I attended the National Conference for Media Reform, and was in the audience when Klein delivered this speech. It was met with very mixed reaction. I wanted to hear it again, but couldn't find a copy on the Free Press web site.
Quite by accident today I found it posted on You Tube by simulator, along with the following comment:
Naomi Klein's speech at the National Conference for Media reform was not included on the conference website. subMedia contacted Free Press, the organizer or the conference, to ask why Klein's speech could not be found online, and the person explained that Free Press is a non-profit organization and that I should reefer to the disclaimer on their website which reads:I'm not sure the reason for not posting this actually applies to Klein's speech.
"Despite our best efforts, we feel that some of our speakers encroached on electoral space during their remarks at the National Conference for Media Reform. It is not in our interest to disseminate these recordings. We are reviewing all of our video content and will add that which we determine to be free of electoral statements to this page."
I don't quite understand how these things work, but whatever. Two sources have told me the reason Free Press did not include the speech was Klein's criticism of Barack Obama. It would be pretty fuckin lame if it were true.
Non-profit, tax exempt organizations, are prohibited from engaging in partisan political activity. The IRS defines partisan as support, or opposition, for a political candidate or party.
There were some very partisan presentations, particularly the one by Arianna Huffington who basically used her speech to encourage everyone in the audience to vote for Sen. Obama. Posting that to the Free Press web site could be considered a violation of tax exempt non-profit regulations -- but Klein didn't do that. She clearly stated that she was not endorsing any political candidate, and she did not appear to be opposing Sen. Obama. My take on her speech is that she was telling the audience what it must do to encourage the next president to do the right thing.
So what do you think? Did Free Press practice caution, or censorship?
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