Citizen guardianship over public-interest information channels is essential to democratic debate and socially responsible media policy change. Independent, noncommercial and community media are struggling to survive while multi-billion dollar industries grow more powerful from the cables they run under the public roads and the licenses they use to broadcast on public airwaves, fighting off public obligations at every step. How can we create an environment where diverse media thrive? This is about how and what we communicate. Today's emerging information technologies have the potential to connect the world as never before. New media tools enable us to share solutions, strengthen cultures, and create new levels of accountability and transparency in governments and corporations, as well as, among social change organizations. THIS PROJECT could make local, regional national, and international media advocacy activities accessible to anyone interested in holding information gatekeepers in check. It would provide concerned citizens with 1) tools to feedback to broadcast, cable, satellite, radio and internet content decision-makers, 2) tools for messaging policy makers, and 3) motivation to transform individual viewers/receivers/"consumers" into participating media rights advocates by provide opportunities to get involved. THE PROJECT would also address a pressing need among media advocacy players in the U.S. Accessing information about partnerships, collaborations, new initiatives, etc. is klunky and time-consuming. Bridge-building between and among advocates across regions and issues is timely, if not urgent in today's media landscape. The widest gulf exists between grassroots and local media justice organizations and Washington D.C. Policy change efforts. The connection between scholarly research and community advocacy is developing, yet improving knowledge of and access to organizations would expedite productivity (and therefore, positive policy change). THIS PROJECT could minimally, be the gateway to more efficient networking, alliance and partnership initiatives and collaboration. Funders and/or investors would use the service to gain pertinent information about media issues or potential grantees. This mashup would help strengthen media movements, and ultimately be the e-support of efforts that preserve the free expression of diverse perspectives.

How many Americans can interview their U.S. Senator or Representative? With Capitol News Connection’s Ask Your Lawmaker website (www.askyourlawmaker.org) and customizable widgets anyone with an Internet connection can keep their lawmaker accountable. Pioneering a new social journalism, CNC is mashing up traditional shoe-leather reporting with social networking to empower users to ask questions of elected representatives, vote on other user’s questions, listen to audio of a lawmaker’s response, discuss and share the results. Ask Your Lawmaker (AYL) is utilizing the interactivity, customizability and viral nature of Web 2.0 to connect citizens to their Congressional lawmakers and shine a light of transparency on the political process. It is our experience that asking questions other media avoid can help change policy.

Teaming with news staff at local public radio stations and an active citizenry, CNC plans to extend the AYL service to cover state and municipal governments. This includes further customization of the AYL website and widgets so that they allow users to choose between national, state and municipal views, and enable local citizens to get and upload lawmaker or local candidate answers. CNC also intends to create a hyper-personal version that displays a citizen’s own questions and answers. Users can harness a Drupal-powered website, embeddable Flash widgets customizable by state and issue, Google maps and other APIs – in addition to CNC and its 200+ partner stations’ accredited access and editorial experience to create original news stories that build on user dialogue and lawmaker responses. User-created content will be featured on Ask Your Lawmaker, www.cncnews.org and myriad other blogs and sites, as well as broadcast on local public radio stations nationwide. Utilizing new widgets, AYL users will be able to share, discuss and promote the questions they asked of lawmakers as well as the content they created based on those answers on social networks like MySpace and Facebook, and via SMS on cell-phones.

The aim is to build user communities that exist on the local, regional and national level are linked to each other via social networking sites and Ask Your Lawmaker. By publishing and tracking individual and group questions for lawmakers, coupled with the ability to create and publish new content based on those responses, Ask Your Lawmaker is a living example of how local voices can truly set the news and legislative agendas.