PROFILE: Jonathan Rintels of the Center for Creative Voices

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PROFILE: Jonathan Rintels of the Center for Creative Voices
By Matt O'Rourke, MGP Researcher
Dec 21, 2005, 00:08

ALSO SEE: Giraffe prospect profile page

The Center for Creative Voices in Media, established by Jonathan Rintels in 2002, seeks to give a voice to independent voices, or those who are not a part of what Rintels calls “the concentrated and consolidated media.”

“These media-mergers had a direct impact on those who work in media and create media,” Rintels said. “The public is missing a lot, but they may not know what they’re missing, but people who create media know what they’re missing, because that’s what we do.”

Rintels, who grew up in the Washington area, had a 25 year career as a screenwriter, is an attorney, who graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1980, focusing on communications law. He also represented the Writer’s Guild of America-West Division in Washington on regulatory issues.

“I felt that there wasn’t a full-time consistent voice for artists in Washington, so that’s what I set out to create,” Rintels said.

The Center for Creative Voices in Media is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, which is supported heavily by donations from foundations, grants, and private donations from individuals. Donors include the Knowledge, Creativity & Freedom Program of the Ford Foundation, the Center for the Public Domain, the Anonymous Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation, and the Media Justice Fund.

“This is more than a full-time job,” he said. “We’re always scrapping to get by.”
Rintels feels that this concentration in Media has yielded “less rigorous news coverage.” He cites that the mainstream media in the post-9/11 environment failed to question the Bush Administration’s motives for invading Iraq, becoming a “government lapdog instead of a government watchdog.”

The news has become entertainment with shows like the O’Reilly Factor that featuring shouting matches without substance, Rintels said.

“The quality of work [on television] in the past should continue into the future,” Rintels said. “The Cosby Show and many made-for-T.V. movies often dealt with serious issues but this trend has declined in recent years.”
He believes former Vice President Al Gore’s Current.tv is an example of what the media can achieve, stating that his channel is “viewer-oriented, offering diverse news, but is in many ways liberal and in many ways not.” Rintels says the problem is that consolidated media outlets and cable providers, such as Comcast, offer a limited selection of what viewers can watch.

The Center for Creative Voices in Media is “completely about participatory democracy,” according to Rintels. “We’d like to see the return of media outlets to the local communities.”

LISTEN: To a 2005 conference panel which included Rintels:

Imaging a Media that Serves Our Democracy and Culture - Lauren Coletta, Common Cause; Danny Schechter, MediaChannel.org; Alyce Myatt, multimedia consultant; Jenny Toomey, Future of Music Coalition; Jonathan Rintels, Center for Creative Voices in Media (download mp3)

CONTACT:

Jonathan Rintels
President and Executive Director
Center for Creative Voices in Media
1220 L Street North
Suite 100-494
Washington, D.C. 20005
www.creativevoices.us

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