Here at Common Sense, we believe that democracy is the politics of people and so, in each issue, we cast the spotlight on a person who is doing something special to make sure America stays on the course our founders laid out for us. This month, CSM salutes Jeffrey Chester, founder and executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy and author of the new book Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy.

Who is Jeff Chester? He's been called the Paul Revere of the media revolution and the guardian of the last mile, and unless you're Big Media or their FCC cronies, you're lucky to have him on your side.

With Big Media fighting tooth and nail to consolidate its hold over the way we access information, Jeffrey Chester -- the founder and executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) has made it his mission to see that they fail.

And with the War in Iraq raging and the Bush Administration continuing its assault on civil liberties, today, he says, his work is more important than ever.

‘Over the last several years, my work has taken on a new urgency. Lives are at stake,’ said Chester, in a recent e-mail interview. ‘The news media, including the New York Times, failed us. The news media didn't stand up to Bush and his lies. Consequently, hundreds of thousands have died and millions have suffered.’

For three decades, Chester has served on the front lines of the battle to protect free media, and he’s inspired dozens of likeminded groups to follow in CDD’s footsteps.

A leading advocacy organization for media in the public interest, CDD works to educate the public on media issues, organize a coordinated response to the assault on free access to broadband, and is working to develop alternative media models that rely on non-commercial sources of information and services. More recently, the group launched the Digital Destiny Campaign, a grassroots effort to organize and educate at the local level.

With a full-time staff of just two, CDD works tirelessly to educate, inform and petition. And it seems to be working. Through Chester’s relentless promotion of ‘network neutrality’ he has raised awareness of the importance of keeping the Internet free and open to everyone and he has helped launch the issue into the national spotlight.

At this very moment, the FCC is being bombarded with public comments from people concerned about its upcoming auction of the 700MHz wireless spectrum. The large telecom and cable operators would love to get their hands on it, but a groundswell of pubic opposition has risen to block their path.

Chester thinks his message is finally getting across.

‘More people recognize that electronic media policy is important,’ he says. ‘Unlike 1996, when you had a handful of groups, we now have a growing movement. We have many more groups, activists, talented and dedicated people working Congress, state capitals, City Halls, and communities.’

Prior to his media policy career, Chester was a psychiatric social worker, investigative journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He traces his decision to dedicate himself to advocacy to what he jokingly refers to as ‘Reagan election stress syndrome.’

‘In 1980, having lived in part through Reagan's governorship in California, I felt that the news media and overall media environment needed therapy,’ he says. ‘And I’ve been doing forms of treatment on the U.S. media system since then, though unfortunately it’s mostly crisis intervention.’

Chester decided to work full time to help create new sources of more serious news, information and culture for the U.S. public, at that time, principally focused on television policy.

He began co-producing documentaries for public TV and public radio, and helped organize an effort in the 1980s, which led to the Congressional passage of a fund to support non-commercial independent filmmakers -- the Independent Television Service.

In 1991, Chester co-founded the nonprofit Washington, D.C.-based Center for Media Education. He was also a co-founder of the Telecommunications Policy Roundtable, and helped write its groundbreaking set of principles for the digital age in 1993. During the debate on the Telecommunications Act of 1996, he played a key role in fighting proposed measures to deregulate ownership rules in the broadcasting, newspaper, and cable industries.

In 1996, Newsweek named him one of the Internet's fifty most influential people.

‘The same business model focused on entertainment and advertising is shaping the new medium of broadband,’ explains Chester. ‘The vision these folks have for our digital future doesn't support serious news; diverse ownership of content by women and people of color; services and control by low-income Americans. It's about unleashing the most powerful medium ever created by humans to instill deep commercial values into our values.’

Chester’s new book, Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy, published in January 2007 by The New Press, is his latest weapon in the war for free media. In it he describes how the country’s powerful communications companies are ‘using their political clout to gain ever greater control over the Internet and other digital communication channels.’ And he spells out what we can do to take our ‘digital destiny’ back into our own hands.

Chester says it’s going to take more than just a sense of dedication.

‘Only by having financially sustainable revenues within the core of new media will we be able to organize and also fund the kind of multimedia production necessary to support the long road for progressive social change.

‘I have a vision for a digital media system which helps us address our problems, supports diversity and helps in what must be a global effort to promote peace. Besides, we have to hold these big institutions accountable.’

Jeff’s Heroes: Ralph Nader, Bill Moyers, I. F. Stone, Rachel Carson, Erik Barnouw (media historian), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.)

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