The Transmission Project has been searching in advance of our website launch for the perfect quote that captures our vision and mission. The final quote we chose came from Lyndon Johnson’s signing remarks for the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act:

I do believe that we have important things to say to one another—and we have the wisdom to match our technical genius.

From those remarks also came:

So I think we must consider new ways to build a great network for knowledge — not just a broadcast system, but one that employs every means of sending and storing information that the individual can use.

Slightly drier, we dug through Fighting Poverty: Utilizing Community Media in a Digital Age from the World Congress on Communication for Development (WCCD) October 2006:

Access to the means of voice and communication is central to a people-centred approach to development both for its intrinsic human importance and its role in shared culture, access to knowledge and education, civic participation in decision making, ensuring good governance through accountability and providing other tools that assist the achievement of development goals.

Development institutions and organisations should provide assistance to build the capacity of community media through training, strengthening of networks and sector associations, technical assistance and investment. Support for community media should be provided on the basis of strategic long term commitment recognising that impact must be measured not only in short term results but in community media’s contribution to long term social change.

Some quotes from Marshall McLuhan:

Today we are beginning to notice that the new media are not just mechanical gimmicks for creating worlds of illusion, but new languages with new and unique powers of expression.

A new medium is never an addition to an old one, nor does it leave the old one in peace. It never ceases to oppress the older media until it finds new shapes and positions for them.

The future masters of technology will have to be light-hearted and intelligent. The machine easily masters the grim and the dumb.

And John Naisbitt:

The most exciting breakthroughs of the 21st century will not occur because of technology but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human

Voices That Must Be Heard, the journal of the New York Community Media Alliance, has a great editorial on the state of Black Journalism. Drawing a line from Freedom’s Journal—the first African American owned and operated newspaper in the United States (1827-1829)—“We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us.” the editorial lays it out:

Today in 2009, there are many who say that they represent America, but what America do they represent? They show America as they see it. They show America through the lens of white America.

Whether in print or on TV, the lens is through the eyes of white editors and producers. They see our communities as the media has seen them historically, not as the actually are. If we look at newsrooms across the country, especially print, the numbers we were so optimistic about in the late 1990s have turned around. According to the American Society of News Editors, “American daily newspapers shed 5,900 newsroom jobs last year, reducing their employment of journalists by 11.3 percent to the levels of the early 1980s.”

The report continued, “Of the journalists who departed newsrooms, 854 were minorities, according to ASNE’s 2009 census. The overall year-over-year drop left 46,700 journalists, including 6,300 minority professionals, on newspaper staffs at the end of December 2008. The number of minority journalists stands at the level reported in the 1998 census.”

The American Society of News Editors report on newsroom diversity can be found here.

Journalism that Matters, the Media Giraffe Project and others are convening a three day gathering “to consider the roots of American community, freedom, democracy – and the journalism which protects each”:

The America of Norman Rockwell’s mid-20th-century illustrations was rich with simple truths and sometimes hard choices. In that world, we respected authority, and the flag. We were asked to embrace justice, equality and tolerance. The “Country Editor” personified the Four Freedoms at the grassroots.

On Sept. 11, 2001, it was as if the last vestiges of Rockwell’s stoic, insular, yet generous nation had been torn asunder, and a new, darker period of fear engaged. A buy-now-pay-later ethic has brought some of our most valued journalism institutions to the brink. Now even the Missouri country editor works with bits and bytes alongside type and ink. Yet innovation abounds on the Internet, and we find new ways to connect and circulate. If Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter have taught us anything, it’s that we may hunger for the constancy of community more than ever.

Can we reboot Rockwell’s America in a digital age? Do we want to? What might be the role of art, and culture? Join us Sept. 11-13 to consider the options – and tools.

Diversity is one of the core values that underly the Transmission Project, as well as throughout the not-for-profit world. Pulling from a different playbook, the following is from the Chief of Information for the US Navy for naval officers:

1. Leaders who embrace diversity and differing viewpoints and seek talent that embodies a broad range of life experiences ensure naval readiness today and tomorrow.
2. The Navy must reflect the face of the nation. Further, we want an officer corps that is reflective of the enlisted force it leads.
3. Obtaining talent from diverse populations across the U.S. strengthens the force and ensures forward progress.

It’s good advice for us with a quick search and replace of nouns. And of course, if you feel military thinking doesn’t apply to not-for-profits, just think about it next time you look at your strategic plan, develop your social media tactics and prepare for your capital campaign.

I found this quote from the Information Dissemination blog (“The intersection of maritime strategy and strategic communications”), and they have a pointed criticism that is also equally valid for nonprofits: diversity includes more than the factors involved between conception and 18 years old. If your staff all have similar work histories, or your leadership team all has similar management degrees, you haven’t achieved what the naval context calls command track diversity. Diverse professional histories are just as important as diverse personal histories.