For more than a hundred years, the tools of journalistic production – the ability to report, photograph and record events and distribute that material to a mass audience – have resided in the hands of a small group of people who, by convention and by law, have been called journalists.

But in this 21st century the tools of production now belong to just about everyone. Thanks to "Web 2.0" technology – blogs, wikis, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and video sharing sites like YouTube – billions of people can transmit text, photos, and video instantly to a worldwide audience at virtually no cost. The tools of journalism are no longer the exclusive preserve of journalists.

Web 2.0 has made the creation of highly interactive online communities both easy and inexpensive. And these online communities have become important reference points in many people's lives, often replacing more traditional sources of influence, including journalists.

What is now called the "mainstream media" has lost its control over the tools of its trade, and its importance as a centre of social and political influence. The business and philosophical model both appear to be broken, perhaps irrevocably.

There is much to celebrate about this democratization of the media, but there are also reasons to be concerned about the loss of an independent, professional journalistic filter at a time when everyone can be their own media. Can online communities of "citizen journalists" be counted on to help us make informed choices as citizens and consumers? What's lost, and what's gained when "News 1.0" gives way to "News 2.0?"

On April 4th, 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a landmark speech from the pulpit of Riverside Church in New York. He called for an end to the Vietnam War. Exactly one year later, King was assassinated in Memphis. He was 39 years old. King’s speech in New York set the tone for the last year of his life. Inside the church, he was hailed for his brave, outspoken stance against the war. Outside the church, he was roundly condemned – by the mainstream press, by other civil rights activists and, most decidedly, by President Lyndon Johnson.

This documentary traces the final year of King’s life. It was one of the most challenging and controversial chapters of the civil rights leader’s career, yet it has not been the focus of significant public attention. For many, the image of King is of a social and political leader at the height of his powers – especially the period up through 1965.But that's not the way he was viewed in the last year of his life.

This program illuminates the profound personal, psychological and philosophical challenges King faced in his last year. In this time, King tried to gain support for his Poor People’s Campaign, fended off fierce critics inside and outside the civil rights movement, and endured an increasing sense of despair and isolation. King's Last March offers listeners a complex view of a man trying to push his philosophy of non-violence to a conclusion many people found more threatening than the dream he described on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial five years before his death.

The war in Afghanistan is no longer solely a fight against insurgents. In fact, training the country's security forces and building relationships are now central to the U.S. military's mission in Afghanistan and critical to any plans to withdraw troops. That means soldiers have had to adjust to a new role where the tools are words, not weapons.  Vermont Public Radio Reporter Steve Zind spent three weeks with National Guard soldiers in Afghanistan this fall. In this documentary, he takes us on patrols and to police training sessions to learn how soldiers carried out their complex mission and how they view the prospects for success.