CHICAGO PROGRESSIVE MEDIA WORKING GROUP

3411 W. Diversey Avenue / Chicago IL 60647

December 31, 2002

Daniel J. Schmidt

President and Chief Executive Officer, WTTW-TV

Window To The World Communications, Inc (WWCI)

5400 North Saint Louis Avenue

Chicago, Illinois 60625-4698

Re: Meeting, January 12

Dear Mr. Schmidt,

We would like a special meeting with you very soon on matters of utmost urgency.

People of the Chicago area have not been sufficiently able to advance great democratic dialogs on matters of the greatest importance. And this is in spite of the fact that we have significant public resources for creating forums. We have resources such as the channel 11 educational television license, and the tax exemptions offered donors to your corporation to produce "Network Chicago" programs.

Major new broadcast forums, expanding on the format of past WWCI efforts, must be created.

The most urgent topic is, without doubt, how the planned war is affecting and may affect the people of the world. Especially in Iraq, the Middle East widely, and the U.S. Including the people of metropolitan Chicago. A war of bombings, gassings, horrible diseases and radiation, terror, and economic suffering. Affecting people pressed into military combat and countless innocent noncombatants. And families and friends. And our communities. In imminent days, and for decades to come.

Even the most bellicose media companies are now reporting that a very large, growing, number of community groups, church organizations, labor federations, teachers, elected officials, and other citizens are trying to promote public dialog that might limit or prevent pending disasters.

Our meeting with you is to line up specific resources for the new forums. We ask that you be accompanied by senior executive producers with whom we will continue to work in the days after the meeting. Your own presence is absolutely necessary, since major reallocations of broadcast time and other budgeted resources will be involved. For instance, entire evenings might be devoted to several hours of Chicagoans' live discussions after broadcast of pertinent documentaries such as John Pilger's "Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq," and Audrey Brohy and Gerard Ungerman's "Hidden Wars of Desert Storm."

Future forums will continue on the war issues, and on topics such as the concentration of media power; religious, racial, and cultural relations; current and threatened slashes in support for public health and education; the disappearance of civil liberties as powers are assumed by and abused by the military and the police; and other issues raised by local community organizations and working class people.

Our meeting with you and your producers is scheduled for Sunday, January 12, 3 p.m., at 3411 W. Diversey. Please confirm by January 3 by calling Bob Gallie at 708-863-8591. Or, if the 12th presents a conflict for you, please suggest some alternate dates.

Yours truly,

for CPMWG

P.s. Groups, as of today, endorsing this request for you to meet with CPMWG include: Chicago Progressive Media Working Group, Chicago Anti-Bashing Network, Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, Chicago Media Watch, Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting - Chicago, and Voices in the Wilderness.