The Action Fund
Action Fund 2
Transforming Media Action Fund
In the fall of 2005, WDN members voted to focus their second Action Fund grant on media to address their concern that, increasingly, people in the United States have limited viewpoints available to them via mainstream media. Read on for background resources on this grant.
The American Forum Project
1071 National Press Building
Washington, DC 20045
Tel 202.638.1431
Fax 202.638.1434
American Forum (AF), established in 1981 operates as a national clearinghouse for editorial opinion and news in 21 states in the South and Midwest. AF is organized through individual state forums that function as editorial boards, stimulating public policy discussions by providing commentary pieces and other materials to local print, electronic media and radio.
AF envisions a “Continuum of Commentary” which enables progressive voices to reach a mass audience through the print media, radio broadcasts, television, and the Internet. The focus is on locally-generated materials so that people are hearing progressive commentary from “real people” and experts in their own states. With support from the WDN Action Fund, AF will develop its National Women’s Editorial Forum and will work to expand progressive women’s voices in the media by empowering women to actively engage in, transform and democratize the media landscape.
This grant will enable AF to bring together women from the journalism community and academia with leaders from grassroots and national women’s groups. Their plans include:
- launching a national advocacy campaign to monitor and encourage the media to increase the number of women on the op-ed pages, on editorial boards, and in the broadcast media;
- dramatically increasing the amount of commentary by women on women’s issues and from a gender lens, via media skills training and article placements (the Women’s Media Empowerment Project);
- establishing a working group to bring together national and grassroots organizations to lead and shape advocacy strategies, determine priorities, oversee training, and guide the development of a women’s op-ed and news service; and
- developing an ongoing, self-sustaining “boot camp” and curriculum that will train 100-200 women leaders over four years, as well as developing a fellowship program for women at journalism schools throughout the country.
Related Articles and Resource Links
- In These Times magazine explores the contours of the current media landscape, maps the contested territory, and charts the dissimilar conservative and progressive media strategies: http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2069
- The Communications Consortium Media Center is a public interest media center dedicated to helping nonprofit organizations use media and new technologies as tools for policy change:http://www.ccmc.org
- The Communications Consortium Media Center has produced a resource which profiles a broad variety of women's media entities. The summaries are drawn from each organization's own materials, and were compiled in the process of initial research toward the formation of the Women's Media Center: Mapping Women's Media
- The Women's Media Center is an online progressive clearinghouse for news on women, links to women columnists, women bloggers, women's media organizations, and other media resources: http://www.womensmediacenter.com
