At yesterday's Free Press Summit: Ideas to Action, our goal was to spark a conversation about the future of journalism and the Internet, and I think we succeeded – both in D.C. where the event was held, and online in a live chat room about the event.

The Newseum was packed to capacity, with nearly 500 people listening as Federal Communications Commissioner Mignon Clyburn told the audience that the Internet should be protected for the people, not for corporations. She stressed that the FCC must reclassify broadband in order to avoid “landmines” that would hinder the agency in its efforts to protect Net Neutrality and promote universal broadband access. Read Clyburn’s speech here.

Sen. Byron Dorgan voiced his strong support for Net Neutrality, saying that it was not a government takeover, but simply good governance. Author Deanna Zandt spoke about the democratizing power of social media, and confronted Facebook's Andrew Noyse (also a panelist) about the social network’s privacy standards.

In the afternoon, journalist Farai Chideya moderated a panel about public media with the BBC's John Tate and PBS' David Fanning.

To coincide with the public media panel, Free Press released a new policy paper called New Public Media: A Plan for Action that presents a series of creative policies and proposes reforms to support quality news reporting in local communities, and to build a world-class noncommercial media system in America.

“We believe local news reporting should become one of public media’s top priorities,” said Free Press Managing Director Craig Aaron, one of the paper’s co-authors. “We should redeploy and redouble our resources to keep a watchful eye on the powerful and to reliably examine the vital issues that most Americans can’t follow closely on their own.”

Free Press' Executive Director Josh Silver and Research Director S. Derek Turner also spoke at the event. Read their remarks here and here.

Video footage of the speeches will be available on our website soon.

In the meantime, catch a couple of interviews with various people at the event, including Commissioner Clyburn, Matt Wood of the Media Access Project and James Rucker of ColorofChange.org.

And don't miss three videos we showcased at the event that feature the work of media activists in different pockets of the country.

All the while, hundreds of folks who couldn't make it to D.C. watched a live stream of the speeches and panels and used a live chat room to discuss the event. Prominent media activists and journalists stopped by the chat room to share their insight, including Spot.Us' David Cohn, actor Ruth Livier, The UpTake's Jason Barnett, Media Consortium's Erin Polgreen, Cambridge Community Television's Colin Rhinesmith, journalism professor Dan Kennedy, former editor of Editor and Publisher Greg Mitchell, Feministing's Samhita Mukhopadhyay, and journalist Michele Mclellan.

Back in D.C., attendees at the event used afternoon breakout sessions as a time to discuss the morning's speeches and figure out how to put ideas into action. Jehmu Greene, president of the Women's Media Center, gave the final keynote address encouraging more women to be involved in the media -- and for media outlets to do better at publishing them.

Stay tuned for future posts this week, including video of the event. Until then, check out the entire live chat pasted below: