MANHATTAN, Kan. - The June 10th edition of Community Bridge, Manhattan's alternative to talk radio, featured the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Kansas Free Press, in a follow-up to our 2009 show about the online newspaper. Now in its eighth month of activity with over 70 writers, the Kansas Free Press provides Kansans with an alternative to the mainstream media.

She talks about how the Kansas Free Press has grown, what some future plans include, how people can support the newspaper, the mainstream media in Kansas, and the role Net Neutrality plays in allowing the Kansas Free Press to survive and reach its public.

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MANHATTAN, Kan. - "A dedicated group of people are starting a new radio station that serves the public interest." Now there's a headline we get to read about everyday in the for-profit media. NOT! But that very thing is happening here.

2007 logoIn 2005 and 2007, a group of Manhattanites, community members and K-State students, attended the National Conference for Media Reform in St. Louis and Memphis sponsored by Free Press. Free Press is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to reform the media. Free Press uses education, organizing and advocacy to promote diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media, quality journalism, and universal access to communications.

With the framework and knowledge gained at the conferences, local citizens began to question what the local Manhattan media was providing them in terms of content and diversity of opinion. What they found was a media landscape in which the major issues of the day were reduced to sound bites and celebrity trivia was pushed as meaningful content.

HOBOKEN, N.J. - Google users from across the United States today were surprised to see that the premier search engine and world changer has changed its name to Topeka. This is a sight that should not be missed. Who knows how long it will last? But it must be seen to be believed. Log on right now to www.google.com and check it out. To find out more about the background of this stranger-than-sci fi event, see http://bit.ly/937rCW.

Unhappily for loyal Topekans, the name change did not extend globally. In Mexico the page says, "Dia de tontos" or day of stupid people.

LAWRENCE, Kan. - I spent an hour last week on a conference call organized by the Sunlight Foundation about open government in Kansas. The Sunlight Foundation is an organization whose self-proclaimed mission is to use "cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable." It was really encouraging to see the interest in open government, but there's lots to be done.

We have some counties (20 according to the Sunshine Review) that don't even have websites, much less accessible data about their governments. You can't make claims of openness when you're not even presenting basic information about yourself online.

SALINA, Kan. - The State of Kansas currently has legislation pending related to distracted driving. The legislation (Kansas House Bill 2132) would prohibit text messaging while operating a motor vehicle. Specifically, drivers in Kansas would be prohibited from sending, reading or writing a "text message by means of an electronic wireless communications device."

On any given day last year, an estimated 800,000 vehicles were driven by someone who used a hand-held cell phone at some point during their drive, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

A recent study in the journal Human Factors has found that texting while driving is riskier than talking on a cell phone or with other passengers while driving.

SALINA, Kan. - When a Virginia Tech student disappeared at a Metallica concert in Charlottesville last fall, her friends and family turned to social media to find her. A few months later, when a Utah woman went missing, supporters launched what some claimed was the most extensive use of online technology in a missing-person search, enlisting close to 40,000 Facebook and Twitter members in three days. Thus far, neither campaign has led to the two missing women.

Nevertheless, said Claudette Artwick, associate professor of journalism and mass communications at Washington and Lee University, another way to assess the success or failure of these efforts is by looking at the media coverage they generate.

In the pre-social-media days, the goal was to get a missing person's photo on television and in the newspaper. Social media now allow friends and family to put that photo in front of millions and millions of eyes with or without the help of traditional media.

SALINA, Kan. - Facebook apparently doesn't interfere with the sleep that students get. How much sleep college students get each night is not affected by how much time they spend using social media, according to new research from the University of New Hampshire.

"The study indicates that using social media is hardly what keeps students up at night," said UNH adjunct professor Chuck Martin, whose marketing research class conducted the study.

The study found that the most popular online network was Facebook, with 97 percent of all university students actively using the social media platform. LinkedIn was the least used, with 10 percent of students actively using it.

"Using Facebook, and to a lesser degree YouTube, blogs or Twitter, do not appear to have any impact on how much or how little students sleep," Martin explained.

SALINA, Kan. - Parents know that computers are important for their children's school work, but may worry that the lure of social networking pulls students away from studies.

New research from the University of New Hampshire has found that student grades are not adversely affected by social networking. Parents worried that their college students are spending too much time on Facebook and other social networking sites and not enough time hitting the books can breathe a sigh of relief.

Students who heavily engage in social networking do just as well academically as students who are less interested in keeping in touch with the medium.

HAYS, Kan. - Some of the chain e-mails that go around the internet annoy me even more than those telemarketing calls that come during the dinner hour. You know the kind I mean--not the e-mails promising rock-bottom prices on male enhancement products, but the chilling threats of imminent Armageddon all because Mom, apple pie, and God-fearing, democracy-loving Americans are once again under attack--usually by liberals or atheists or Democrats or gays or Muslims or, worst of all, by liberal atheistic Democratic gay Muslims.

These e-mails are usually forwarded to you and 938 other idiots who were dumb enough to give your e-mail addresses to Uncle Myron, who never met a conspiracy theory he didn't like. Or, for that matter, one he didn't think everyone in his address book should know about.

"I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense ..." Thomas Paine, 1776, pamphleteer

HAYS, Kan. - Thomas Paine was a pamphleteer over 230 years ago. Though he's thought of as one of America's earliest, and perhaps its most famous journalist, if he were alive today, it's fairly unlikely that he'd be working as a glam television anchor, covering car chases on the L.A. freeway or following the sagas of divorcing celebrities. Tom Paine probably wouldn't aspire to political punditry either. It's doubtful that he'd end up an argumentative or abrasive talking head on some cable news channel.

No. The man who is the original embodiment of the the 1st Amendment would strive for something much greater.

If Tom Paine were to be among us now, it's likely that he would aspire to be one of us. He'd probably be writing furiously and freely at a free press on the Internet, just like this one. And, just as we hope to, he'd be speaking of issues that he believed to have the most relevance to his fellow citizens.

Citizen-powered websites, like this one, are bringing about a real revival of pamphleteering, and a renewed understanding of freedom of the press.