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It’s Time to Worry: Ribena’s False Advertising Exposed by British Teenagers

If you've watched Don't Worry and Profit Cola from the Media That Matters: Good Food collection, then you know how unhealthy soft drinks are and to what lengths corporations are willing to go to market these products to children. Case in point -- Ribena, a major British drink distributor has for many years advertised their signature drink as having more vitamin C than orange juice, and it turns out they were lying (Source: The Daily Telegraph): Ribena has long been sold as a healthy drink based on advertisements that black currant juice has more vitamin C than orange juice. Its New Zealand advertisements claimed Ready to Drink Ribena had seven milligrams of vitamin C per 100 milliliters (0.25 ounce per 3.4 fluid ounces). But high school students Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo, then 14, found it contained almost no trace of vitamin C after testing the children's syrup-based drink as part of a science project in 2004. Auckland District Court Judge Phil Gittos fined GlaxoSmithKline and ordered it to run corrective advertisements, in addition to a message on its Web site. The girls were in court to hear the verdict. "We feel quite proud ... blown away,'' Devathasan told National Radio. "If we hadn't done that science test three years ago, Ribena could have been promoted as vitamin-C full forever.'' It was "remarkable nobody had even picked it up ... and we just stumbled on it by chance,'' she said, adding that she thought the fine should have been more because GlaxoSmithKline was a multibillion dollar company. Commerce Commission chairwoman Paula Rebstock praised the teenagers and called them a "true inspiration to everyone at the commission.'' The commission had sought a fine of NZ$350,000. Get the full story from The Daily Telegraph. Contact Ribena to let them know what you think about their misleading advertising tactics. Watch Don't Worry. Watch Profit Cola.

Published on March 27, 2007

March 30: New York, N.Y., 5:00PM - 7:00PM

Media That Matters Film Festival @ 3rd annual Chica Luna Film Festival Held March 30, 2007 in NYC, the Chica Luna Film festival showcases works by women of color filmmakers who strive to break one-dimensional stereotypes portrayed by the mainstream media. Sixth annual Media That Matters Film Festival @ 3rd annual Chica Luna Short Film Festival March 30 5pm & 7 pm Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway (@ 95th Street) $12 tickets lourdes@ortegapr.com

Published on March 26, 2007

Don’t Worry - Coke is Good for You!

If you've watched Don't Worry and Profit Cola from the Media That Matters: Good Food collection, then you know how unhealthy soft drinks are and to what lengths corporations are willing to go to market these products to children. A recent New York Times article reveals their latest strategy -- Coca-Cola is about to release a new vitamin-fortified version of Coke! Read the article Makers of Sodas Try a New Pitch: They're Healthy by Andrew Martin. Watch Don't Worry. Watch Profit Cola.

Published on March 12, 2007

Seventh Annual Festival Jury

Habibah Ahmad Habibah Ahmad started working with the MNN Youth Channel, in 2004 when she joined the Youth Media Impacting Communities Program and helped produce many DAMN YC News episodes. She was recently offered a position as YC's newest Peer Trainer. Over her years with YC she has produced 2 short documentaries and a 1-minute PSA called Leila's Smile. In 2005 Habibah & Cynthia Carrion participated in the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students in Caracas, Venezuela where over 15, 000 young people from 144 countries came together "for peace and solidarity." Bringing Back Venezuela, the first short documentary Habibah worked on is a product of that experience. Her second short documentary, Behind the Hijab: Struggling against Stereotypes is a more personal examination of Habibah's experiences growing up as an African American Muslim in New York City. Habibah is currently in her first year of studies at Hunter College and is planning to major in Media Studies.

Amir Bar-Lev Amir Bar-Lev's feature directorial debut, Fighter,, won 6 international awards and was named one of the top documentaries of the year by Newsweek, The Rolling Stone and The Village Voice. Fighter was released theatrically in the fall of 2001 and broadcast on IFC. His second film, My Kid Could Paint That, premiered at Sundance 2007, and was picked up for international distribution by Sony Pictures Classics. Variety called the film "One of the few competition docs at Sundance this year that's as striking in its craftsmanship as in potent subject matter... a fascinating subject handled with intelligently provocative care." Bar-Lev also directed several award winning documentary and narrative shorts, including New Orleans Furlough, and Chris Donahoe: Independent Filmmaker. Bar-Lev has also produced numerous television programs for VH1, Sundance Channel, SpikeTV, MTV, and The Weather Channel.

Cynthia Carrion Cynthia is the director of MNN Youth Channel, the first channel created by youth for youth. Cynthia joined MNN's Youth Channel as its Outreach Coordinator in June 2004. In that role, she has co-organized various youth events including: "I Have a Voice" an LGBT Youth Media Conference and Youth Voice 2004. As an advocate for youth media, she has been involved in the NAMAC Youth Media Leadership Institute.. Prior to MNN. Cynthia was the Project Assistant for the Caribbean Cultural Center and was formerly the Pre-teen Coordinator for Hour Children. an advocacy organization for children of incarcerated mothers. As co-founder of 2Tonez Productions she directed and produced Seeking the Soul of Freedom, a short documentary examining Haitian Independence. Cynthia graduated from Hunter College with a BA in Media Studies and Latin American and Caribbean Studies and is currently working on her MA in International Relations. She lives in Inwood, Manhattan.

Wendy Cohen Wendy is the Community Manager at the Huffington Post. Born and raised in Montreal, Wendy came to New York to be the Outreach Coordinator for Arts Engine and the Media That Matters film festival. She was research and creative assistant for The Art of the Documentary (New Riders Press, 2005), part of the DocuClub screening committee and is a guest curator festivals and screening series. Wendy is currently a co-chair on the Urban Pathways Young Professional Board, associate producing a documentary film and co- founder of Screening Liberally. Elizabeth Cole Elizabeth started working as a broadcast producer for NBC News' primetime newsmagazine Dateline in 1993, and was recently named Executive Editor in January 2006. Over the years Cole has senior produced some of Dateline's most notable broadcasts: "Secrets to the Code," an hour-long look at truth and fiction in the Da Vinci Code, "The Last Days of Jesus," and "Eyewitness to History," a two-hour NBC News special farewell to Tom Brokaw. She has produced three Tom Brokaw Reports, "The Promised Land," "The Road to Baghdad," and "America Remembers: The Twin Towers.: Elizabeth is the recipient of numerous awards, including two Clarion Awards (1998 and 2002), a Gracie Award (2000), two Headliner Awards (2000 and 2005), and a Radio Television News Directors Association Award (2002).

Kiri Davis Kiri has directed several short films including her first documentary A Girl Like Me which she made at age sixteen.The film went on to receive numerous awards and has been featured in over twenty film festivals worldwide. Kiri has been featured in a host of magazine articles including Ebony, Jet, and the NAACP'S Crisis Magazine as well as various national and international news articles. Recently she has also appeared on CNN's The Today Show, Good Morning America, ABC World News, Sharp Talk with Al Sharpton and National Public Radio's Talk Of The Nation. Kiri continues to pursue a career in filmmaking as well as exploring her passion for writing, photography, and acting. Her goal is to develop more projects that will help her community and give a much-needed voice to issues that pertain to people of color. Kiri currently attends Urban Academy, a NYC public high school, and lives with her mother in Manhattan. Contact Kiri and find out more about here work at KiriDavis.com

Deepa Fernandes Deepa is a radio journalist for Pacifica Radio whose award-winning work has aired on the BBC World Service, and National Public Radio. She is a freelance producer for the British Broadcasting Corporation, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and Pacifica Radio. Deepa also hosts Wake Up Call, the social justice news show aired weekdays on WBAI. Her writing has appeared in the Village Voice, In These Times and the New York Amsterdam News. Deepa recently published her first book, Targeted, which is the result of four years of research collecting narratives from immigrants as well as human rights groups and lawyers who are challenging the Bush administrations policies. Deepa has won two independent journalism awards: one for her one-hour documentary on the lives of six Cuban women and the other for a half-hour feature on the practice of arranged marriages in the Indian community in Australia.

Kathleen Freis Kathleen is the Education Director at the International Center for Tolerance Education and Program Officer at the Third Millennium Foundation. Kathleen is dedicated to educating for peace where individuals and communities are equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to preserve and protect human dignity. She has managed educational programs in the US and Latin America and has conducted interactive, participatory workshops at conferences, schools and organizations, consulted educational programs in the US, Latin America and Africa, planned international conferences, co-developed Human Rights Summer Institute training manual (2006), co-edited both Peace Lessons from Around the World curriculum (2005), Environmental Protection for Social Equality: A Leaning Unit (2005),, and the United Nations Global Atlas Human Rights Curriculum (2002), and wrote English for Spanish Speakers: A Linguistic Guide (2000). Kathleen has worked and traveled in Europe, the Middle East, East Africa, and Latin America and speaks Spanish. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Carlos A. Gutierrez Carlos is co-founder and co-director of Cinema Tropical, a non-profit media arts organization dedicated to the promotion, programming and distribution of Latin American cinema in the US. As a guest curator, he has presented several film/video series at different cultural institutions across the USA and Mexico, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, BAMcinematek, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Museo Rufino Tamayo. He is a contributing editor to BOMB magazine and has served as a member of the selection committees for various film festivals. He holds MA in cinema studies from New York University and a BA in communications from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.

Lucila Moctezuma A native from Mexico City, Lucila has lived in New York since 1996. She has worked in New York's independent film community, including Independent Feature Project, Titra NY, Latin American Video Archive and National Video Resources. She has collaborated with several national and international film festivals, among them the Margaret Mead and LaCinemaFe in NY, Morelia in Mexico and Huesca in Spain. She has worked in all different areas of film and video production including The New Americans, produced by Kartemquin Educational Films, and the series Shocking and Awful for Deep Dish TV.

Gustavo Santos Gustavo has been a youth producer at Global Action Project (G.A.P), a youth media organization. for over two years. He was part of G.A.P.'s Teens Acting Out Program in Washington Heights and co-produced the documentary My Dearest Fear, that explores and confronts the fear about testing for HIV, and A Mirror Within, a supernatural thriller about tobacco usage. He is currently involved in Black Book Concept, a rapid response media team of G.A.P. Besides being an avid producer, Gustavo loves computers and hopes to pursue a career in web and graphic design or media production.

Jay Sterrenberg Jay is an award winning filmmaker and educator living in New York City. He is a founding member of the Meerkat Media Arts Collective, a collection of media makers and artists dedicated to a non-hierarchical and inclusive creative process. Their goal is to make a kind of consensus art that inspires, motivates and enables others to tell their own stories. The collective distributes everything they create via their interactive website meerkatmedia.org, including their political short, How Wal-Mart Came to Haslett which won the sixth annual Media That Matters Film Festival Changemaker Award. Jay is in the final stages of his first feature documentary BOLIVIA (working title), a self-reflexive film about his experience as a young idealist traveling and filming in the poorest country in South America during an ongoing life-or-death struggle for the future of Bolivia's natural gas resources. He received his BA from Sarah Lawrence College.

Chris White Chris has worked in the production department at POV, PBS's premiere showcase for independent non-fiction film, as a programmer, producer and editor since November 2000. During his tenure, POV films have won 5 Emmys, 4 George Foster Peabody Awards, 2 duPont-Columbia Awards, 3 Independent Spirit Awards, and were nominated for Oscars four times. Chris is currently on the Board of Directors of Global Action Project, an after-school media arts organization in New York City that provides training in video production and new media technologies for youth. He is also on the steering committee for Checkerboard Films Foundation, an organization that documents individuals who have made important contributions to the American Arts. Chris' other industry experience includes a year as an Associate Producer and Production Office Manager on Blue Vinyl, which aired on HBO and received an Emmy nomination for Best Documentary of 2002.

Published on March 1, 2007