the conditions that we live in.
We are only as strong as our ability to tell and connect our untold stories and to win the hearts and minds of the 99%, all of who we are fighting for. Media and Communications is central to uniting our struggles, which have been fragmented for far too long, in order to build lasting organization and leadership that can sustain a movement to end poverty.
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