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Annual Report 2010
Annual Report 2010
Annual Report 2010
Dear Friend:
In 2010, Free Press fought some of our hardest battles yet and scored some of our most important victories for the American public.
It wasnt easy. We faced intense opposition from the powerful media and telecom industries and the front groups and attack dogs they pay to do their dirty work. And we contended with policymakers in Washington who often were more beholden to corporations writing campaign checks than to the people they were elected to serve. Despite these obstacles, Free Press was able to advance the movement for better media by amplifying the voices of everyday people to make sure they were heard by those in power. In just the past year, we rallied 2 million people to protect the free and open Internet; helped win passage of the Local Community Radio Act that will create hundreds of new Low Power FM stations; thwarted attempts to slash funds for NPR and PBS; exposed secret backroom deals between policymakers and industry; and pushed to increase access to and adoption of highspeed Internet across the country. We used every available means to get the job done. We mobilized millions to take action on media issues online and in the field. We organized public hearings, academic forums and street theater. We walked the halls of Congress and testified before the Federal Communications Commission. We made sure the press didnt ignore our issues. We produced viral videos and weekly podcasts. We published groundbreaking research. We spoke at dozens of conferences and universities. We forged new alliances and found new champions. We couldnt have achieved any of this without your help. You got the word out to friends and neighbors; called the White House, Congress and the FCC; emailed, blogged, tweeted and posted on Facebook; attended hearings and met with elected officials; and, of course, supported us with your donations. Well face many new challenges and opportunities in the year ahead. But with new leadership, a renewed emphasis on our proven outside-inside strategy, and the best team, pound for pound, in the field, well continue to passionately, creatively and relentlessly advocate for policies that will reform the media and transform our democracy. Onward,
Who We Are
Free Press is a national, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Through education, organizing, research and advocacy, we promote diverse and independent media ownership, world-class public media, quality journalism and universal access to communications.
With half a million activists and a staff of more than 40 in offices in Washington, D.C. and Florence, Mass., Free Press is the largest media reform organization in the country and the only one to focus exclusively on public interest media policy. Free Press Action Fund advocates and lobbies for media policies in the public interest. Our staff regularly meets with Congress and federal policymakers to counteract industry lobbyists and to champion policies and legislation that benefit the American people. We mobilize our activists and allies when the timing is right and the opportunity to win is real. Our work to educate and organize activists in the field is backed by our lobbying, research and legal work in Washington. This proven strategy of outside-the-Beltway, popular pressure working in tandem with inside advocacy and independent analysis is the key to our success.
Free Press is a 501(c)(3) organization supported by private foundations, public charities and individual donors. Contributions to Free Press are tax deductible as charitable donations to the extent allowed by law. Free Press Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) organization and can lobby Congress for media policies in the public interest. The Action Fund is supported by contributions from individuals, foundations and public charities. Contributions to the Action Fund are not tax deductible as charitable donations or business expenses under IRC 162(e).
Craig Aaron President & CEO Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund
Kim Gandy Board Chair Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund
1. 2. 3.
Craig Aaron. Public Media to the Rescue? from Will the Last Reporter Please Turn Out the Lights: The Collapse of Journalism and What We Can Do to Fix It. Eds. Robert McChesney and Victor Pickard. New York: New Press, 2011. 246. Print. According to research firm Strategy Analytics, the United States ranks 23rd out of 57 countries in terms of broadband development. This ranking is based on five categories: household penetration, speed, affordability, value for money and urbanicity. New York: DSL Reports. http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/U.S.-Ranks-23rd-In-Broadband-Development-109529 Source: Lobbying Database, Center for Responsive Politics, Washington, D.C. http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/index.php
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2010 CAMPAIGNS
2010 Achievements:
High-speed Internet or broadband has become a basic public necessity, like water, gas or electricity.
It has also become an indispensable platform for free speech, democratic participation and economic innovation here and around the world. But three out of 10 Americans still lacks high-speed Internet access.4 And companies like AT&T and Comcast are trying to turn the information superhighway into a private toll road, creating fast lanes for big corporations that can afford to pay for priority access and delivery and relegating the rest of us to the proverbial dirt road. These companies oppose Net Neutrality the core principle that prevents them from discriminating against content or services that they dont like or that compete with their own services. But its because of Net Neutrality that the Internet has become such a powerful engine for innovation in education, employment, health and safety, civic engagement, government services, recreation, arts and culture and economic growth. Without Net Neutrality, the Internet as we know it would cease to exist.
Free Press Internet work is part of our larger vision for the future of democracy in which the tremendous benefits of an open, fast and affordable Internet are accessible to everyone. In 2010, Free Press rallied millions of people to fight pivotal battles to preserve the open Internet and expand its availability.
We made Net Neutrality a national issue. Our work put Internet freedom on the national agenda, raising public awareness of Net Neutrality and other issues of broadband access and availability, and engaging a whole new generation of media activists. Sen. Al Franken identified the critical nature of the struggle, saying, Net Neutrality is the First Amendment issue of our time. We helped secure the FCCs first Net Neutrality rules and spoke out when they werent strong enough. After Free Press rallied millions of people for Net Neutrality, the agency passed its first rules aimed at securing the free and open Internet. The rules represent a significant policy foothold. But we were outspoken when, in the face of intense industry lobbying, the FCC failed to protect wireless Internet users and watered down the final rules through loopholes. Were now working to improve the rules, while also fighting industry attempts in Congress and the courts to take away Net Neutrality altogether. We stopped secret anti-Net Neutrality deals between the FCC and media corporations. Free Press exposed and ended backroom meetings between the FCC and the biggest phone, cable and Internet companies, to which no public interest representatives had been invited. Later, when Google and Verizon privately devised a policy framework that would have killed Net Neutrality, Free Press and our allies in the SavetheInternet.com coalition mobilized 300,000 people in less than 72 hours against it. After we took to the streets outside Googles California headquarters, the deal fell apart.
4.
Source: Digital NationExpanding Internet Usage. Report from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C., February 17, 2011. http://www.ntia.doc.gov/reports/2011/NTIA_Internet_Use_Report_February_2011.pdf
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Future of Media
Goals: 1. Promote diverse, local, quality journalism. 2. Build a world-class public media system in the United States. 3. Block further media consolidation.
The media should be our information, news and cultural lifeline. But the consolidated, corporate press, motivated primarily by profit, is falling down on the job. Today its harder than ever for Americans to find out whats happening in their own communities; to hear new, independent music instead of cookie-cutter playlists; to tell the difference between news and advertising; and to get a range of perspectives on critical issues like the economy, the environment, civil and human rights, education and health care. Any truly world-class national media system must include robust noncommercial media. Better funded, politically insulated, expanded and more diverse public media would relieve glaring deficiencies in our commercial news and programming. But at a time when public media are more urgently needed than ever, public radio and TV are on the federal budgets chopping block. By mobilizing popular support and promoting innovative alternative models for funding and for effective and independent leadership of flagship institutions, Free Press is leading the movement to reinvent public media in America. And Free Press is the sole national organization assembling the stakeholders and cultivating the champions necessary to build support for policies that promote quality journalism and media diversity.
2010 CAMPAIGNS
Free Press does a top-notch job of exposing the behind-the-scenes machinations of the corporate media and protecting our rights to free, unadulterated information.
Julie S., monthly donor
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2010 Achievements:
FUTURE OF MEDIA
We challenged the massive merger of Comcast and NBC. The recent takeover of NBC Universal by cable giant Comcast allowed the nations biggest Internet and cable provider to acquire one of the worlds biggest producers of TV shows, motion pictures and online content. But Free Press activists were able to pressure the FCC into placing conditions to mitigate the mergers harmful impact on consumers, to protect the thriving market for Internet television and to preserve Net Neutrality. We amplified the publics voice at the FCC. Free Press helped thousands of people and dozens of allied groups submit more than 9,000 testimonies to the FCC as part of its Future of Media and Information Needs of Communities in the Digital Age initiative. We also coordinated four events with FCC staff, media makers, journalists and advocates from around the country, enabling people to speak directly to decision makers in Washington. We worked to expose and eradicate fake news in local TV newscasts. Free Press filed complaints with the FCC to stop TV stations from replacing local journalism with paid ads and promotional spots disguised as news segments. For example, an NBC affiliate in New Jersey aired a piece on how to treat the common cold that was paid for by Zicam, the maker of the cold remedy featured in the segment.
We helped win the 10-year battle to secure passage of the Local Community Radio Act. This historic bill will make it possible for hundreds of new local, independent radio stations across the country to get on the air. The bills passage represents a huge victory in the fight for better media and was the product of years of collaboration with Prometheus Radio Project and dozens of organizations that faced down the National Association of Broadcasters, one of the most powerful corporate lobbies in Washington. We defended NPR and PBS against draconian budget cuts. We hand-delivered petitions signed by more than 1.2 million people and, alongside our allies at CREDO Action and MoveOn.org, directed thousands of phone calls to members of Congress. We published New Public Media: A Plan for Action. This widely read report presented innovative and workable funding and governance models that would shore up public medias political independence and financial viability. Our findings have repeatedly been cited in opinion pieces, editorials and articles by leaders in the field, and we testified on the reports findings before the FCC.
I support Free Press because they are powerful advocates for preserving independent news sources and keeping the Internet open.
Reva R., broadband activist and Free Press Action Fund donor
With the corporate takeover of our media over the last many years, our education and democracy have suffered. It is groups like Free Press that fight the good fight.
Dan F., Free Press activist
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How We Do It
Free Press informs and mobilizes people to drive policy changes, to combat the undue influence of industry money and to nurture alternative and independent media models.
We believe that without a formidable media reform movement, policymakers will continue to cave to industry demands. Our organizers and activists in the field leverage the work of our policy and legal teams in Washington, which craft policy proposals, testify at public hearings, lobby Congress and provide organizers and activists, allies and the press with the information they need to hold government and industry accountable.
In 2010, we:
Public Media = Better Democracy
In the Economists annual Democracy Index, the six top-ranked nations with the best records of civic participation and civil liberties make some of the most generous public investments in journalism on the planet. (The United States ranks 17th.)
Reached millions of people and focused public attention on media issues. In 2010, we earned 975 press hits in more than 300 print and online news outlets, maintained our strong presence in the blogosphere and appeared on radio and TV 149 times (double our 2009 total). We also disseminated the Media Reform Daily, our online news digest, to 25,000 subscribers; created 52 segments of Media Minutes, our weekly radio program and podcast; and made 55 YouTube videos that collectively received more than 600,000 views. Kept the American people informed about the state of our media through our dynamic websites. Free Press main websites FreePress.net, SavetheInternet.com and SavetheNews.org are updated daily. They provide in-depth information about pressing media issues, opportunities for action, blogs and calendar listings. Together, they attracted roughly 2 million unique visitors in 2010. Grew our e-activist list by nearly 17 percent by engaging more people to take more actions than ever before. We kept our online activists informed and engaged on key media policy developments, resulting in more than 828,000 petitions, letters and comments submitted to Congress, the FCC and policymakers around the country on the need for media that serve the public interest.
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Grew the ranks of people involved in Free Press campaigns through creative use of social media. We communicated daily with our 32,000 followers on Twitter and 55,000 friends on Facebook. By asking our activists to share links through these platforms, we were able to bring in more than 35,000 new activists via social media. Worked closely with hundreds of other groups to expand our audience, strengthen our political clout and build a highly diverse base of support for media reform. MoveOn.org, CREDO Action, ColorofChange.org and NOW with a collective membership of more than 10 million emailed their constituents and asked them to take action on our issues. Scores of tech companies, mom-and-pop online retail operations and other businesses signed letters to policymakers in support of Net Neutrality. We strengthened alliances with groups like the Center for Media Justice, the Media Action Grassroots Network, Presente.org and the National Hispanic Media Coalition. And we helped organize Latinos for Internet Freedom, a coalition of more than 45 Latino organizations and leaders who support Net Neutrality. Organized media reform convenings. These included our Washington, D.C. policy summit (see next page); four virtual forums as part of the FCCs Future of Media initiative; a Future of Journalism event at the National Press Club in Washington; and a public media forum with BBC Director General Mark Thompson. We also organized turnout for six local media-ownership workshops (three in Washington, one in Los Angeles and two in Chicago). In partnership with our allies, we convened two public hearings on Net Neutrality (in Minneapolis and Albuquerque). These events generated new ideas, inspired people to take action and forged important connections among allies with shared concerns. We also spent much of the year planning for our fifth National Conference for Media Reform, held in Boston in April 2011.
On May 11, 2010, Free Press organized Ideas to Action, our second policy summit.
The event, supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, brought together 300 top journalists, philanthropists, public broadcasting and independent media producers, educators, policymakers, grassroots activists, entrepreneurs and civic leaders at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. The summit was streamed live, with several thousand people participating online. Each attendee received a copy of Free Press report New Public Media: A Plan for Action, which sparked discussions about long-term, sustainable approaches to bolster and expand Americas public media system. Speakers included: Alberto Ibargen, president of the Knight Foundation; FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn; then-North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan; journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Jose Antonio Vargas; ColorofChange.orgs James Rucker; Facebooks Andrew Noyes; authors Farai Chideya and Deanna Zandt; the BBCs John Tate; PBS David Fanning; and Jehmu Greene, president of the Womens Media Center. More information, including transcripts and videos, is available at www.freepress.net/summit.
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Research
Free Press original research is the foundation of our policy proposals.
Our research sets the record straight, exposes industry misinformation and earns us invitations to testify on the Hill and before federal and state policymakers. In 2010 alone, our policy team submitted 36 sets of detailed comments some running hundreds of pages which analyzed crucial and complex issues such as the merger of Comcast with NBC and threats to the open Internet. We also produced a series of groundbreaking reports that debunked industry myths and offered a roadmap for policymakers on current and emerging issues.
The National Broadband Plan: Unanswered Questions and Next Steps, an Important Analysis of the Flaws and Implementation Hurdles of the National Broadband Plan
MARCH 2010 Co-authored with the New America Foundation
Why the Comcast/NBC Merger Poses a Major Threat to Video Competition that Antitrust Authorities Cannot Ignore
JANUARY 2010 A report explaining the harm to the public interest posed by the Comcast-NBC Universal merger
Restoring FCC Authority to Make Broadband Policy: A Way Forward after Comcast v. FCC
NOVEMBER 2010 A report outlining the legal case for the FCC to restore its authority over broadband services
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Major Funders
Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund are grateful for support from the following major funders (gifts of $5,000 or more):
Air Traffic Control Education Fund craigslist Charitable Fund Democracy Alliance Partners Ford Foundation Steve & Paula Child Foundation Frances Fund Wallace Global Fund Funding Group John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Media Democracy Fund of the Proteus Fund Open Society Foundations Wyncote Foundation Overbrook Foundation William B. Wiener Fund of the Rockefeller Family Fund Woodcock Foundation Working Assets/CREDO Customer Donation Program Park Foundation Rockefeller Family & Associates Sandler Foundation of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund
Board of Directors
FREE PRESS
Craig Aaron, President and CEO Marcy Carsey Olga M. Davidson Kim Gandy, Chair Maxie C. Jackson III Robert W. McChesney Liza Cohen Pike Loris Ann Taylor
Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund are supported entirely by individuals, foundations and public charities. We do not accept funds from businesses, government or political parties. We are frugal, efficient and effective. Charity Navigator, Americas largest independent charity evaluator, recently awarded Free Press its highest four-star rating based on our fiscal operations and our long-term sustainability.
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SUMMARY: STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION2 Current Assets: Cash & Equivalents Investments Contributions Receivable Accounts Receivable Prepaid Expenses Due from Affiliate2 Advance to Affiliate Security Deposits Total Current Assets: Property & Equipment: Furniture and Fixtures Leasehold Improvements Accumulated Depreciation SUMMARY: STATEMENT OF ACTIVITIES1 Revenue: Contributions (Gifts & Grants) Contributions (Gifts & Grants Temporarily Restricted) Membership Investment Income (Interest & Dividends) Investment Income (Interest & Dividends Temporarily Restricted) Total Revenue: Expenses: Internet Journalism Public Media Movement Building & Membership Conferences and Special Events Total Programmatic Expenses: Management & General Fundraising Total All Expenses: Net Revenue after Expenses: 1,173,402 754,412 317,048 503,221 286,656 $3,034,739 249,631 387,373 $3,671,743 $676,906 158,606 93,131 62,327 109,573 0 $423,637 27,755 76,683 $528,075 $(92,514) 1,332,008 847,543 379,375 612,794 286,656 $3,458,376 277,386 464,056 $4,199,818 $584,392 3,616,484 675,000 0 55,929 1,236 $4,348,649 201,400 0 231,099 3,062 0 $435,561 3,817,884 675,000 231,099 58,991 1,236 $4,784,210 FREE PRESS FP ACTION FUND COMBINED Total Property & Equipment: Total Assets: Liabilities: Accounts Payable and Accrued Expenses2 Accrued Personal Expenses Deferred Revenue Advance from Affiliate Total Liabilities: Assets: Unrestricted Assets Board Designated Reserve Program Board Designated Reserve Operations Temporarily Restricted (future-year grant commitments) Temporarily Restricted (C. Edwin Baker Fellowship program) Total Net Assets: Summary: Total Net Liabilities and Net Assets:
1 2 2 2
FREE PRESS
FP ACTION FUND
COMBINED
624,982 3,346,532 456,060 0 45,913 139,329 0 14,685 $4,627,501 30,746 229,146 (98,797) $161,095 $4,788,596 159,597 71,607 7,176 95,000 $333,380 778,980 1,500,000 1,500,000 375,000 301,236 $4,455,216 $4,788,596
256,124 0 0 675 1,225 95,000 0 $353,024 0 0 0 0 $353,024 152,930 0 0 0 $152,930 200,094 0 0 0 0 $200,094 $353,024
881,106 3,346,532 456,060 675 47,138 0 0 14,685 $4,746,196 30,746 229,146 (98,797) $161,095 $4,907,291 173,198 71,607 7,176 0 $251,981 979,074 1,500,000 1,500,000 375,000 301,236 $4,655,310 $4,907,291
This information is excerpted from audited financial statements prepared by Calibre CPA Group, PLLC. The report includes inter-organization consolidating eliminations.
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Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund 40 Main Street, Suite 301, Florence, MA 01062 501 Third Street NW, Suite 875, Washington, DC 20001
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