CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT MOVEMENT HOLDS
NATIONAL CONFERENCE AT OHIO UNIVERSITY

3/22/99

Contact: Norma Pecora, (740) 593-4864

ATHENS, Ohio -- The Cultural Environment Movement will hold its second national conference March 25-28 on Ohio University's Athens campus with former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark giving the keynote address at noon Friday, March 26, in Nelson Commons.

The Cultural Environment Movement is an international coalition of 6,300 members from more than 57 countries on six continents concerned about the effects of mass media on society.

CEM members are concerned about the increasingly market-driven nature of news and television programming, the portrayal of drugs and alcohol in mass media and the concentration of media ownership.

Speakers include:

• Ramsey Clark, assistant attorney general for President John F. Kennedy and attorney general under President Lyndon B. Johnson, is a longtime activist in international affairs and human rights issues.
• Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a nationwide consortium of policy researchers that works to broaden the public discourse in news media, is a nationally syndicated columnist on media and politics. His ninth book, "The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media: Decoding Spin and Lies in Mainstream news" will be published in spring 1999.
• Linda Mabalot, executive director of Visual Communication, a creative media center that promotes a more accurate and sensitive portrayal of the Asian experience in America. She produced and directed "Manong," a documentary on the history of Filipinos in California, and "Moving the Image," a television series for the International Channel Network.
• George Gerbner, Bell Atlantic Professor of Telecommunications at Temple University and Dean Emeritus of the Annenberg School of Communication. Newsweek described Gerbner as "perhaps the foremost authority on the effects of television on society." His Cultural Indicators Database is the longest ongoing study of television and its effects on society in the world.
• Denise Grey-Felder, director of communication and social change programs for the Rockefeller Foundation.
• Lynne Curtis, president of the Milton Eisenhower Foundation and the Corporation for What Works, Washington, D.C.