WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Kelly Crossley. This is the Cali costly show. We're looking at homegrown protests. We begin with Joey de Francesco. He worked a room service job in Rhode Island. He often fantasized about quitting this job in a spectacular fashion. The dream went like this with a brass band in tow. Joined with Mark up to his boss handed his letter of resignation and the band would burst into exuberant song. The dream became a reality. Joe his resignation was filmed and the video went viral. This was more than a Take This Job and Shove It gesture. Joey's launched a campaign to ban tipping them in Rhode Island even as a state legislator on his side. From there we meet a small Worcester group that's fighting for basic Internet rights and freedoms. We wrap up with an editor of The Boston occupier a paper dedicated to the Occupy movement. Up next power to the people. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying at least six Midwestern states are reeling from a powerful storm system that unleashed a string of suspected

tornadoes and caused dozens of deaths or injuries. At least nine people across the region are reported dead six of them in Harrisburg Illinois alone. NPR's David Schaper has more on the extent of the storms. A powerful storm system swept down from the Rockies and raced through Nebraska Kansas Missouri southern Illinois and into Kentucky spawning violent thunderstorms and deadly tornadoes along the way. Hardest hit is the small city of Harrisburg Illinois where authorities say the storm hit at about 5:00 Central Time this morning. Damage throughout the town is extensive Some buildings are leveled. An official at Harrisburg Medical Center says some storm victims were pronounced dead on arrival. A state emergency management official says there is no one missing in Harrisburg that everyone is now accounted for and that search and rescue teams have been called off. David Schaper NPR News. Damage is widespread in Branson and other parts of Missouri. Lieutenant Dan Egan spokeswoman for the Dallas County sheriff's office in Missouri says a possible tornado took out a mobile home

park in Branson. They haven't confirmed tornado but extensive damage is done up there. There pretty much you know saying that it did. We had an entire trailer court demolished Plus a business. Now as we've heard authorities are also keeping a close watch on communities in Kentucky where residents have reported seeing at least one twister today. The U.S. economy has grown at a faster pace than most analysts thought in the fourth quarter of last year. NPR's Chris Arnold reports the Commerce Department is saying gross domestic product grew at a 3 percent annual rate. American consumers and businesses were spending more money towards the end of last year personal consumption was up 2 percent. Business investment in equipment was up about 5 percent and people were spending more money remodeling homes. All that is good news says John Silvia the chief economist at Wells Fargo. I think the economy is continuing to improve I don't see a chance of a double dip. The challenge I think for most investors in this. Decision makers and then again government

officials as well as what is the pace of growth that's sustainable going forward. One thing that slowing down the recovery is government spending federal government spending was down 7 percent in the fourth quarter. Chris Arnold NPR News. Well Congressman David Dreier the chair of the House Rules Committee will not seek another term. Address announcement today comes as redistricting in California has made races more difficult for several incumbents as the Associated Press notes a total of 21 Democrats and 16 Republicans in the House have announced that they would retire or seek another office. At last check on Wall Street the Dow was down 5 points at 13000 Nasdaq gaining three it's at two thousand nine hundred ninety. This is NPR News. Good afternoon from the WGBH radio newsroom in Boston I'm Christina Quinn with the local stories we're following. Boston police are looking for the public's help in finding a missing 13 year old boy Leroux Henderson went missing from his Dorchester home at about 1:00 p.m. yesterday according to a police statement he has a history of as mine does not have his medication. Le Roux was

last seen wearing a dark blue puffy coat with a fur color and the MEK a brand name on the back blue jeans and white sneakers. Police say Leroux has been in the city for two months and does not know the area. The state Republican Party released a video today that mocks Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren for fund raising in Hollywood. The Boston Globe reports that the web only video is in black and white and edited to look like an old fashioned movie trailer. The video calls Warren Hollywood's new it girl and labels her as a hypocrite for raising money from the wealthy. Warren is attending a Hollywood fundraiser tomorrow hosted by liberal producer Norman Lear and entertainer Barbra Streisand. Warren has raised a lot of money from celebrities and campaign finance reports have shown a greater reliance on out of state money than Republican Senator Scott Brown over the past year. A Rhode Island based nonprofit that's under investigation for how it spent taxpayer money reportedly bought nearly three million dollars worth of resort property in North Carolina. The Providence Journal reports the Institute for International Sport but two homes and four lots on Bald Head Island in 2004 in

2005. The newspaper also reports the institute's founder and chairman Daniel Joel Jr. bought nearly 1.4 million dollars in property on the island under his name or that of his investment company beginning in February 2004. Rhode Island State Police are investigating how the Institute spent five hundred seventy five thousand dollars state grant it got in 2007. In sports the Milwaukee Bucks are in town to play the Boston Celtics. And right now we have light snow conditions in Boston with a temperature of 33 degrees in Worcester it's 31 degrees and 40 40 degrees in New Bedford. We can expect an accumulation of an inch of snow this afternoon. Highs in the upper 30s. Good afternoon I'm Cally Crossley. Today we're looking at homegrown protests meeting locals who are fighting for big changes. We're kicking off the conversation with Joey de Francesco. He became an Internet sensation last fall after he posted a YouTube video of himself quitting his job at the Marriott in

Providence. Since then he's been fighting for workers rights. He's working with the Rhode Island state rep to create a bill that would prohibit Tipp theft in the state. Joy difference Esko thank you welcome. Thank you so much for having me today. I'm going to start this way because I think Johnny Paycheck said it best. Here are the lyrics from. Take This Job and OK that's one of these days I'm going to blow my top and that sucker he's gonna pay. Lord I can't wait to see their faces when I get the nerve to say Take This Job and Shove It. I work here no more. The good ones were when I speired by not the regular way I go out of comics and I should use that song instead. Well first of all tell us. We I just mentioned you were working at the Marriott Renaissance in Providence. What were you doing and what inspired you to take drastic action. Well I was working in rooms for about three and a half years and just terrible working conditions there time hotels like this across the country probably everywhere you know you're working really long days

12 13 14 hours or making less than minimum wage. They're stealing our tips which is a motivating law which I guess we'll talk about in a little while. You know all across the hotel housekeepers are clean 16 rooms a day just really terrible working conditions and I was always fighting back against that I was organizing with my coworkers we were trying to to form a union there doing all kinds of stuff. And so I eventually got fed up and I got another job I just graduate school I decide it's time to leave but I knew that they wanted me gone you know because they've been trying to get rid of me when the union went public to start cutting my hours doing all kinds of stuff to try to get me to quit so I knew they wanted me out of there so this is only a pause so you were organizing for union which then became successful you were able to get one. Actually no. So we got about 85 percent of workers signed up cards to in support of the Union but the company is still pretty viciously fighting it so we sort of informally have a union because everyone's agreed to do it and sort of acts together but

legally they're still viciously fighting it firing people do all kinds of nasty stuff over there. And you were one of the. So they knew you were an organizing and rabble rousing to get it in place. Yeah they definitely knew even before this video the big thorn in their side. It didn't start with the video for a while. OK so you're in a you know a job that's you know wearing on you you've tried to organize with some of your coworkers to at least have the hope of getting some improvements at the site and finally comes to you. Ok I'm out of here but I don't want to just say I'm out of here. What were you sitting at home. How did this come to you and put so much work into that place and the fighting that I knew had to do something big. And there's a band in the video I quit the band it's called the what cheer brigade and I've actually played trumpet in this band and it's something that I actually joked about a lot is playing big events for people if someone quits a job quit the band play someone comes out to their parents and then the band plays something like you know stuff like that. And so it came up that I wanted to quit it was pretty spontaneous like I would just go do this. This would be a big

thing like I want to have my boss one last time and let's throw a brass band in his face and so there's like OK let's do that sounds hilarious. And then also because our Sundance we're going to be able to film it and see how it turns out. And so we're just on a trip to New York. That day with the band I said I would just stop by and just do this like I'm done I want to be free for this trip just get it over with. So you hadn't actually planned a day that just you despond tediously in a month. This is the day I'm out. Well that day I had worked one of these double shifts I'm talking about at work maybe 12 hours I was sick I just absolutely fed up with it just like Jesus Christ I can't do this anymore. And so that night we were going on this whole tours I said let's just go do it right now and. And so I said OK all right so as we said you you know what your band which is the group that you were part of you got to go with you to in this effort to quit and you did it in a spontaneous way and it was filmed. And so we've taken a sample of that in time. I'm going to play it here for those of you to relive your

moment of triumph. Sounds good. Like I said I'm here to tell you what it is. OK so what the echoes of Joey quits and I've seen the video and I will post the video on our website if you want people to see it but I can see your boss in the background sort of looking rather shocked. That was the effect you want it. Yeah he's a guy with a lot he had directly fired some of my friends for being pro-union made up stuff about him and all kinds of stuff with

him so I really wanted to get him and just kind of by a coincidence he was. That night we got him to come back you know get him on the video he played his part perfectly we couldn't have scripted his role better some people thought was fake because he's just such a caricature of a boss there you know it's perfect but he makes it all right. So but what were you what song were you playing or was that just a general band. It's actually a Serbian song it's called boob MRA. It's a song we play pretty frequently a lot but the videos become very popular in Serbia because they saw this song so I've been all over media in Serbia because they really like that we use their song for this. Yes we should say that. What more than three million hits to this video. Yeah it's something like three point one or some yes point. OK. But back in that moment in time before yesterday three point you know whatever you posted and you went on about your business when did you start to understand that this was a phenomenon that other people were responding to. Yes I just we made and posted I thought just maybe I'd make my coworkers laugh and maybe make my

boss angry you know get her out a little bit inspire as against all my coworkers as a funny thing. And then after we get started like Shuan up to maybe 20 30 40 thousand hits and it was going on and then it started to get picked up by Web sites like Reddit started getting calls from newspapers from media and has come completely unexpected We had no idea it was going on and then it was just like three weeks pretty much continued today just insanity that was totally unpredicted. So what were people saying as they responded. Good for you. I mean what was it did you think that just connected with folks. Yeah it was almost universally positive I think that people always hate their jobs especially now. So you both are employed in the Beeb or lucky enough to have jobs even now the standard is just continuously declined. And so people working you know tells restaurants I was getting so many messages from people so I'm just saying like oh thanks so much for doing this I also work in a hotel it's like just sympathizing me and sort of

expressing that they've also had this fantasy and that they spend all day at work thinking about how they're going to stick it to their boss or do something like this and so to see it as visualize just click so so many people. So a few questions about your old job before we move on. Is the boss still there is far. I heard he was getting transferred recently but he is from everything I heard that they kept him there Mary had a really funny reaction to the whole thing they sent out a couple press releases but were just trying to make it go away I think so they didn't want to get rid of them or something but all my coworkers said he he had a couple times snapping but he's been very nice to people since this came. I'm sure he doesn't want another band and another video doing that. And your coworkers who are still there are they feeling is a little bit better for them or is about the same or what. I'm not totally sure in some cases it is a lot better than room service I know between the video and other stuff we've had they've totally re-organize sort of the tipping

structure in that to talk about and has been totally removed. I know they are being nicer to people like in the restaurant this guy I don't know you know systemically that I don't think it's totally changed but I definitely put pressure on the hotel and pressure on Marriott to change stuff and you know almost all my coworkers adore. This is awesome. Thanks so much for doing this. All this stuff like that. So so you started a blog. Joey quits and because you know even though you had fun so to speak you know in saying goodbye to your your mean boss there was some underlying issues that you didn't want to let go when you didn't. So you've been. Tell us about what's going on on that blog right from the beginning when the and the video starts to blow up the first thing I did was on that YouTube description really pose the issues that was going on that would tell that they're fighting the Union all this stuff and all these interviews and sort these silly media and Access Hollywood I was getting to talk about unions and Access Hollywood and these ridiculous shows. And so from the beginning I was really trying to transfer all the energy into the work I

was actually doing at the hotel previously. So I said it's I getting all these stories from other workers telling me what was going on in their hotels all this stuff and I was thinking you know my video this one little thing put so much pressure on Marriott Hotel what if. We could sort of hold the whole industry accountable. Other people's stories. So I got in touch with these people who had sent me stories and said you know can we post this we can do it anonymously but let's you know uses attention to expose more companies more bosses sort of the whole industry. And so he made his website Joey quits that. And I write some stuff for it just on issues but mostly it's other hotel workers post stories of what's going on in their hotels what their bosses are doing. And you can go on there and it's searchable by state by a hotel brand. And the idea is that you know to expose these companies and these bosses and hopefully hold them accountable hopefully scare them a little bit just by knowing that their workers can use the Internet can use these tools to fight back to let customers know. What the working conditions are

like in these places. And speaking of customers I mean these days when people go on trips they do all kinds of research looking to hear from other folks who travel to those locations. So do you have any evidence that people have you know read some of the blog sites and say you know what I'm not spending my money here because I don't like how this is going down with the workers. Yeah definitely and my video people have commented on the posts on our website People come and people send me like e-mail saying like I'm not going to stay at Marriotts I'm not going to stay at this and that's not necessarily the idea it's not really all merits and there are some you know there are good but I mean the effect is still there people are looking at people are starting to take seriously working conditions in addition to like environmental concern the stuff that's already kind of been established as a consumer concern or is trying to put working conditions out there is something people think about before they make consumer choices. All right now let's talk about the ship theft which is an issue now that you've been able to really put together in a you know in a more formal policy way and you're working with the state

legislature to you know get some laws around this. First tell us what tipped them off was all about. People were literally taking your tips to stealing your tips. Yeah. So it's something that's really widespread in the service industry in my case they were we had a really convoluted tipping system and room service was like a service charge an additional gratuity line all kinds of stuff. The hotel itself was taking some of the service charge and then our supervisors I was making five 15 hours or supervisor making twice the three times the amount of money in from us. We're actually also taking half the tips at the end of the day we're making less than half of what customers thought they were giving us. And we're constantly fighting them about this and eventually filed a lawsuit. The Department of Labor and they said oh you look like you do have a case they are stealing your tips and they went and they investigated for months really and then they came back to me and this really didn't seem to surprise the investigator but they said you know. There are no laws against him stealing tips the only thing we can look at is that you're still making minimum wage after the tips they steal so I was still making 740 in Rhode Island after they were stealing tips and so they said you can they can steal

as many times as they want as long as that's there and they said Geez that's crazy. You know some of these things you think intuitively is against the law but it's actually not in most states. There's no federal law against hyp theft. It's a law in New York California Massachusetts some other states but there wasn't a law on the books in Rhode Island. So after I lost the suit I was really set on doing something about this and then we gals attention to the video and the website. And so I was like you know we should really get going this I start giving some talks and talking about this tip theft issue. And a guy named David Segal actually approached me who is a former state rep in Rhode Island and progressive activists now and he said you know this would be really non-controversial Bill we should really try to push this. And so like you said just a month or so ago I got in touch with a state rep. Chris was a Jew ski and he said other constituents had also complained on this. If you've worked in the service I'm sure you know this has come up for you and so we've been for the last month drafting a bell and I'm really proud of it I think it's

really good and he submitted it to the State House yesterday actually. So it's really gotten moving and it's really you know they all transfers energy from this kind of crazy YouTube thing from other constituents concerns into really making I think a real law happened in Rhode Island. Do you think there's support for it in the legislator. I think yeah I think definitely the Rhode Island Hospitality Association has come out against it. The hearing is actually what's the reason why I have no idea that is Thursday night. I think it's a really uncontroversial because it doesn't hurt business as all it does is ensure that the tips are going directly to employees. It makes sure that supervisor managers can't touch tips and make sure that if there is say a credit card tip a lot of places will actually charge employees for the credit card fee yet make sure that that can't happen to make sure that when places have automatic service charges. Often those surcharges don't go to the employees they're going to the company customers don't know that so they don't hit. So it's banning those or if they have those they have to say it's not a ticket. So it's really uncontroversial to me.

And I think that US Bell Association is actually going to embarrass itself coming out against people stealing employees tips that's kind of like a issue that like you said you time intuitively think it's a law already but it's not. So I feel like it should be very uncontroversial although they seem to be fighting it now just for clarity sake so I'm in the Mary you know where you worked at in Providence and I order room service and I come in there's three lines on there and I put you know $5 you know in this at this moment you would never see that $5 that goes to the company. I would say so what would have happened is there's an automatic service charge and they would charge you know you order room service the craziest thing is that it. Yeah. The hotel would have taken it was a 20 percent charge they took two of that 20 percent flat to the hotel and then so there are many 18 percent was split between me and a supervisor and then that five bucks half of it's going to supervisor have to me so I'm getting slightly less than half of it at the end of the day even though I'm making less than

minimum wage. So at this moment if I wanted to go around that I don't use a credit card or assign it to the room. I just pay you cash. Yeah that's that's good. No it's true. You know if you got cash were smart enough. Yeah you put it in your pocket I think that's what a lot of places that have these if there isn't a law I think it's typically safer to give your server cash is usually a better idea because almost always they're smart enough to pocket although my old tellers of rise are actually asking us to report the cash which is insane and so are the new people would go for it. But anyone who's been in a long enough knows to just put that in your pocket and just again for point of clarification so if I leave my hotel room have been there for days and I leave something in the room for the maid is that and it's cash or as a maid get that or is that some big pool. Typically if again if the maids know what they're doing they'll just put it in their pocket perhaps I'm sure in all hotels if a supervisor goes in there quicker they're going to take that money we've heard a lot I've actually heard a lot of reports of Supervisors taking those those made

tips some better autos like travel on the open rights name where they can put in certain things like that to really protect people I think are really great. You know it's so rampant across the industry supervisors just feel entitled to know they can get away with taking people's gratuities their customers think they're giving to a employee. Yeah man I never heard it may seem like a stupid question to ask because I know that a lot of people listening would want to know you know what's going on there. Yeah yeah I mean right now it's the maids give it to them directly if you can giving people money directly is the safest way to go. OK so I got to ask this question because I'm sure there's somebody driving in the car screaming at the radio going so why isn't this guy just some spoiled little whiny I don't like hard work. You know so therefore I decide I'm going to quit person. How do you respond to that. I mean I think that's kind of a crazy outlook I was working there for three and a half years I've worked in service my whole life I was working there or going to school full time. I very extensively detailed the working conditions at this place. And I think this attitude which a small minority of people did express to me that you know you were

whining for complaining is insane wages and working conditions country have been stagnant or in steady decline since the late 70s and yet I keep hearing this refrain kids are so spoiled today they're not work like they need to suck it up and take these jobs. And it's like no that's crazy people need to complain. People need to quit their jobs people need to organize because it's just going to keep getting worse you know. Our generation in terms of jobs has it worse off than I know anyone since the late 70s and it's going to continue to get worse unless more people complain you should be praising people from playing not just calling I'm spoiled. Think that's an insane thing to say. All right well you heard it here from Joey and you've got another gig and you're happy. Yes it's OK. I've still got a day job but you know I'm still in the service industry I make and close to minimum wage. I better bring a video camera in there your boss would get nervous. Yeah. Should have said that. Thank you so much Joey did. Today French I thank you so much.

We've been talking about homegrown protest this hour meeting locals who are fighting for change and in some cases social justice. I've been speaking with joy de Francesco. He's also known as jelly quits because of the viral video that shows Jolie quitting his hotel job in a blaze of brass band glory. Joe is now working with the state rep to prohibit theft in Rhode Island you can see the video of Joey quitting on our website. Or check out w w w eclipse dot com. Up next we meet a Wister based group that's been instrumental in fighting Internet censorship. This is the Calla Crossley Show. WGBH programs exist because of you. And the Harvard innovation lab a university wide center for innovation where entrepreneurs from Harvard the Austin Community Boston and beyond engage in teaching and learning about entrepreneurship. Information at II labs at Harvard dot edu. And Nature Echo was a great family matriarch and the most studied elephant in the world. Her remarkable

life and legacy is documented in Echo an elephant to remember Wednesday at 8:00 on WGBH too. Nick Flynn was working at a homeless shelter when his father an alcoholic and self-proclaimed writer Flynn never knew as a child showed up as a client. Flynn wrote about it in his 2004 memoir. Now it's a film starring Robert DeNiro as Flynn's father directed by Paul White who also directed about a boy in the next FRESH AIR we talk with Nick Flynn and Paul White's joining us this afternoon at around eighty nine point seven. If you have a vehicle that no longer works for you. How about putting it to work for public radio. Donate your unwanted car truck to WGBH. And in addition to earning a

2012 tax deduction you'll also be supporting the programs that you depend on right here on eighty nine point seven vehicle donation program handles all of the paperwork and will even send someone out to take away the unwanted vehicle. For more information call eight six six four hundred nine for two for. Morning essential. Help to get your brain to go. You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Bobbsey in Morning Edition I do your own WGBH Boston Public Radio look good when you're on top of the tv tonight. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in we're looking at homegrown protests this hour meeting locals who are aiming to make a change. I'm joined by Tiffany Chang. She's the co-founder and co-director of fight for the future. Based in Worcester the organization helped orchestrate national Internet blackouts in protest to Congressional bills that would give the government new power to regulate the

Internet. Tiffany Chang welcome. Thank you. First tell us about fight for the future. You as it turns out did not just pop up when this latest protest came to be. You've been around for a while. Well this organization fight for their future is that around the fall of 2001 an hour and a half and the world of activism were fairly new. And what got you going. Initially I mean it was it was looking at these bills or were there other issues that you've been paying attention to with regard to regulation of the Internet before the blackout issue came up. Well I think that in general. Lobbying and big corporate interests have been able to capture the imagination of legislators and policy debate and to an extent the public we've been passing bills and and fighting against lobbyists who are able to tell Bill that mostly allow lobbyists to

protect the territory they want to protect or to further their but their their private interests. And they've been able to do that in the name of they're the ones creating the job. You know big business sort of guy. American policy quote for for for a long time now and so especially with Internet freedom and open and free Internet we were seeing and we've seen for a really long time the MPAA and RIAA having an amazing power. You want to talk about who those are what what that is. That's the interest of blogging arm of the movie industry and the recording industry the real story. They've had an amazing power to pass a bill to continue to hold on to territory in this in this old fashioned way and they really have. They already have too much control over what happens on the Internet. And so our organization sprang up

because there was a need to try to to get the public interest in the debate and to really get people to understand that actually the Internet is a perfect example of how the public when it has complete ownership of public infrastructure and have a complete open access to public infrastructure because it can lead to a greater economy greater innovation a greater creativity. And it's important to have created. Free expression at the core of our society. So SOPA and PIPA came along and tell us again what SOPA and PIPA are so that people can follow your doctor. Well there are these two though that came along a pair of bells called the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP and their bills that would allow the government corporation to have more power to take down your website over single infringing links because those are moving pretty quickly through Congress and so we actually don't even have a chance to

set up a a real organization we thought we had that there ourselves slowly into the fight against the these 2000 these two bills were the most heavily lobbied for by the MPAA in history and I think we've heard that they worked harder than they've ever worked on any bill because of the amount of power the bill would have given them to take. An entire website and what we called Websense to create systems of web censorship. And so you know they were obviously that's a matter for the public interest and they were obviously cutting out the spam about you know their bottom line being being hurt by the Internet and they actually do not have evidence to prove that. A couple of things just so you know people can listening to this are thinking OK this sounds interesting because they have to do with me. So let's say you posted your you know baby your baby videos that are very popular on the net and the baby singing beyond say independent woman.

You know you could get sued for that. If these bills were passed that seems silly but then ratcheted up two or three levels and you understand why there was a lot of concern by groups like yours called Fight for the future. Yeah and I think that the public actually is pretty aware of the abuses that the big content industries have have done in the past. They have sued their whose baby with dancing to a video of dancing in a video with a Prince song in the background. And you know we have the right to share videos with music in the background. It's called fair use. But there are some things where they already have the power to take down your content because it is stuff that you think is totally normal and we all know is totally normal. That doesn't Bieber singing cover songs. When he first when he wasn't famous yet and posting them

on YouTube is actually copyright infringement. And so they already have these amazing powers and so and so giving them even more power to do more with more with what is considered copyright infringement. Like taking down entire Web sites like YouTube like Facebook like Reddit like tumbler just because they have this content on their own doesn't mean way too much power. And and we should question whether or not they should have the power to say you know they did a video of the cover thing someone singing a cover song. Not me. And sharing it with their friends should be considered illegal. So here's the thing. This is huge I mean we've just mentioned these two massive industries massive lobbying going on national lobbying efforts from all kinds of folks up in Congress. And you're this little group and what stor and a coming out of Worcester you were

able to inspire this blackout and I want you to describe that first. How does a little group get to the point of national recognition. I think it's the power of the Internet the Internet is this great distribution tool. We we created something at that allowed site to protest a strike. Anybody with a website could basically put their badge on their site showing that they're protesting to their will and allowing their visitors to voice their opposition to Congress as well. And that was a simple call that we made and it got distributed everywhere and that was really the innovation and and the protest and of it self. And so that that routed the protest to grow and to really become something that a lot of people saw and it was also you know it was a simple idea but it was also. The idea that many

companies and websites and people use to get creative with and so we had you know top 10 websites like Wikipedia participate where and they completely did it in their own way and but it was a true protest and it was and they help to their users and visitors sense of around 8 million contacts to Congress. So really you know the power of technology help the public really fight the lobbying interest and the lobbying money out there. It was really a watershed moment for the fight between lobbying and the public power to to push for legislation they care about or to fight against. They care about. So I think we're going to see more of that in the future. And just explain what the blackout was on January 18th of this year. Websites and users all across the Internet went dark

meaning they completely shut down or put up some notice some sort of interruption. Anybody going to their site that they were proposed this site or person with protesting two bills going through Congress and we had three top 10 sites participate. We had a dozen or so top 100 sites participate and we had one hundred and fifteen thousand websites you know small and medium sized websites participate and we had millions and millions of. Sweep and Twitter and Facebook people are sending messages to each other and really pushing this protest in their own way. And so there was a massive Think spent on Jan. 18 to protest there. And it really worked. It was the first time I've seen a girl get dropped so quickly and that was very very exciting. Yeah a lot of people a lot of the comedians were making jokes saying college students were in mourning that day

because they went to Wikipedia and of course you couldn't use it because it was you know blacked out. So they don't know what to do in trying to write their papers and look up stuff. By all accounts this fight isn't over it's coming back in some new shape or form. What will you do what are you doing to prepare for this. Well I think there are lots of fights to be had out there I think. You know our fight or our core issue area is the public interest. The basic. But people access through the Internet the Internet freedom and you know preserving and keeping the free internet as it is and there are different kinds of encroachment on the Internet public base and so going forward I think we'd like to be more proactive and make sure that work continuing to to be celebrating the public interest of the public ownership of the Internet and to celebrate the most recent win against the

two big bill and we will be helping to create a new network of nerds. It's going to be called the Internet Defense League and all be web sites and users who are a part of a network you know and agree to be a part of it. That will respond to grave threats like SOPA. As soon as they start happening and will participate in direct action there is some sort of technical innovation we're doing where Web sites can can sign up to be a part of the family. And when there's big action happening we can turn on a question and the pleasure of the splash page that will show up on their websites will just turn on. And so we're trying to create magical strong defense league to continue to protect the public interest. That's just one thing we'll be doing. But hopefully that will be a strong part of the

strong infrastructure of protecting the public interest going forward. So fight for the future. A staff of you all were doing all this with a staff of five but you know calls to mind Margaret Mead's Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. Do you feel that. Do you feel powerful. I think the most important thing that we've learned in this recent recent win is that the public can win and that has been absolutely inspirational and it's and obviously. Yeah right here it feels great pressure. Well if nothing else a lot of people know where wester is now. I thank you so much. Thank you. Today we're talking about homegrown protests speaking with locals who are making a difference. I've been joined by Tiffany Chang She's the co-founder and co-director of fight for the future based in Wester the organization is fighting against threats to basic

rights and freedoms on the Internet. Up next we continue the conversation with one of the original founders of the Boston occupier a newspaper that covers Occupy Boston. You're listening to WGBH Boston Public Radio. This program is on WGBH thanks to you. And safety insurance partnered with safe roads alliance and in-control crash prevention training to help educate teens and drivers of all ages about safe driving practices. You can learn more at safety

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So I read about you in 99 nights with the 99 percent Dispatches from the first three months of the Occupy revolution by Christopher around and here's what it says. One protester looking to address digital disparities is Dan Schneider and Emerson Sr. who launched the Boston Occupy are similar to his account he's meaning the New York encampment occupied Wall Street Journal. He says the newspaper will present a balanced voice that reflects experiences of activists in Dewey Square and elsewhere. And it goes on to say that you will use more than a thousand dollars that you raised on Kickstarter to distribute copies of the paper around the camp and throughout the city. So you're documented as it were. In your work tell us how you got to the point of distributing newspapers raising money for this for the campus newspaper. It started pretty much as soon as Occupy Boston started. I think a few days after someone came down from New York with a copy of the occupied Wall Street Journal they put it up on the wall that big big ventilation building on the side of Dewey Square

where Occupy Boston was and we all thought it was such a great idea you know at the time I was more than one second let's pause. How do you get to occupy a bus even before we get the newspaper. Oh wow. Well are you there. Well I heard about it from my sister actually she was involved with Occupy Wall Street from the very first day she's camped out in Zuccotti Park. She's actually among the group of 700 that was arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge. OK. October. And so I heard about it from her in about a week and a half later is when the first GA was on the Boston Common. So my general assembly General Assembly so I went and I was immediately snapped right to it I realize this is my time. Earlier in the year I had missed the opportunity to go back home to Wisconsin and protest with my teachers my friends my family against Governor Scott Walker's budget bill. So as soon as I saw this happening I knew I had to take my chance. OK so you are sort of open to finding a cause that spoke to you about the issues of the day. Yes. OK. So now about the newspaper so you saw the one from New York thought Wow thats a great idea. Go to the General Assembly General Assembly and then

what happens. Well when I want to start it up but I was already involved with media team at the time so I was already doing plenty of other work. These two people Matt Cloyd and Engy Brant had already put up a website for something called the Occupy Boston Globe. Going off that naming scheme and I jumped right on board and said we should do it we should put out a paper. Now eventually creatively we decided it wouldnt be in our best interest to be called the Occupy Boston Globe we wanted to try and separate ourselves from these old institutions of these old needs and I'm sure the Boston Globe didn't quite appreciate it either. We should if we do want to talk with them honestly you know they were they were OK with it they said we don't want you to use your name we're not going to stop you. We said we don't want to use you. OK very good. So we started the Boston occupy we first went to print on November 1st. We had our first issue on November 18th then went by weekly for two weeks for two months rather and since January we're going to be print. We've been printing monthly. OK so you know here you are young as you are and you're printing an old

fashioned newspaper. It must be said why isn't all just online because everywhere I go to talk to college students and young people they're Tell me right up we don't read newspapers. We're online if we're getting any news at all. You know I definitely believe that and that's why I stopped even trying to really distributor on my own school. But people do appreciate the value of something in print and something you can hold in your hand you. You really experience it not in the same way that you experience you know the blue glow of a computer screen. It kind of you know it takes the it takes some of the emotion out of it and some of the urgency out of it. But people sit in them take a copy on the train or over the really hold it and get a sense of what's going on in the world not these just past events that they watch you know passed by them in light speed on the Internet. OK. Now were you in journalism before this. Just know I'm a film major Emerson and do post-production for movies audio specifically and also write. So I mean other than just wanted to be do this activity as part of your

work at occupy me. Why. What drew you or has something drawn you to the journalism doing the journalism. I consider myself a writer first and foremost and I don't see the point in writing if it's just going to be something to make someone laugh for one second or get teary eyed for one second I'd rather say I have my work have an impact and you know sometimes writing a narrative script is the best way to do that you can write a really powerful movie or a powerful TV show even something like The West Wing that gets into politics or in this case I decided the best way to get people to hear what I have to say and to get this point of view across that isn't being represented in the mainstream media is to start moving into journalism. All right so what were you all covering in the occupier. That was you felt was not being covered in mainstream media about the Occupy Boston movement. A lot of those little stories at first weren't getting out weren't getting out. Things like the very small groups that just sort of formed organically with an Occupy Boston

is still a do we square things like the faith and spirituality tent received very minimal coverage. Things like. The medic The medics which recently got a write up in the Boston Phoenix. All of these little groups and you know communities within communities that had formed weren't getting any coverage most of the coverage with them was either you know was mostly PayPal's people saying oh this groups formed into a square. They had a big march today they had a big march that day it's the occupiers against the police and the occupiers against themselves or occupiers against the city is very old by an area narratives that are continually used in the mainstream media that we want to try and overcome by telling the little stories of individual occupiers and groups within the movement. And what how did you cover it. Because one would think it's called the occupier and you're part of the movement then you're not very objective about what you're covering. I'm sorry is that should I assume that. No that's fair. And you know objectivity is a really lofty concept that you know

undergraduates in graduate journalism students have to you know struggle to make sense of or they just sort of accept what they're told freshman yr and carried on that objectivity. Is this golden standard. But I think that there's something else there I think there's something to be said about just factuality and telling the stories that you want to tell and that are that you think are important there's nothing unobjective about that. So you're saying you're a better filter perhaps then maybe a mainstream media outlet maybe because you know that's the job of a mainstream media outlet is to filter and present what what is felt to be the most important stuff at the moment. But for us we can be we can tell a story. We can tell stories just about the Occupy movement a newspaper has you know a hundred different things it has to focus on on every any given day we're a paper for people who just want to learn as much as they can about one thing. And yet we have a slant many of us are involved but everyone has a slant we feel objectivity is a theory or philosophy or an ideal to hold yourself to there's no actual There's no such thing as real objectivity.

There you know there's a lot of journalists listening to this freaking out right now. Yeah. All right so there was the camp you had lots to cover in while the camp is going on campus no more I understand. Talking with Christopher owner earlier this week that there is continuing activity build under the Occupy Boston movement now. And is that what you're covering now or are you continuing to do that. Yeah we're still sticking with it. There are plenty of things happening every day today in the rest of the country is a big day of action from between February 21 to think informally referred to as shut down the corporations and also protesting against ALEC the American Legislative Exchange which it's sort of right thing tank for businesses and whatnot are like a group. But. What on March 1st will be there covering the actions that are going to be happening regards to education and student debt will be there on May 1st and will continually be covering these protests and coming up.

We're going MBT a fare hikes and service cuts. Yes OK. So now are you a student and doing this are you one of the people who has a day activity or a job in doing this on the side. No I'm a full time student and I'm a full time editor and full time writer. OK how many hours does this take out of your week. Oh man I do not want to turn that many of us on. It's quite a lot and I've had to cut back you know in the last like week and a half or so to take some time to focus on school but I'm usually putting in no less than 20 hours a week on this and in the weeks leading up to like a week or two leading up to new print edition I'm usually putting in 30 40 hours. So we will have our sixth issue out on March 14th starting March 6 I'll be pretty much all occupier all the time. Well I have to say that I've you know gone to the site and you know it's a pretty in terms of you know click ability and accessibility you can move around and read all the stories quite easily and you know go back and forth

so you know somebody has to put those stories up too right. Do you do that. I do that I do that some of the times. There are a couple other editors who put stories up and we also have our webmaster Angie Brant who's wonderful and helped design the website and will help us. We're going to be adding a new theme to our website and so we hope to help implement that soon. She's great. Yeah. So when you talk to people about this and say it's important to do it I'm spending a lot of time many hours too many to count. What do you say. How do you make the case that this is important that this this piece of the Occupy movement effort campaign whatever you describe it is really critically important. It's the act of reading you know you can you can go out to a protest and you can hope to effect you usually don't hope to directly effect chains from protest. It's not that by going out into the streets immediately a lot will be changed it's to get attention to something or to draw people's attention to hope that change will

come from that. And that's kind of what we're doing it's a form of outreach and it's a form of ID idea building an idea dispersal because we're able to get 15000 of these things out and over a period of time. We can have a really wide reach in terms of our ideas. It's not like you can mail a protest to a different city but I can mail 500 copies of this paper to Santa Cruz or to Portland OR to Tallahassee or Milwaukee and someone there can read it and maybe they're sympathetic but maybe they'll take a few copies leave in a coffee shop and someone there will pick it up and think about these ideas for the first time or for the first time in a long time. Now we mentioned that there your original idea for this was you know to follow in the tradition of what was happening in New York are there other papers journalism efforts going on in other cities such as this happening here in Boston. Plenty definitely. There's still the Occupy Wall Street Journal which the Occupy Oakland Tribune the Occupy Chicago Tribune the Portland occupier. I really want to train in the mall there's an Occupy L.A. Times there all over the place some most of them aren't in

print because it can be prohibitively expensive. We were very fortunate in that way to raise money early on. But many of them have a really strong online presence and are trying to raise money for at least one print edition. There's also a new venture called Occupy dot com which is going to be sort of a pool of all of these different new sources of news on the Occupy movement that's going to be up in a couple of weeks. So yeah it's happening all over the country in many many states and even Louisiana in Wisconsin I've heard of groups starting up randomly the message just to let us know they're starting and it's wonderful. If people want to other than reading it online if they want to get a paper copy of it where would they find you or whomever is doing that kind of distributing that you're doing. You know unfortunately have limited options now on how we distribute. We don't really have the money to buy a paper newspaper box so though in the future you know there there's been talk about you know occupying abandoned newspaper boxes. That happened but of that there was if anyone wants a copy of the paper they're available at unquenched for Cinco in Chinatown That's 33 Harrison I

have floor 5. Or you could just e-mail us. Email us at Info at Boston occupier dot com and we'll try and send you a copy and we also offer subscriptions for a minimum donation of $30. We give people we promise people 12 issues of the paper over the course of the next year. Then is this a turning point in your life doing this work. Yeah probably just scared to admit it. Why. I don't know it's something completely new I mean just as the movement itself is young. I mean in my in my own mind in my own life all these changes have come very drastically and suddenly I mean just seven months ago I was all set to move to Los Angeles in January and trying to pursue a career in the film industry. But as soon as this started up you know I guess I realized that wasn't really an option at the time being you know at that at this time in my life it won't really it wouldn't really be an option. It's something I feel like I have to do now. And that's a huge change to go from film to journalism and to bring these ideas which have always been present in my mind to the forefront every day all the

time just in trying to put this paper together. That's pretty interesting. All right well you say that interesting. Thank you Ben Schneider. I've been speaking with Dan Schneider one of the original founders of the Boston occupier a newspaper that covers Occupy Boston. You can check it out at Boston occupier dot com. Thanks again. Yeah Michael thanks for having me. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show at WGBH dot org slash Kelly Crossley follow us on Twitter or become a fan of the Calla Crossley Show on Facebook today show was engineered by Jane Pitt produced by Chelsea murders. Will Rose live and Abbey Ruzicka we're a production of WGBH Boston Public Radio.