Third Act Vermont: A Celebration of Press Freedom and Free Speech

Good afternoon. >> Can everybody hear me? >> Even closer. >> Louder. Now, can you hear me? >> Okay, I will try to stay glued to the microphone. >> Welcome everybody to our celebration of press freedom and free speech. I'm Lois Price. I'm a member of the press freedom team of Third Act Vermont. Third Act is a community of Americans over 60 who work to ensure a safe and stable planet as well as to strengthen our democracy. Our event today honors US Constitution Day, the day in 1787 when the founding fathers ratified the Constitution. Let it also be a timely reminder that we can never take our constitutional freedoms for granted. I'd like to acknowledge my other team members who worked hard to make this event possible. Would you please stand up? They're mostly in the back of the hall. Thank you very much for all your hard work. Stand up. Don't be shy. Thank you. It took a lot of people to put this event together. I'm very grateful for all the help from the whole committee. Uh before I continue, let me remind you to turn off your cell phones, please. And thank you. And now I'd like to introduce the host for today, Fran Stoddard. You may recognize Fran from her 10 years as producer host of Vermont Public Television's weekly interview call profile. You may know her as the host of Vermont Public Radio's call-in program Switchboard. You may even know Fran as the host of the healthc care program Vital Signs. Just as likely you may know her from watching WCAX's Across the Fence. We could not be in better hands today than to have Fran as our host for our celebration of free speech and press freedom. Please welcome Fran. Thank you. So, thank you so much, Lois. Um, and all the volunteers with Third Act. I think uh this is fantastic uh thing to be celebrating today. Uh we certainly have a remarkable panel uh gathered here to celebrate press freedom and free speech and to discuss its challenges. I will introduce each panelist before they speak for about 5 to eight minutes and then we will have a Q&A on this very rich subject. Since Commissioner Gomez is joining us via Zoom, which is just awesome, we will have her speak first and immediately followed by a few questions since she may have to depart, but she hopes to stay with us for a while, but we'll we won't keep her um up on the screen through the through the uh other speakers. Uh then we will hear from our other speakers and save the Q&A for the three of them and um possibly um Commissioner Gomez until after they have made their remarks and it will give you time to develop your questions. So please just write one. So hopefully you have some pieces of paper. Uh there are volunteers uh from third act who also have pencils if you need them. uh just write one question per card and note to whom you want the question addressed to or directed to. Pass the cards to the aisle where third act volunteers will collect them and get them to me. So all you people on the aisle, are you with me? You'll you'll do this if you are handed a card. All good on the aisle. Okay, great. So this is clearly a very timely topic. We are here to celebrate, but press freedom is in trouble. The 2026 Reporters Without Borders index put global press freedom at its lowest point in 25 years. Hundreds of journalists have been killed or imprisoned. Attacks on journalists nearly doubled in 2025. In the US, the president threatens to prosecute reporters for treason and is pursuing multi-billion dollar lawsuits against major outlets. US press freedom ranking slid to 64th out of 180 countries. It was 42nd in 2022. So, it continues to really slide. And even US trust in the news hit a record low of 25%. There are threats of corporate consolidation and ownership, the defunding of public broadcasting and news deserts across the country, among other really serious issues. And we have many, many courageous defenders of these two precious freedoms. And so, let's get to some. One of those holding the line is Anna Gomez. And it's really fantastic that we have her here today. Anna Gomez, and Matt's gonna bring her up right now. Anna Gomez is an American telecommunications attorney, currently serving as a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, which we she has had since 2023 when she was appointed by President Biden. Her term as FCC commissioner expired this past July 1st, but she remains in hold over status until a replacement is appointed. And there are just three uh commissioners as I understand it. Now, there should be five. She's nodding. So, um we hope her holdover status goes into at least keeping her appointed because we need at least three even though there should be five. Before her appointment, she was a senior adviser in the State Department's Bureau of Cyerspace and Digital Policy, and she served as the deputy assistant secretary of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration from 2009 to 2013. This summer she was named hero of the month by the media and democracy project. They call it a mad hero for using her position and voice as a federal communications commission commissioner to speak out against regulatory overreach and for her advocacy for diverse media that supports democracy. She is known as an outspoken advocate for press freedom and for the FCC working for the common good. She is truly remarkable. Thank you so much for joining us, Commissioner. We hope you can briefly um give us your perspective on the current media landscape and if different the perspective of the FCC. Welcome, Commissioner. >> Well, um thank you so much. Uh that was really a lovely introduction. Uh thank you to Third Act Vermont and to the Center for Media and Democracy for hosting this celebration of press freedom and a free speech. And a huge thanks to the media and democracy project for naming me as hero of the month. I I love being called a mad hero. Uh I I only wish I could be there with you in person uh rather than on on the screen. Um, you know, as a federal regulator, I I may seem like an unlikely voice at a press freedom event since uh my job usually involves spectrum policy, broadband access, broadcast licensing. But when the agency I sit on is using its licensing authority to threaten news organizations and to punish coverage this administration doesn't like, press freedom becomes everyone's fight, including mine. Congress designed the FCC to be an independent, expert-driven regulator. And despite this FCC's recent actions, I'm remain committed to seeing it live up to that design. Our forefathers understood that a press free of government interference and self-government belong together because those of us in government roles cannot govern without journalists willing to hold power to account. 250 years into our democratic experiment, that bargain still holds. And the Constitution Day is a fitting moment to remember it. Now, to be clear, presidents have tried to use the FCC against the press before. Um, and Franklin Roosevelt, uh, John F. Kennedy each press their FCC chairs to act against news outlets only to be refused. What sets this moment that we're in apart is that this agency now goes along with such pressure rather than resisting it. Now, I know many of you worry that media consolidation narrows the range of ideas, of opinions, of access to information. And that worry is wellounded. Local journalism is under extraordinary strain with newsrooms consolidated, reporters laid off, and editorial decisions being made far from the communities that stations are licensed to serve. You know, consider the Nextar Techna merger, the largest local broadcast television merger in American history. Together, the two companies would reach more than 80% of American television households, more than double the 39% national cap that Congress wrote into law. The FCC approved it anyway, drawing bipartisan criticism, and it took state attorneys general and a federal judge to temporarily halt the integration of the two companies, and that remains in litigation. Similarly, the proposed merger of Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery would bring CBS News and CNN under one roof. Just a few days ago, the FCC's media bureau approved indirect foreign ownership of nearly half of the combined company that includes tens of billions of dollars from sovereign wealth funds in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Some of the most repressive and anti-press freedom governments in the world. An investment of that size by its influence over what gets said and what gets made. So we should all be worried about this. Both approvals fit a pattern in which companies with business before the government and with a willingness to curry favor with this administration received fasttrack approvals. That pattern took shape when Paramount settled the baseless lawsuit days before its merger with Skyance was approved. The new company capitulated with commitments to reshape CBS news editorial direction and 60 Minutes credibility collapsed in the months that followed. Now the same FCC that fasttracks deals for friendly media is busy threatening the broadcasters who cover this administration critically. Disney and ABC have faced a string of investigations and even an early license renewal order, a tool that had gone unused for more than half a century. But the FCC licenses local stations rather than national networks, and any effort to revoke a license over news coverage would almost certainly fail in court. The threat itself is the point, because enough pressure has already led some broadcasters to self censor and others to settle. The good news is that while the capitulation is tempting, courage is contagious. I am glad Disney has chosen to fight. I am heartened that the New York Times, NPR, and PBS, and the Associated Press have each proven they can win in court against this administration. The days of the FCC as a paper tiger are numbered. What the public will remember is who complied in advance and who fought back. The concern for our press freedom reaches well beyond any one party. as I have learned on my first amendment tour where people across the ideological spectrum have told me they are united in their alarm about what this FCC is doing to press freedom. The First Amendment does not belong to one party and it never has. So we must all fight for it regardless of who the current target is. It has survived worse than this and it will survive this too. but only if the people in rooms like this one keep fighting for it. And I intend to do so for as long as I have a seat at the table as a commissioner at the FCC. So, thank you so much for inviting me and I look forward to your questions. >> Thank you so much, Commissioner. Uh there are people who if you have um a question, you can hold it up. I have a few that were already um made here. So um Commissioner Gomez, in in the early 2000s, the FCC held public hearings around the country when considering major decisions like media consolidation. Um is there a way for ordinary citizens to have an effective response to FCC proposals and decisions now with these issues that you are have articulated and are facing? Yeah, I it it actually is very effective when we hear from from uh consumers when we when uh when consumers voice their objection. Um it it it is effective both in in um helping the FCC see where consumer sentiment is, but also because it tells the corporate parents of media um how they're being viewed. Uh, you know, when when uh Jimmy Kimmel was forced off the air last year, consumers were outraged and they really voted with their pocketbooks and uh were very responsive to Disney and Disney realized that this was becoming a business problem for them. Um, and they immediately brought him back. Um, some of the conservative stations tried to preempt that programming, but they eventually had to stop that again because consumers were having none of it. And that is very helpful. It's very helpful when consumers speak out because this is not normal and this is not what consumers want. Consumers don't want censorship. um that regardless of whether they like Jimmy Kimmel or not or they like the view or not or they don't or they don't or they like uh Chris Kirsten Walker uh or not um or they like public media or not they don't like censorship and when we make it so when they make it so clear that that is what is happening consumers do speak out and it really does have an effect. >> Thank you so much. Um, another question. How can we influence the FCC or the federal government to restore funding to national broadcasting system? Is there any hope of resurrecting the corporation for public broadcasting? And is that in your purview? >> Yeah. Um, I you know, I have it, it frustrates me what's happening with public media because public media is so important for local communities. And what I keep telling people is we are seeing this massive media consolidation where local stations are becoming nationalized because they're becoming owned by corporate parents that are not in those local communities. But you know who still is in their local communities? Public media whether it's radio or television and they are serving their local communities. Um, so if we're going to allow this massive consolidation, then we need to make sure communities are not left behind and defunding public media is just going to accelerate this problem. Um, so I'm very happy to see that we that it even though we've lost some stations and it's been very difficult that we, you know, donors have come forward um and we are continuing to have strong public media. But I certainly urge Congress to fund um uh the Corporation for Public Broadcasting uh the uh and make sure that these communities do not lose their lifelines. There are parts of this country, for example, in very remote Alaska, where the only station that provides them news and information is the public radio station. Um, and we can't lose that. >> Thank you. and um sort of related, but it what actions um would you like to see that would better ensure the independence of news sectors within networks um that are, you know, how can we protect and preserve those networks and should those actions be made by Congress through regulation or through us? Um and by the way, this person also said, "Thanks for all that you do." So, >> thank you. Um, I think that there's uh there's things that the FCC can do to uh enshrine into rules uh how it will it regulates media. Uh because a lot of what the FCC is doing is it is it's using a very undefined public interest standard. We license stations to serve the public interest which means serving their communities. and it's using that public interest standard as basically going after any content this administration doesn't like. If it likes it, no problem. If it doesn't like it, investigations are initiated because they might be violating the public interest standard. So, one thing that I have been calling for is the FCC should do a rulemaking that specifically defines what the public interest standard is. Um, traditionally when we look at whether a a local station is serving its communities, we look at three things. Competition, diversity of viewpoints, and um um oh localism, are they actually serving the communities? And when we look at whether they're serving commu communities, they will file reams of paper that tell us here are here's the disasters that we reported on. We have this much uh local community news. We go out and we meet with the with our communities and we have bake sales and you know whatever it is that we're doing to serve our local communities. It's not the president doesn't like what we say. That that is not what's part of the public interest. I think I think the FCC can make very clear, okay, here's exactly what we mean when we mean serving the public interest. And by the way, we are prohibited from censoring broadcasters. We are prohibited by the Communications Act and of course by the First Amendment. So if the FCC tries to overreach what that means, then we will be reversed in court, much like we should be reversed in court with what we've been doing recently. Um, which is why I'm so happy that Disney is suing because finally I'm hoping that we will get to a point where the court says, "Yes, you are really uh um violating the First Amendment with what you're doing." Congress can do something similar. Congress can can also pass uh you know uh amend the the communications act to make clear what it means by uh licensing in the public interest so that the FCC cannot um go beyond whatever structures the Congress puts in place for what it is that we can and cannot do. >> Great. And finally, um, Commissioner, given that your first term has actually expired, uh, what we're so glad that you're you're still there. What is the prospect for you to remain at the FCC and how long can you expect to stay as as a voting member of now three when there should be five, but we hope you stay on. >> Well, as you noted, there should be five of us. Um, we have been operating as a three member commission for over a year now. Um, and I'd love to have five of us. Um, the president has nominated uh, one of the chairman staffers to serve as another Republican member of the commission. Um, and uh, she still hasn't gone through her confirmation process yet. Um but traditionally uh the usually these nominations are paired with a member from uh the minority party. Um and so I have multiple senators, I have civil rights groups, I have media groups, I have uh uh me advocacy groups I should say, I have a very broad um uh coalition of people who are supporting my renomination. um because I would need to be renominated and reconfirmed by the Senate in order to continue serve. As you noted, I can serve until January of 2000, well, really the end of 2027. Um unless someone is nominated and confirmed for my spot. There is nobody nominated for my position. Um so I will be in this in this place unless two things happen. one is someone gets nominated and confirmed for my spot or the president fires me. Um, so far so good. Uh, but uh, but you know, I, as I like to tell people, and it really is true, I check my email every morning to see if I'm coming in to work the next day. >> Oh, well, we are so glad that you are there. Thank you for uh holding holding some lines that we really need held and uh we hope that you will stay with us uh for the rest of this presentation although we will put take you down from the big screen and thank you so much for for being here today. >> Thank you. And while Matt is taking care of technical business, um I will introduce Jess Wegman. Are we good? >> We're good. >> Okay. So Jess, who is now a local, which is which is great, has moved to um to Charlotte. He is a scholar, author and journalist who is serving as senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice. He also works with the Coberg Center on the US Supreme Court, the future of the Constitution Advisory Committee and the Brennan Center Ventures on Electoral Policy and Democracy Reform. Got all that? It's a quiz. For a dozen years through 2025, Wegman was a member of the New York Times editorial board where he wrote more than a thousand editorials and signed pieces on law and politics, the Supreme Court, democracy, and the rule of law. He has also worked at the Atlantic and at NPR. The core of his work in the last decade has focused on the intersection of law and politics, the rule of law, electoral reform, and the broader challenges facing American democracy. He is the author of Let the People pick the President, the Case for Abolishing the Electoral College. And his more recent book, which you will find out in the lobby after this, is The Lost Founder, James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution. It sounds fascinating. Um, so Jess, you have been charged with uh grounding us on the origins and foundation of the first amendment to the constitution, how it came to be, the importance and meaning in particular of freedom of the press and freedom of speech in all of five to eight minutes. Thank you. Great. Hi everyone. Thank you, Fran. Uh, thanks Lois and the third act team for having me. Is this Should it be higher? >> Can I um >> Thank you. I just have some >> Max, there seems to be some back here on >> All right. I'm gonna I'll speak loudly. Um, so, uh, I'm not going to speak exactly about the the First Amendment. I'm going to use my freedom of speech to, uh, take a bit of a of a left turn here. Um, and, uh, I I I I thank you for indulging me in this. Um, uh, I I think we had obviously with the the commissioner and with Megan, we're going to have wonderful perspectives and and necessary perspectives on on the First Amendment, but I will say before I uh talk about what I want to talk about today, I I couldn't not say something about especially given the events of the last few days, um, I think it's really uh, you know, I owe my my career, I owe my livelihood to the First Amendment. Um, and I don't think I always have appreciated that. I've been a journalist for 30 years now. And um I think it's easy as with so much in uh life to get complacent. Uh and I am and and if I'm grateful to Donald Trump for anything, which sometimes takes a while uh to get to, it's for um reminding us of how fragile so many of our uh of our traditions and our and our rules are and how much they depend on people actually upholding them. how much how much of the American experiment is based on good faith and on the honor system essentially. And uh when somebody who is lacking in both of those things uh takes power, I think we are all reminded of of of the delicacy and the fragility of the of the world and the and the the country that we've built and how important it is to uphold these traditions and to uphold these values and to uphold these rules. Um, obviously what what has happened over the last few days with the uh the president uh the most thin-kinned person I've ever seen in public life deciding that he couldn't take criticism from certain news outlets and then thus barring them from the White House is such an obvious violation of the First Amendment. It's just I mean we shouldn't even have to be discussing it. But again, it is good to be reminded of what the First Amendment says, what it stands for, and what it will and won't prevent. Um, so I just want to I want to put that out there right at the start just to make clear that I I recognize how lucky I am and I I think especially in the last 10 long years I have been made that much more aware of how lucky I am to do this work and how lucky I am not to be in jail for saying the things that I say without thought. Like I'm I I have criticized all I mean I've criticized I I used to criticize the Obama administration too. Uh but uh you know I've been able to criticize this administration and all and hire government officials for years um with uh legal impunity which is which is a very lucky thing. And so I I I don't I now don't take that for granted. Um so uh I don't want to if I close it's going to it's going to turn that off right if I close this. So, I got to be careful not to close the screen. All right. I'm going to I'm going to try to keep it open. Um, so, as I said, I'm going to be a little creative with today's assignment. Um, which is about the first amendment. Uh you often hear people say, "Well, the first amendment was was put first because the founders knew that free speech and free press and freedom of religion were the most important features, the most essential parts of any functioning republic. So I agree it's true uh those are extremely important features, but it is not true that the first amendment is first for that reason. In fact, if James Madison had had his way, the first amendment, our first amendment, would have been the third amendment. So today, I want to talk briefly about what I'll call the first first amendment, which was not about speech or press or religion, but which, and I promise I'm going to tie it all together, uh was about how we as a people make ourselves heard. So, first let me give you a little bit of background. Um, I'm going to guess most people in this room do not know that in 1789 when Madison introduced his slate of proposed amendments to the Constitution, what we now refer to as the Bill of Rights, there were not 10, the 10 that we know. There were 12. Numbers 3 through 12 are the ones that we all know today. But the the real first and second amendments most people don't know about. The second amendment, the first second amendment is uh let's say frankly it's a little dull. Um it says that if members of Congress want to pay themselves more money, they cannot do it until after the next election. You know, you ask for the raise and then you wait to see if your boss thinks you deserve it, right? Your boss in this case is the American people. Uh in fact that amendment is now in our constitution but it is not there as the second amendment. It is there as the 27th amendment and to date the last that is currently on the books. Um the the story of how that amendment became part of our constitution is now the 27th amendment is a funny one. So I'm going to just give you the very quick version. the the Congressional Pay Amendment actually passed Congress in 1789 and got ratified by a number of states at that time. Uh but it was a few states short and then the momentum fell off. It sort of got forgotten over the years. Never never entered the the constitution. Then 200 years later, uh, a college student in Texas was going through the records of the of the early the years of early years of the country and realized, you know, he said, "Wait a minute. This this thing, this amendment, it it passed Congress. It got ratified by some of the states. It didn't get finished, but it never expired." He said, "Let's get this thing across the finish line." So that started a movement over the next several years where the amendment was reintroduced in well at the time right in in the in 1789 1790 there weren't that many states so you only needed about uh 7 89 to meet the 3/4 threshold that the constitution requires for amendments to get into the constitution. Uh in the late 1980s there were 50 states. So now the threshold is 38 states. So there were several dozen more states that now had to ratify this amendment. They did so because everyone would jump at the opportunity to keep Congress people from earning more money. And uh it was ratified in 1992. It became the 27th amendment to the US Constitution uh 200 years after it was first proposed. So the first first amendment was not so lucky. Its subject was the size of the House of Representatives. Not how much they got paid, but how many of them there were. I'm not going to read to you today the text of that amendment out loud because it's long and mathematically somewhat confusing. But its purpose is very simple to explain. It would have linked the size of the House of Representatives to the size of the US population in perpetuity. As more people lived in or moved into the country, more representatives would be added to represent them. This may not sound to you like a very big deal, but it is a really big deal. The whole point of Republican self-government is that representatives accurately reflect the desires of their constituents. That means they need to be able to meet with them, to talk to them, to listen to them, and then to vote in Congress in a manner that gives effect to what those people, or at least a majority of those people say they want. The Constitution itself today sets the minimum size of congressional districts at 30,000, one representatives for every 30,000 people. That by the way was uh you know George George Washington was president of the convention and famously sat there all summer without saying a word. This was his one contribution to the constitutional convention at the very end almost the last day of the convention. It it had been they had set it at 40,000 to one 40,000 constituents per representatives and George stood up and said let's say let's make it 30,000 to one. It's better make it easier for the uh lawmakers to you know get around and talk to people. And they of course George said it so they changed it. One representative for every 30,000 people that you've been to Fenway Park. You know 30,000 people looks like a lot of people. And yet it still is a it's few enough that it can allow a lawmaker to really get a good sense of her or his district and to represent that district faithfully in Congress. the first first amendment would have locked that number the the ratio of constituents to lawmakers at no higher than 50,000 people. So if you do the math on that that means today's Congress would have approximately 6,600 members. Just for perspective that is more than double the size of the biggest legislature in the world. Like the other 11 amendments, those I told you there were 12 amendments that that uh got passed through Congress after Madison introduced them. The first first amendment got passed and went out to the states for ratification. Uh I I said before it has to be threearters of the states, right? The problem was it kept falling one state short. it would almost get to ratification, almost get to three/arters and then a new state like Vermont would join the union and the number required to ratify would go up. Finally, it just it never it never quite got there. It never appeared to get there. Hold remember that. We're going to come back to that. Um and it was lost to history. The good news for a while was that the founders and those who came after them really did believe in keeping Congress up to date with the population. So the house began the very beginning the very first house had 59 members. But after nearly every census for more than a century, Congress expanded to grow in in line with the country. As the country expanded, Congress got bigger. The bad news is that this growth stopped suddenly in 1911, more than a hundred years ago. This was a time when there were fewer than onethird as many people living in the United States as today. So even then, by the way, in a house with 435 members, that was the number that they set in 1911, and that is the number we live with today, the average district size had grown to 200,000 people. That's seven or so times larger than what the framers intended. Today, the House still has 435 members. Does anyone in the room know the average size of a congressional district in 2026? 760,000 people. 3/4 of a million people for a single representative. This has created all sorts of problems for American government and politics. To name a familiar one that everyone here I think has thought about a lot is gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is when politicians draw or redraw district lines to maintain power for themselves regardless of what the voters want. It's an extremely nefarious act uh you know behavior undertaken by politicians of all parties and and it's only gotten worse in recent years as the Supreme Court has uh refused to deal with it. Um it is much easier to gerrymander districts when districts are as big as they are today. It's much easier to draw lines in ways that allow uh representatives to uh just basically control who their voters are. Um, if districts were smaller, say 50,000 rather than 750,000, gerrymandering becomes much much harder, if not impossible to engage in, and Americans everywhere could feel much more confident that they were choosing their leaders, not the other way around, and that their voices, their speech was being heard. Instead, we are stuck in a situation where policies that overwhelming majorities of Americans say again and again and again that they want, whether we're talking about background checks for gun purchases or universal health care or better parental leave or term limits for the Supreme Court and Congress. None of these things happen. And that I think is as stifling of our freedom of speech as a p of burning books or as I mentioned in today's headlines a president who shuts down a press coverage that he doesn't like. So the takeaway here for me is that our voices, the same ones that we are so careful to protect through the existing first amendment, are increasingly being silenced, if not erased, by politicians who are exploiting our outdated House of Representatives for their own benefit. A house that would have been far more representative if we'd had the original First Amendment. under that house. By the way, Vermont would not have one representative, but at least a dozen. Uh, I told you to remember this this little detail. I said that it appeared not to have been ratified. Uh, as it turns out, that first first amendment may actually have been ratified after all. Um, in the first wave of ratification, I said it it it kept missing by one state. Well, that one state at the end was Connecticut. Both houses of Connecticut's legislature at the time voted to ratify this amendment. However, they did it in different sections of the legislature and they ended up using different uh slightly different language in their bills which meant they had to get together to reconcile the different language and send it back to the capital to to have their ratification count. uh what as you can imagine which it still happens today um paperwork gets lost uh people get confused uh uh reporting doesn't happen the way it should uh the ratification of the state of Connecticut was never uh returned to the capital so we are now faced with a conundrum an amendment that appears to have met all the requirements of the constitution and yet is not in the constitution because of a clerical error so I guess the lesson is hold on to your voices. And don't forget the stamp. >> Thank you, Jesse. And that's all right. I'm so short, you know, it just gets everything out of whack. Um, well, speaking of voices to be heard, um, I think it's very appropriate that next up is Megan Oorc. She is the executive director of CC, the CCT um CCTV Center for Media and Democracy, an independent nonprofit community media organization. Most of you probably know it is um our filmer today. Founded in 1984, CCTV operates Town Meeting TV, CCTV Productions, the CCTV archives and media education programs that give Vermoners direct access to tools and airtime to make and share their own media, connect with local democracy and understand their community more deeply. These are the people that are at your select board meetings. I mean, it's just remarkable um how important this is. CCTV is also part of the Vermont Access Network, a coalition of 24 community media centers across the state. Megan's connection to CCTV and to Burlington dates back to the 1980s um with a fascination with and respect for archives and that still thrives today. Uh while she has always had a passion for archives and their importance, her focus stays on the enduring core CCTV mission which is giving open access um uh channels where community voices can be seen, heard, and preserved. So we're going to move from this very high up um very historic perspective uh to more local and the importance of supporting local voices. Megan, you can tell us about the role and value of communityrun cable and online news channels, uh, archives and public access programs, and how CCTV fulfills the promise of free speech. Thank you, Megan. Can you hear me? Yeah. I tend to speak quietly, so if in the green shirt, wave at me if I move away. Um, that's very familiar. Thanks. You tickled my brain. Funny bone. That's really awesome. Um, and over the last really since 2016, which is not um a coincidence, as we've visitors come in to CCTV, especially through the Vermont Council on World Affairs from around the world, the conversation always turns to free speech. And how is it that you can do this? And how is it that people can come in and make programs about whatever they want and it's not just happening here. It's, you know, people are feeling this crackdown um around the world. Um and thank you Fran for the introduction. I can skip some of this. Um my name is Meganor. I serve as the current executive director of CCTV and I'm honored to be able to share how our work relates to free speech. It is my joy to work with this organization. We began in 1984 with the simple radical idea that people um should have the means um to produce and distribute their own stories and to understand themselves and their community through television at that time. It's still a radical idea despite the illusion that social media creates of a people centered storytelling platform. CCTV's mission is to advance free speech, promote local democracy, facilitate participation in decisionmaking, build unity and empathy by convening, recording, airing, and archiving community content. Um, uh, we, as France said, we're a part of a network of 24 centers. I'm joined by my colleague Angeli from MMCTV. We have Media Factory here in the neighborhood. Um and we are part of thousands of other organizations like us around um the country and it's kind of apppropo that we're going between the FCC and journalists because we we don't we partner with both government and the people um to serve um accountability and transparency. Free speech is in the DNA of community media. It means giving people access as I said to the means of producing and distributing content. It means covering meetings gavel to gavel um without editorializing even when it gets long in the weeds when comfortable you know why why are you here all day long for the whole meeting right um so that um we can create and keep a record uh for the public journalists and our municipal partners. We hold corporate interests accountable for giving back. So that's this kind of wonky um work that we do to compel cable companies to return money um for the use of the public rights of way for to serve this effort. Um we are a partner um as I said to both government and the people to provide transparency and accountability. We are not required to follow the constitutional limits that bind government. But we believe society is stronger when we can hold ourselves to that standard. Over four decades, protecting free speech has seen tension and conflict. We've been challenged and we've said no to removing comments said during public meetings that were found defamatory or offensive. We've been asked to turn off the cameras and we've respectfully declined. Um, community producers have used their airtime to advocate for arms shipments to Sandinistas in Nicaragua. We supported shows during the meltdown in Fukushima when the Japanese government was suppressing news reports in those countries and those shows that were recorded here were watched by folks in Japan. Um, Nepali Bhutanese who live here amongst us. um or could be in the audience here. I cannot see you. Um used the studio to protest a visit by Bhutan's visiting secretary of gross national happiness. Um and if you know what that means, you know, uh facilitating community producers we individually politically disagree with to produce content that's important to them. As somebody who's a staunch um pro-choice um reproductive freedom person, I've sat side by side with folks teaching them to make programming um anti-abortion programming and I feel that's part of you know I I I respect that about myself. Um we don't just facilitate or air speech we agree with uh we create space for all building which is a building block of democracy. Um, and we rely on people, viewers, you to be informed and able to think critically and to counter speech that you may disagree with by using more speech. Most of what happens in our studio is actually commonplace and not incendiary. Free speech to us doesn't mean hollering about controversial subjects. It also isn't a license to provoke hate or harm necessarily. and the values of openness and transparency can cross with the values values of inclusion and safeguarding historically marginalized people. The value of kindness doesn't always align with the right to speak one's mind. Community media is built for this balancing act in a way that corporate distant platforms are not, which kind of speaks to this idea of large representatives and why local government is so important. We are small, we're local. The people on air are your neighbors and the door to our studios open to anyone. We aren't encouraging content creation for clicks or like or likes or to create fear or to build profitable data sets. We encourage communication that is real and reflects the views of our community today. Excuse me. Got to breathe for a second. The closeness of this org to the community is a form of accountability. In practice, this means providing the means for people to respond to in misinformation. On-screen decla disclaimers to viewers that not everything is said in a program is true or reflects the views of the staff or the community. teaching media literacy that helps untangle words from ideas during COVID specifically. Thank you. That meant adding an on-screen message during a program created by community producers against vaccination and masking that the views did not conform with CDC guidelines. When neo-Nazis began using city council public forums um to spread anti-semitic hate, we shared guidance from the Anti-Defamation League with local municipal leaders. We learned that removing content would be shortsighted, would push those ideas into the shadow when they needed to be held in the light, and that removing wasn't protecting the people being targeted. What they re recommended was for municipal officials to be ready to counter hate speech in the moment. and to practice and be ready to respond with speech on camera. When transphobic rhetoric or dog whistles were used in a program recorded in our studio, we had staff conversations about how to balance freedom of speech with the well-being of staff who were harmed. We reached out to community members to create counterprogramming. We hosted a forum to help define the lines of free speech and how to identify hateful speech when it comes dressed in ambiguous clothing. And CCTV studios remain open to all people, but no staff member is compelled to work on a program that actively seeks to degrade them or their rights as a person. Political disagreement, however, does not rise to this test. Free speech is a right. It's also a responsibility. The value of being careful with your words may matter as much as the right to say what you want. We invite you to be part of this work. Come revisit history through the archives. Make a show. Share it um share it on community. Share your thoughts on community media, not just social media. Take a class or a workshop. Let your legislators know that you support the funding of community media. that's your local legislators and your um national legislators and um support us financially. So CCTV and places like this can't exist without your efforts and work either your checkbook or your participation. So thank you all and I I can I can vaguely see some of your faces. Thank you um for giving me a chance to share about the work that we do here. And um thanks Fran. Thank you so much, Megan, and for all you do to make free speech possible. And it's hard work. I I get that. Um I hope you're all thinking of your questions. Uh remember, you can pass them to the people on the aisle. But be um we still have one more wonderful speaker. Anne Galloway is the final but not the least powerhouse here today and is best known for founding VT Digger. It's a statewide online news organization um and for being really a pioneer of the nonprofit independent news movement in the United States. She's very well respected in uh nationally. She led VT Digger from 2009 to 2022. She is currently a principal of News Ops, which is a support service for news entrepreneurs. Since 2023, she has worked with 45 news organizations on business strategy. Anne has also she is also a dogged investigative journalist who has received numerous awards and recognitions including for her investigation of a $350 million EB5 immigrant in uh investor fraud at JPE that I'm sure all of you are familiar with. Um, and notably in 2023, Galloway won the Yankee Quill Award from the New England Society of News Editors for a lifetime of service. Anne lives in East Hardwork with her wonderful husband who is also here. The last decade um has seen dramatic change in independent news an and we'd like to hear about the challenges facing independent news organizations today and you know many of them now from across the country and what the future holds for independent journalism and Galloway. Hi everybody. Thank you Fran. Thank you third act. Thank you, ACLU of Vermont. It's it's great to be with you all and uh to celebrate Constitution Day. Um as Fran mentioned, I've been asked to talk about the challenges facing local news. And in my work, um because I've worked with so many news organizations now around the country, I've I've gotten a fuller perspective on what's happening out there. And um as we've heard, we're all less free every day in Trump's America. Uh the president's multi-pronged attacks on the press, banning White House reporters for coverage he doesn't like, suing the media over specious claims are an assault on every American's free speech rights. Uh ABC, CBS, and the Washington Post have capitulated um as Anna go Gomez said previously. And you know, others have resisted and sued over First Amendment rights. Resistance, however, has a cost. 19 months after the president banned the AP from the White House over renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, AP reporters still don't have full access to the White House, even after a court decision in its favor. These assaults hit the press at a time when it has never been weaker. News profits are nearly non-existent, and companies have relentlessly cut newsrooms around the country, eroding the quality of local, state, and national reporting. That negative feedback loop has contributed to a majority of Americans abandoning the news for social media, which basically promulgates hearsay. What will independent news look like in five, 10 years from now? Well, I think it's a complicated picture, but it's entirely possible that what's left of our free and independent press as we know it could cease to exist. I I know that's a strong claim. Um but uh I'm not making that dire prediction lately. I I spent a lot of time as the Sunday editor of the Rutland Herald and the Times Argus. I've been a you know stalward and print papers and and online reporting for a long time and and I'm trying to help all the new folks out there who are trying to, you know, make their way as startups. We have a thousand nonprofit and for-profit startups in this country in the past 15 years, which is an incredible burgeoning of local news, but it's still not filling all the gaps. Um, we've got an ecosystem that has been really hollowed out. Um, we have 50 million people in this country who don't have a local news source. We ha half the counties in this nation do not have a reli reliable source of local news and you know the the local press in the United States has been spiraling now for about 20 years and the demise is accelerating. Google and Facebook now uh you know they they've taken 77% of newspaper advertising. Um 3,500 newspapers have shuttered. About half the ones that are left are owned by hedge funds or private investment firms that have hollowed out newsrooms to maintain profits. 50% of the nation's reporting jobs are just gone. Um you know, I'm sorry, this is depressing. um you know further corporate consolidation of local radio by right-wing Sinclair broadcasting and the sale of CBS and CNN to Republican mega donors has further eroded independent media and now the the Republican Congress has zeroed out the corporation for public broadcasting. NPR affiliates in rural areas out west which are often the sole source of community news have some of them have closed. Um many of them have laid off reporters. Meanwhile, if things couldn't be worse, the media standing with the public is in the toilet. Um you know a as Fran mentioned um only 25% of Americans trust the news. Well, here's a worse statistic. 52% of Americans are turning to social media for their information. And we all know that that's where, you know, people are publishing conspiracy theories, theories, and falsehoods. Um, and there's just a lot of there's not a lot of truthiness there, right? Um, Google Search, which was once the saving grace for online news, is no longer directing readers to news sites. Instead, the company is delivering AI summaries and publishers are seeing a 40% decline just in the past six months. Um, because people aren't clicking through to their news sites. And so that's hurting audience growth. It's hurting ad sales. It's hurting subscriptions. It's hurting memberships. If AI summaries and AI agents supplant human reporting, it's really hard to see how news organizations can survive to do the day in dayout work of upholding the First Amendment. Well, the good news is people will always want the truth, right? So, the truth finds a way one way or the other and news may take other forms. Uh we're already seeing this. Um news may become the realm of individual journalists, you know, um there's been a proliferation of podcasters, of substack writers, of Tik Tok influencers. Okay, can I say god forbid? All right, I said it. Um, if uh if generative AI takes over or if companies are greenlighted to further surveil journalists and Americans, who knows? Maybe we'll we'll go back to leaflets. Maybe there there mographs will come back. Remember those? Um maybe we'll have town criers. Um, while you know, and on top of all this, you know, Trump is setting the tone for the whole country. He's been belittling reporters, especially women. Let's be real. Um, and his administration, you know, his attacks have hit a new low. We've already talked about, you know, Politico and CNN and and um and and MIS now and how those reporters are no longer allowed, you know, in the White House. Um but maybe even more troubling, I mean, those folks are covering the dril that comes out of Trump's mouth, so maybe that's not a terrible thing. I don't know. Um, but you know, in the meantime, uh, lie detector tests of dozens of Department of Defense employees, you know, been happening because they're trying to find leakers. Um, a Washington Post reporter was forced to surrender her devices to the FBI last spring. uh the New York Times reporters um who were just you know reporting on this Cotter plane that Trump's been he was flying around in but now he's not um you know they were subpoenaed for reporting on some um issues there and they were subpoenaed in August and you know investigations of journalists confidential sources are underway and this is the lifeblood of reporting especially investigative reporting you have to have confidential sources or you're done and and the people who come forward to to to journalists are the bravest people in the world. They're risking their careers. They're list now they're they're risking the safety of their families and their own personal safety. So they have to be protected or we don't have any truth in this country. That's like the most important thing. Um, so you know, the New York Times journalists, the Washington Post reporter, you know, it it may be just a matter of time before those reporters are compelled to testify. And if that happens, we know they're good journalists and they're going to refuse to do that and they could face jail time. >> What happens to reporters at the federal level impacts reporters everywhere. As you know, as the National Association of Black Journalists said in a statement yesterday, the president's retaliation against Politico, CNN, and MSN Now reporters is a threat not only to news organizations being targeted, but to every journalist working to report independently and without fear of government reprisal. Local reporters are literally being targeted. the Freedom of Press Foundation and you know um Fran alluded to this earlier. She stated some global statistics uh and I'm going to cite some national ones. Um that Freedom of Press Foundation tracker shows that 82 reporters have been detained by law enforcement over the past two years in the United States. Um reporters covering protests have been shot with pellets and tear gas. uh in all 363 reporters have been assaulted since January 2025. And you know the attacks that journalists are facing are existential and physical. um billionaires like Peter Teal who sued Gawker out of existence and Republicans like Governor Greg Gianfort of Montana who bodys slammed a Guardian reporter in 2017 and other like-minded authoritarians in this country have it in for reporters and objective news whatever you think of it is going by the boards um with Fox News Murdoch's ownership of the Wall Street Journal Sinclair Broadcasting, Yellison's purchases of CNN and CBS, and Bezos's ownership of the Washington Post, the media landscape is tilting further to the right. Okay, enough of the depressing stuff. Um, while while the deck is stacked against independent news, I I do have faith in the resistance. And I have to say that, you know, every time a reporter asks a tough question, every time a reporter places a public records request, um, every time a reporter makes that extra call, talks to a confidential source, those actually those are democratic acts on the behalf of the public. Um in my experience at VT Digger um because even here in Vermont reporting had seen um there had been a decline in the number of reporters um and and some of the reporters weren't asking as many tough questions. When we at Digger started really aggressively reporting um we um people were a gasast. They didn't want to answer the questions. They were upset that we were asking questions. They didn't want to be held accountable. And that's, you know, you multiply that by 50 in this country and then you look at what's happening in DC. Every time a journalist goes out there to do their work, there it's an act of courage. Okay. Um, thousands of journalists are reporting for local newspapers, radio, and TV stations without fear or favor, knowing they could be singled out for online harassment, threats, assaults, and detentions. But they so they can't do this work alone. And this is where you come in. You know, if if we want independent news organizations and press freedoms to survive, it's paramount that you all help support journalists with advocacy, your attention, and financial support. So, first, let's talk about advocacy. Number one on my list is a national media shield law for journalist source confidentiality like the proposed 2024 Press Act that passed the House and failed in the Senate. We have to have that. We have to have that. And every state needs a version of the New York Media Jobs Act. This is a bill that gives tax credits to media companies. Please ask Bernie Sanders, Becca Balon, and Peter Welch to re-up the Press Act and to write a national version of the New York Media Jobs Act. Letters matter. You know, calls matter. That's something you all could do to help. Let's talk about your attention. You may not realize that your online habits might be part of the problem. When you query Google, click through to a story instead of just reading the summary. Don't take that summary at face value. Go to the original source. That's good for you and it's good for the publishers. Sometimes they don't match up. Just saying. It is AI. Um, and then uh I'd um I'd urge you to d if you have these accounts, don't be on Facebook. dump Instagram. Stop going on Tik Tok. I know you guys are big Tik Tok fans. I can tell. Um, and you know, subscribe to local newspapers, not just here in Vermont. There are great local newspapers all over the country. If you see a national story that you're interested in, go to the local news site, see what they're saying about it. It might be a different story than what you're reading nationally. It'll certainly be more authentic. I I did a lot of um when I when what was I don't know if you all did this but during the surge in Minnesota I was reading the Star Tribune I was reading men post I was reading Sahan Journal all the local newspapers up there because they had a very different take on the ground of what was happening there. Um, so if and if you do that and you spend a little time on these sites, subscribe for a while, you know, by email. That helps publishers. Always subscribe if you can, especially for the local news outlets. And if you can make a small donation, um, because those donations really matter to these news organizations, especially like I said with Google taking all the advertising dollars. Um, these are just a a few ideas, but um, I I I just do want to stress that the future of news and a free press is in peril unless we all pay attention and we all help out. Um, reporters are on the front lines and without them, you're next. Thank you. Yes. Thank you so much. And if you guys don't mind just moving over, grabbing a microphone and moving over here. We we just have about 15 minutes to try to stay on time. But um hopefully there's a few questions and you've you've held up your cards. They're being vetted in the back. If there are more uh people will come around to grab them. And uh thank you an for talking about what can we do come Monday to um think about and so an has already answered that very important question about what can we as individuals do and there is a lot that we um can do. Um while I'm waiting for a few more questions a quick one for Jesse. When the founding fathers created the first amendment, they could not have anticipated social media and other forms of communication that can spread hate, lies, and propaganda, although newspapers did back in those days. Um, but not so rapidly and widely. What might they have said or done to minimize that damage? >> Oh, that's such a hard question. There's so much about that time that does not translate to today. Um, you know, it's funny. I was just thinking about this issue of the first amendment and you know we we cherish it and at the same time it's important to recognize that this is it's not a natural thing to want to let all voices be heard right I mean we're all kind of instinctively opposed to speech that we don't like and I think understandably concerned about speech that uh demagoguery you know speech that uh riles people up that can lead to violence um you That is something that I I think about all the time. It's not a there's not an easy answer to that. It's easy to say I'm a free speech absolutist and in some ways I am. But that's that's also easy for me to say as someone who's generally protected by the laws of this country and who has not been targeted yet um as directly as as some people and as some communities have and as we've seen really awfully in the last few years particularly when um you mix social media with power right so it's not just the existence of social media which is sort of you know hard bad enough Um uh I think as I I really appreciated what Megan said is to distinguish between community media and social media. Um and not to be fooled by social media's claims to be representing people or expressing their voices as much, but it's just um it's the it's the powerful people using those bullhorns, those new bullhorns um in ways that are so damaging and so uh and so threatening to a lot of people in this country. I I mean obviously look there was the Alien and Sedition Act, right? Which the founders passed uh you know those um uh to to shut down uh speech they didn't like and that that was that was obviously against uh you know um people trying to use their first amendment um uh rights. um that got overturned. But nevertheless, it shows that throughout history, people in power have both taken advantage of of uh opportunities to to get their their part, you know, their view of the world heard and taken opportunities to shut down other people. Um I think this is just a never this this is going to be part this is part of the human condition is how do we balance uh respect for speech, respect for all viewpoints, respect for um let's say uh um peaceful disagreement, right? That's the whole idea of representative government is to resolve our differences without weapons and without violence. Um and how do we balance that with the danger the very real dangers of people uh you know using that speech using those rights um to the real immediate threat of others. So um you know I always like to say I think the democracy works best when it's like a moderated comment section. you know, there's like there's like this uh you know, when you go to comment sections that aren't moderated, you very quickly are like, "Oh, god." You know, just just close the screen. It's it gets bad really fast. Um I felt lucky to work at an institution, the New York Times that that has really invested and had the thankfully had the money to invest in uh moderation, common moderation, and it really made the conversation so much richer and so much more serious. and it let it let people sort of engage with each other and disagree with each other without kind of descending into the pit. Um, and so that to me is like an in some ways a balance like striking a balance of these two concerns. And I hope that I hope we can do that more. But it is uh you know as Ann is was just detailing it's a bit of a it's a it's a bleak um uh it's bleak out there right now. >> Okay. It is a little bleak. So thank you Jesse. Um I'll I'll turn this one over to an uh though other people can comment. There are two things about just our state. You know, one is there's there's been consolidation of news networks just just recently outlets. um how will that impact verters and also in this time of you know kind of as this person says unconstitutional lawlessness of our executive um and congressional do you feel that well-crafted legislation at the state level can protect Vermont and other state residents in other words what what do you see happening here at this state can we can we do something statewide to to help even despite local consolidations and other issues Yeah, I mean I think um consolidations are kind of inevitable because of the weakened economic state of of the media. Um and often, you know, local news organizations don't want to sell necessarily, but they see no choice because um they're not making any money, you know. Um and and I think uh fundamentally I mean this is one of the things that I learned uh at VT Digger which might be kind of a sidlight but um you know Vermont's a small state as we all know there 643,000 of us and uh we actually have quite a few news outlets for the size of our population and um for an online only news organization I think you have to have a critical mass of readers to make it viable from a financial standpoint. And so I say that because my heart goes out to the very many um hyper what what we call in the industry hyperlocals which are the very small uh newspapers and towns around the state because in this environment, you know, it's incredibly difficult to make money online if you only have 5,000 readers or 20,000 readers. you just simply can't do it, you know, and that's why, you know, um I I've always thought that it would be better to almost have a consortium of local news organizations um that could all benefit from a larger audience, but it's it's extremely difficult to pull that off. Um, so I I think we're in a tough spot until, you know, local publishers figure out how they can work with one another uh potentially um to have shared advertising sales or shared back office or you know shared editing honestly uh and maybe invest the money instead in reporters because that's the primary need. The primary need is reporting staff. Um, and if you can solve for that and it would mean uh smaller, you know, if fewer people in the industry, which I hate to see. So, I it it's just a nightmare. I don't know how to answer the question because there are so many external forces. It's not anybody's fault. It's it's it's it's like, you know, I'm on a school committee right now and and um people are like, "More people will move to our town. There will be more kids." And I'm like, "No, you don't understand. And for the past 20 years, people haven't been having kids. So, you know, we we've got a national problem here. And that's kind of like the situation with news. It's it's it's it's a it's not it's a global problem. It's not even just the US. It's happening everywhere. So, I think more cooperation, more shared resources is the way to go. Um, and publishers tend to be very independent-minded. So, it's it's hard for them to make that choice, but I think it's essential for the public. >> Okay. Thank you, Ann. And Megan, I'm going to send this one to you. It's about education. Uh, what can our educational system do to help young people be critical consumers of information? How can we guide them in determining what sources of information can be trusted or to really care about trusting information? Have you been dealing with some of that? in some ways or we all are actually most likely >> and then we'll sum up. >> Hello. Yeah. So, um I just want to speak to the legislation question quickly. Great. >> Um because one of the things the Vermont Access Network that I mentioned earlier has um since 2018 um enjoyed the support of all of you through allocations from the local from this Vermont state legislature. Um, and that is something that we are going to continue to work this upcoming session on finding ways to fund that. That means that we need to find new revenue sources. As far as consolidation goes and working together, those are all great things. We saw that with the education system this year that we have to figure out how to buy our toilet paper together. We still also need to find funds to continue to support a robust local journalism effort. And so there were legislative allocations again to the Secretary of State's office in the form of grants to local papers to support those. There's more work being done with press freedom to support local journalism um which is not a legislative effort. But then um on the national level there's also the supporting community media um act. Um so I appreciated you mentioning those direct things to speak to Balon and Welch and Sanders about. Um and then you know journalism credits or tax credits for hiring journalists and making sure you have folks are still um in play and conversations in the Vermont legislature. So ask your local legislator what they are aware of that is supporting community media and whether that's community media like our community media or community journalism which are two separate um friends that play in the same sandbox. So I'm maybe not answering your question but um I the other thing on education would be pay attention to what's happening with the meta settlement. So, the biggest settlement that this state has gotten, $92 million that will be um coming into the state over the next 10 years in $8 million increments. And right now, um, this is an opportunity for folks to practice, um, democratic processing with one another to figure out where that money is going to go and how that money is going to be stretched to support youth mental health. And then the the pieces in that which are like these small attempts to push back on corporations. It's not a, you know, social media is not just like, oh, by oops, by the way this is happening. These are designed platforms with algorithms to keep us depressed, angry, upset, buying things online, and hating each other. So, thank you. Jesse, I'll get to you in a second because what what I love about what's happening, my last question was going to be what what do we do? And there have been a lot of solutions. And um Matt, if you can just see if Anna is still on board for a last question for her, which is also about being active. Um but Jesse to you about your thoughts. >> And I think this somewhat speaks to that question. I I'd like to just inject a little optimism into the room because I think it's been a hard it's a hard conversation to have. It is a hard time. Um, but I just want to speak from my personal experience which is uh moving here from New York City and that's been a really important part of my life. We've been here six years. We moved here at the very beginning of COVID. And I went from one of the biggest um states in the country and most urban states in the country to one of the smallest and most rural. And so it's been a shock to my system but in a in a very positive way. And I I think I've experienced the importance of being of working locally. uh um combine this move with what's happened politically in the country where I don't think the uh federal government is a reliable partner right now in democracy or general uh the general values that I think most of us hold um it really has been important to see verters to speak to people face to face to have resources like VT Digger which I think is just unparalleled in the country uh to have CCTV to have Front Porch Forum um all of which just feel like this incredible people. There's just a lot of um I feel like there's a lot of goodwill that verters generate with each other and there's a lot of forbearance and a lot of willingness to just let people be who they are, but also you know gently right now my own fun porch forum is having a big debate over socialism and communism and and it's but it's but it's very it's very it's very like um you know it's calm and people are being informative and being respectful of each other at the town meeting. uh my wife sat on the uh our planning commission for several years where you know she nearly lost her mind but also she experienced the the you know the wonders of town government. So I I really feel extremely lucky to be here at this moment and recognizing the value of local. We've been talking about this all of of lo of being involved locally. And I actually think if you when you feel despair, think about you know you can't fix America right now, right? America is we're it's in it's in trouble in a lot of ways. But you can you can work locally and you can do things locally and you know to the extent that you're concerned about right-wing you know all the things we talked about with right-wing incursions into the federal government that itself began as a local project that began decades ago that was very organized it started in the it started when I was born and it is now bearing fruit and so the these are long games that we're all playing and I think this is something that people uh of our general persuasion uh have to think about too is this is a it's a long game and you have to start at the local level to do it and Vermont is as good a place as any I think in America to do that. >> I think that's true. Thank you, Jesse. And uh to to Anna, thank you so much for for hanging in there and being with us. Um this is another another piece of what can we do? Uh would a massive campaign to send messages to the FCC be effective? And if so, um, how best via the website at the FCC or real letters or what else do you recommend while we're doing this to close our session here? Thank you for staying with us. >> Thank you. Um, so it's very helpful when we have docketed proceedings to hear from individuals. Um, we do hear from individuals usually in the form of complaints. uh uh and we do collect those and we monitor them and we we process them. But when we have a a an open docket, what I'm talking about, for example, um the FCC issues a public notice that says um are the ABC local stations serving their local communities? Um, and we hear from tens of thousands of consumers that say, "Yes, I like my local my local broadcaster. Don't touch their licenses." It actually is very helpful when we get that kind of response and they're often coordinated. Um, there's a lot of organizations that coordinate those things. Yes, this is filed through our website. Um, if you look at our website, we have something called the express comments where you can literally send us a paragraph. Um, uh, you don't have to, you know, worry about formatting pleadings and all that kind of stuff. You know, you can just fill out the fill out the the the form online and and submit it. Um, so yeah, it can be very powerful. The problem with that, of course, is I'm asking you to monitor what we're doing um on specific things, and I recognize we do a lot, and it can be hard to to to keep track of. Uh but to the extent you're really motivated, I'm I'm uh always happy to hear from people. And by the way, if I get emails from people and they're about these types of things, I make sure they get put in the record. Um uh we I do read all my emails. um and uh and process them accordingly. I I often don't respond directly, just so you know, but I do read them and I do act on them. Thank you so much, Anna. And actually, thanks to every everybody. Uh this has been a remarkable panel. I'd like to hear for Anna and Jesse and an Megan and all the incredible work that they do. also certainly to third act who put this all together and to you clearly you are you are the activist core you're here you're interested you're listening please talk to your neighbors talk to your family talk to your friends uh there's there's a crisis going on in this country and clearly you are concerned and want to do something about it So u many thanks to all of you for coming today and thanks to third act. Uh we hope you uh yeah let's let's applaud third ACT and finally check out the tables in the lobby. Uh Jesse's book is out there among um other great information. Um so carry carry today with you. Thank you so much for coming and thank all of you so much for doing Thank you, Anna.