I'm asking you to give a damn...

The NewStandard, an online non-profit newspaper and radio broadcaster, is in need of financial assistance.

Independent, advertising-free, reader-supported journalism doesn't come for free, after all. Although, I have to admit that the folks at The NewStandard seem to operate a pretty tight ship. According to their website, "only 3% of our revenues have gone to organizational overhead, the remaining 97% paying for content production." That's pretty impressive when you consider that 3% of Katie Couric's salary could purchase Rhode Island.

You can support The NewStandard here or learn more about them by visiting here.

Now, I know some of you could give a shit about independent media, but let me share a couple of tid-bits that might make you reconsider.

One: Investigations are underway as to why the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) deliberately shelved two reports that were critical of corporate media ownership. Why should you care? Corporately owned media produces less local news coverage.

That means you're left in the dark about what's going on in your own back yard. If you're an American citizen, the FCC is charged with protecting and safeguarding your public airwaves. Instead, your tax dollars are supporting an agency that deliberately obfuscates and destroys reports that illuminate the creeping, corporate control of information and the public’s access to the public airwaves.

Two: StopBigMedia.com is demanding that the FCC cease its plans to allow media giants like Viacom, Fox (News Corp), and TimeWarner from purchasing every media outlet in your town and consolidating access to newspapers, radio, tv and websites (like this one).

Consolidation is killing local media choices. Since 1975, two-thirds of independent newspaper owners have disappeared, and one-third of independent television owners have vanished. Only 281 of the nation's 1,500 daily newspapers remain independently owned, and more than half of all U.S. markets are dominated by one paper.

Moreover, the number of radio station owners has plummeted by 34 percent since 1996, when ownership rules were gutted. That year, the largest radio owners controlled fewer than 65 stations; today, radio giant Clear Channel alone owns more than 1,200.

If the current ownership rules are eliminated, local communities will be turned into "company towns," where one media conglomerate dominates the public discourse.

I, for one, am greatly concerned by corporate media's desire to control the flow of information and the public's willful disregard towards corporate ownership of information in this country.

Whether you like it (or not), whether you give a shit (or not) – sooner or later, Americans are going to have to face the media reality we’ve allowed to be created.

All I can ask you to do is consider the world you want to live in.

Should Katie Couric’s colonoscopy matter more than local news coverage concerning your local school system, your highways, your rights, your safety or your children’s health?

That decision rests entirely in your hands.

And in your pocketbooks.