8-Track Cable TV

(My opening remarks at the recent Alliance for Community Media Western Region Conference in San Jose)
PEGspace.org

I begin with a newspaper quote that will ring familiar to all practitioners of public access media.

“My interest is very intense around my family, my community and my friends. Obviously, traditional journalistic institutions don’t scale down to the level of my kid’s soccer game. And yet, there is a reporting function that still needs to be done. Is that journalism? I don’t know what it is, but I do know that...individuals are …. doing it. “

I SAID THAT – so many times I lost count. But that was a quote from an interview conducted by the San Francisco Chronicle in the Sunday, October 15th edition with Chris Anderson, the editor in chief of Wired Magazine. He’s talking about how the internet is changing our lives. And I got the last line a bit wrong. It was “increasingly, individuals are GOING TO BE doing it.”

What’s wrong with this picture?…… I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it. If, instead ….. if someone could have handed me a time machine in 1984 when I took my first job as a public access manager and if I could have taken my same skills and interests and become a manager at YouTube, I’d be incredibly RICH today…. And my kids wouldn’t have ever said, “oh, my dad works in TV, but he runs the BORING channel. They’d have thought I was ALL GRAVY - THE BOMB!

The other thing is that Chris Anderson doesn’t seem to know that we’ve been presenting this type of “hyperlocal” content since he was writing for his school newspaper. Why doesn’t he know it?

At a regional conference we had in Palo Alto in 1995, the late, great Dirk Koning was our keynote speaker. He said he was surprised to be chosen for that role. He told us that he was the guy who went to the electronics store in the 70’s and said, “8-track? cassette? 8-track? cassette? Hmmmmmmm……..8-TRACK!" And made his purchase.

So today........"Cable TV Channels? Internet?...Hmmmmmmm.............

When Is a Candidate Down for the Count?

Many community access media centers tape candidate statements before an election. A sister station in Northern California reported a strange story regarding their candidate statements. They have taped statements for both candidates in a runoff election for county district attorney. One of the candidates died last week. His campaign has sent the station an email saying they want the video statement to be played posthumously. They consider the dead man to be "a viable candidate" who should have the same rights as his opponent. Apparently, if he manages to win, the county supes would possibly appoint a DA more to their liking than his opponent. Talk about false advertising.

Is Anybody Going to Vote In East Palo Alto?

For many years I have helped to organize and televise candidate forums and debates on community cable TV. This year, our agency received a grant to collaborate on a number of forums with several nearby League of Women Voter branches. In addition to televising the forums, the past few years we've been putting them online, indexing them into different segments to make them very user-friendly for the busy voters looking for some resources deeper than the tsunami of slick one-sided ads and mailers they get hit with.

Last week we had two of our forums. The first was for city council candidates of Menlo Park, CA, held at the Menlo Park City Council Chamber. Over 100 audience members attended the 90 minute forum in the upscale town. On Saturday we had a doubleheader forum in East Palo Alto, a neighboring town in demographic and economic transition. First were the elementary school district candidates followed by the city council candidates. At 10 AM when it was time to begin, there was one person in the audience and only one out of six of the candidates present. All but one of the candidates dribbled in, but not as many audience members showed up. By the time we got to the City Council Candidate forum there were about a dozen in the audience.

East Palo Alto is now majority Hispanic. This year we hired Spanish translators to provide real time translation into Spanish that could be heard via headphones. We sent a letter in Spanish to 133 households that had requested a ballot in Spanish, encouraging them to attend. Not a single headset was needed. I don't mean to single out one particular demographic as not a single one you could name was well represented unless folding chairs count as a group.

I'll report back what kind of traffic the online versions get before Election Day. There will be an English version and a Spanish version.