Bob Fitrakis “Fight Back”: Free Press reporter Tom Over from Washington DC protests
Listen and call in this Wednesday October 26
7 – 8 PM
Call 877-932-9766
*************************
Here’s how to call in to the LIVE INTERNET radio show:
(on your computer – not on your broadcast radio dial)
On Wednesday nights at 7:00 pm
Go to: http://talktainmentradio.com
Click on “Listen Live”
Call 877-932-9766

Join us for:

“Halloween at the Haunted Hanna House – a Free Press Party”

Saturday, October 29 from 7-11pm

Featuring tricks and tasty treats —
Brought to you by the be-witch-ing Connie Harris, Prissy Patriot, Juanita Brown, Connie Hammond, and Suzanne Patzer.
Costumes encouraged but not required.

Join us @ 1021 East Broad Street, east side door, parking in rear.
253-2571 — truth@freepress.org

Bob Fitrakis on “Fight Back”: David Cobb talking about corporate personhood
Cobb is a former Green Party Presidential candidate and emphasized efforts to limit excessive corporate power. David Cobb will be in Columbus on Saturday October 22 speaking on “Corporations are not Persons and Money is not Speech.” It will be issues of citizen rights to corporations and Citizens United.

Listen and call in this Wednesday October 19
7 – 8 PM
Call 877-932-9766

*****************************************************
Here’s how to call in to the LIVE INTERNET radio show:
(on your computer – not on your broadcast radio dial)
On Wednesday nights at 7:00 pm
Go to: http://talktainmentradio.com
Click on “Listen Live”
Call 877-932-9766

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Free Press FREE Movie:
Dirty Business: “Clean Coal” And The Battle for Our Energy Future
Tuesday, October 25 • 7:30pm – 9:00pm
Drexel Theater, 2254 E. Main St., Bexley
Can coal ever really be made “clean”? Watch the 90-minute documentary that investigates. Half our electricity comes from coal, the largest single source of greenhouse gases. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Featuring stories from China to West Virginia, Dirty Business reveals the true social and environmental costs of coal power and explores the murky realities of “clean coal” technology. Guided by Rolling Stone reporter Jeff Goodell, the film highlights the work of energy innovators and the viable, renewable alternatives they offer in an age of rapid climate change. Winner of both the Bronze Plaque and the Award at the CIFVF.
http://dirtybusinessthefilm.com/about-the-film
Co-sponsored by the Free Press, Drexel Theater, Columbus Film Council and the Central Ohio Green Education Fund Award.
truth@freepress.org, 253-2571


Bob Fitrakis’ “Fight Back”: Guest Ben Carnes, Native American activist
Bob and Ben will discuss Columbus Day and its implications for the Native communities of our country. Ben Carnes is a Choctaw activist and writer who received the 1987 Oklahoma Human Rights Award for making a stand against forced hair-cutting policies while incarcerated. After his parole in August 1988, he has been involved in organizing events and demonstrations on behalf of Native people and Native prisoners, including Leonard Peltier. His experiences have led to being asked to testify before congressional committees, and speak at numerous universities, public forums and events.
Listen and call in this Wednesday October 12
7 – 8 PM
Call 877-932-9766
*************************
Here’s how to call in to the LIVE INTERNET radio show:
(on your computer – not on your broadcast radio dial)
On Wednesday nights at 7:00 pm
Go to: http://talktainmentradio.com
Click on “Listen Live”
Call 877-932-9766

Bob and Connie interview Pastor Bob Ward about the 100-year-old church and its anniversary celebration and the social justice issues address by the church’s community outreach programs on East Main Street.

Bob Fitrakis on “Fight Back”: Mike Ferner of Veterans for Peace
Mike is in Washington DC for the October 2011
People’s Assembly on the 11th anniversary of our invasion of Afghanistan
Listen and call in this Wednesday October 5
7 – 8 PM
Call 877-932-9766
*************************
Here’s how to call in to the LIVE INTERNET radio show:
(on your computer – not on your broadcast radio dial)
On Wednesday nights at 7:00 pm
Go to: http://talktainmentradio.com
Click on “Listen Live”
Call 877-932-9766


Come to the Free Press Second Saturday Salon
This Saturday, Oct. 8
6:30pm to midnight
Socialize and network with progressive friends and food, drink, music, art, and a theatre performance:
8pm –Insurgent Theatre and RedBird Prison Abolition presents: (this time for sure!) —

“In the belly is where things digest, where they are broken down so their value can be extracted. This is where things are made to rot. If our society is a beast, its belly is the prison system. This new work from Insurgent Theatre seeks to manifest imprisonment on stage, overlays it with critical analysis of the system, and follows up with in-depth discussion about abolishing prison in America.”

“In the Belly”
If our society is a beast, it’s belly is the prison system. Where things digest, where they are broken down so their value can be extracted. This is where things are made to rot. This new work from Insurgent Theatre seeks to manifest imprisonment on stage, overlays it with critical analysis of the system, and follows up with in-depth discussion about abolishing prisons in America. Created in workshop by Weslie Coleman, Kate Pleuss, and Ben Turk, with assistance from Harmony Bench and Rebecca Riley. Touring the US in 2011. Raising funds for RedBird Prison Abolition. Supporting prisoners in Ohio. This show contains nudity, violence and other sad realities of the US prison system.
1021 E. Broad St.
253-2571, truth@freepress.org
“In The Belly” presskit

Bob Fitrakis
October 2, 2011

The late Herbert Marcuse, author of One Dimensional Man, and Noam Chomsky, America’s most cited scholar, both have pointed out the advantage of controlling news through private corporate conglomerates. In 1947, in his seminal book Inside USA, John Gunther called the Wolfe family of Columbus perhaps America’s most ruthless media monopoly.

Last week, the Wolfe family’s closely held private corporation, the Dispatch Printing Company, was at it again. The Dispatch bought up the last independent weekly newspapers in Columbus, owned by American Community Newspapers. They picked up the Suburban News Publication (SNP) chain of 22 local community weeklies; The Other Paper, a weekly entertainment and commentary newspaper; Columbus Monthly, the only serious magazine in the capital; and a dozen other specialty magazines including Columbus CEO and Columbus Bride. John F. Wolfe, the CEO of the Dispatch Printing Company, told Business First that, “Putting all of these titles under one roof opens up enormous and exciting possibilities for local readers.”

Really?

The Dispatch bought Columbus Alive in 2006, which was once the premier investigative weekly in the state of Ohio from 1997-2002. The paper never really recovered from the shock of 9/11 and increasingly moved away from muck-raking journalism and progressive social commentary to incredibly mundane middle-of-the-road political discourse.

Once acquired by the Dispatch, moderate discourse disappeared entirely as the paper pursued pay-to-play features to entice bar, restaurant and concert ads. There’s a massive vacuum in the capital city with the Wolfe’s Columbus Dispatch not only serving as the daily monopoly, but now its control of the Alive and The Other Paper dominates nearly all news and ad revenue in Columbus.

Democracy can only be served with more than one point of view. The Dispatch family has not endorsed a Democrat for President since Woodrow Wilson in 1916. The Wolfes, of German ancestry, exposed pro-German sentiments during World War I. On a local level, they tend to endorse Democrats they know are locks to win elections. But, the Dispatch’s clear bias is towards conservative ideology and politicians who serve their personal economic interests. Thus, their recent stunningly biased support for their longtime fair-haired boy Governor Kasich and their support for Senate Bill 5, will be their model for the former Democratic-leaning The Other Paper.

If The Other Paper survives.

The Other Paper, SNP and Columbus Monthly were originally owned by Max Brown’s CM Media, a media chain that began in 1975. Brown, an administrator under Ohio’s former Democratic Governor John Gilligan, dreamed of countering the influence of the Big Bad Wolfe family with his own media empire. He was never able to add the crown jewel, which would have been the return of a daily newspaper to provide a different perspective than the Dispatch.

The Dispatch destroyed their only daily competitor, the Columbus Citizen-Journal, at the end of 1985. The Dispatch simply failed to renew a joint operating agreement with the Citizen-Journal, which lacked its own printing facilities.

Brown’s vision of challenging the Wolfes centered around his ability to do his own printing with CM Printing. This ended when he sold CM Media and his printing presses to American Community Newspapers in 2007. In fact, CM Printing and later American Community Newspapers printed the paper I edit, the Columbus Free Press.

The Dispatch distinguished itself in the 1990s by covering up the blatant corruption of the Voinovich administration, including Governor Voinovich’s brother Paul’s ties to organized crime. They also purposely acted as apologists allowing George Bush and Karl Rove’s theft of Ohio’s 2004 presidential election. The freepress.org will continue to report the real news in the capital The Dispatch’s power on paper is greater than ever. But, the pedestrian and propagandistic nature of their boring publications should serve to do them in.

With the internet at our disposal, we should do everything possible to boycott and discredit what remains the most ruthless media monopoly in America.

If you would like to see the Columbus Free Press published as a quarterly or monthly publication again, remember that we are a charitable 501(c)(3) and you can make your donation to us on our online store at freepress.org.


Bob Fitrakis is the Editor of the Free Press and freepress.org and former investigative reporter for the Columbus Guardian and award-winning investigative journalist for Columbus Alive, where he authored a column “Bob Bites Back.”