As airwaves become crowded with apps and chatter, government needs to preserve lanes for public safety and emergencies.

By Bob Hunsberger, CEO, NetMotion Wireless

Hunsberger distinguishes niceties and necessities. Photo: NetMotion Wireless.

I have been active in the wireless industry since the mid 1980s and privileged to witness one of the most transformative periods in the history of modern communications. Wireless technology has advanced in countless ways in recent decades, but there has always been, and will always be, one fundamental truth. Spectrum matters.

There has been a great deal of talk lately about the impact of consumer wireless devices, particularly smart phones, on our mobile networks.  Many of us enjoy using wireless data networks to access video and other bandwidth intensive applications as we go about our day.

There also is concern that these applications will bring networks to their knees.  As we debate the proper allocation of spectrum –essentially the right to transmit signals over electromagnetic wavelengths, and the scarcest resource in wireless technology – it makes sense to consider some of the benefits that mobility brings to us all, and how mobile broadband applications improve our lives in ways that we might not consider.

While enabling consumers to use high-bandwidth applications on their devices is a nicety, providing millions of mobile field workers with next-generation mobile broadband access is a necessity. For many people, the term “mobile professional” conjures up images of consumer handsets, but there are millions of mobile workers who are far more reliant on wireless networks to do their jobs.

Public safety trumps your mobile Facebook app. Really.

Police officers, firefighters, EMTs, visiting nurses, utility workers, cable and telecommunication technicians, claims adjusters, and countless others rely on wireless communications to serve our communities everyday.

Their needs transcend the consumer entertainment pursuits and should be front-and-center in the discussion about spectrum policy.

Over the years, these businesses and agencies have resolved many of the technological hurdles associated with providing wireless data communications to their field personnel, including: security, remote policy management of devices and applications, application persistence, cross-network roaming, quality of service and numerous others.

However, they all remain constrained because a lack of spectrum prevents the deployment of high-bandwidth applications that could reshape service delivery in the United States.

What’s the frequency, FCC?

The Federal Communications Commission should adopt a spectrum policy that serves the broad interest of businesses and government agencies and positions the United States as the leader in mobile broadband. With a broader allocation of spectrum for mobile broadband applications, the opportunities would be profound. For example:

• Law enforcement agencies could routinely use real-time video surveillance and monitoring from patrol vehicles, instead of relying on primitive taping systems.
• EMTs with video-equipped systems could conduct additional on-scene wireless video consultations from an accident location with doctors at a hospital.
• Emergency responders, such as local Red Cross Disaster Action Teams (DAT), FEMA personnel, or the National Guard, could upload images and data directly from the field.
• Utility workers responding to power, water, or gas outages could count on downloading schematics onsite, saving precious time and resources.
• Delivery personnel could run multiple applications simultaneously on their wireless PDAs or notebooks to check inventory, route locations or place order fulfillment.
• Mobile clinics-on-wheels that deliver healthcare services to underserved communities could reliably communicate remotely with larger medical facilities and transmit X-rays and other high-bandwidth images in real-time.
• Insurance adjustors could capture and record additional video footage onsite and send information to centralized databases for processing.

As envisioned by the Administration’s current broadband stimulus efforts, entire underserved towns or communities could receive true broadband access for the first time by using wireless technology. Such access would benefit businesses, municipal departments, schools, and individual consumers in areas where service providers have opted not to provide DSL, cable, or fiber infrastructure because of cost.

As a businessman, I expect my smartphone and laptop to work while I am on-the-move. When they do not, it is an inconvenience. For the millions of mobile workers in public safety and field service jobs, the implications are usually far more serious.

In October of this year, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said, “I believe that the biggest threat to the future of mobile in America is the looming spectrum crisis.”  We should adopt a spectrum policy that serves the broad interest of businesses and government agencies and positions the United States as the leader in mobile broadband. This requires giving our mobile field workers the spectrum they need to run these mobile broadband applications and get their job done.

Bob Hunsberger is CEO of NetMotion Wireless, a leading developer of mobile software that enables the mobile workers to remotely access their corporate networks.

Yesterday, the Senate Commerce Committee announced it would hold a confirmation hearing for Mr. G, Julius Genachowski, to move forward on his nomination to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Today, the hearing was canceled.

If you are asking “WTF?,” join the club.

Apparently, says a Wall Street Journal blog and various other mutterings of sources around Capital Hill, the Republicans threatened to boycott the hearing because lawmakers want a REPUBLICAN FCC commissioner to be bundled with Genachowski’s hearing.  A new hearing won’t be scheduled until after Memorial day, thereby further delaying the process.

Of course, the Republican leadership hasn’t announced a candidate for the Republican spot on the commission. Senators are also talking about kicking Robert McDowell — one of the more honorable personages to hold a commission seat, IMHO — to the curb, which is creating further behind-the scenes machinations.

Former Commerce Department official and daughter-in-law of former Bush Secretary of State James Baker Meredith Attwell Baker appears to be the favorite pick of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, ranking member of the Commerce Committee.

McDowell’s term is up in June.  Apparently AT&T lobbyists, lead by a former crony of former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, want “a new slate” and since McDowell recused himself from voting on the AT&T/Bell South merger — despite pressure from Martin — now is the best time for new faces.

Doesn’t hurt tha Dallas-based AT&T contributed $44,300 in various campaign contributions to Ms. Hutchinson, who is looking to run for govenor of Texas.

The delay in approving a new commissioner at the FCC is slowing things down, since acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps is focusing on the DTV transition and doesn’t want to set policy on other issues since he knows Julius is waiting in the wings.  The not-so-little matter of a national broadband plan the FCC must produce by February looms large.

Best source: Wall Street Journal blog post.

If past efforts are a guide, President Barack Obama’s plan to spend $7.2 billion to bring broadband to rural communities may fall short of its goals.

President Obama needs to provide more than just broad guidelines for his $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus

Money allocated under earlier government efforts to bring Internet connections to America’s smallest communities hasn’t always been spent properly.

This is the conclusion of a report by the inspector general at the Department of Agriculture that was released this week and which examined the $1.35 billion in loans that have been granted since 2001.

The report points to a necessity for the new Obama program: establish clear rules and accountability. If Obama fails to lay out clear details for the program, the money will not be allocated with a well-defined purpose and some of it is likely to be wasted.

The report found that some of the earlier loans were made to communities that already had broadband service and which were close to metropolitan areas, instead of in rural areas of the country.

When confronted with Congressional demands to revise the program, administrators hesitated to make changes to the program’s rules, the report found.

The administrators said they were waiting for Congressional revisions to the program expected in 2008. In the meantime, however, they had proposed rules limiting the loans to communities with fewer than four service providers – a definition that could be argued to include most of the country.

If Obama wants his proposal to succeed, he had better offer more than the broad overview he has offered so far.

[ posted on behalf of Chuck Sherwood ~ rm ]

Here is a PDF file of the article that I wrote for the most recent issue of NATOA Journal: “In My Opinion: Surviving Language Migration From Telecom to Broadband Policy.”  It puts forth the idea that instead of using the traditional FCC classifications of Title I–Information Service, Title II–Telecom Service and Title VI-Cable Service, which have created such funding and regulatory havoc these past five years for PEG Access Centers and Local Franchising Authorities, that Congress should create a new classification of Title VII-Bit Stream Service, that would collect use fees from all Bit Stream Providers for the use of Public Rights of Way and Public Spectrum to deliver voice, video and data services regardless of whether they use wireline or wireless infrastructure to deliver those services.  Check it out!

BTW, if you are not a member of NATOA, you should consider joining.  For more information about this Alliance-affiliated organization, check out their website at www.natoa.org

Chuck Sherwood
Principal, Community Media Visioning
Senior Associate, TeleDimensions, Inc.
(508) 385-3808
www.teledimensionspublicsector.com

Internet traffic is booming and yet the United States ranks fifteenth among major industrial countries in average broadband speed at 4.9 megabits per second. This means it takes two minutes plus to download an average sized movie in Japan through iTunes whereas in the U.S., the same download takes nearly thirty minutes. This is in a country where most of the infrastructure, going back to DARPA in the seventies, originated.

Some sample speeds of various countries are below taken from the Wall Street Journal based on October 2007 data of the OECD and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

We rank eleventh in terms of broadband-access affordability and tenth in broadband penetration. Cost per megabit is $12.60 versus $3.09 in Japan or $5.29 in England. Only 57% of American households have broadband compared with 93% in South Korea.

It’s time for a unified broadband policy in the United States, something the presidential candidates need to spend more time developing with their policy experts. Although not a critical issue at present, information technology is a big income generator for this country. We need to ensure we aren’t left behind the rest of the world. I believe a national board of some type should be set up to develop goals on how we want this infrastructure to look in the next 5 to 10 years, including broadband access for schools where affordability can be a problem, and what mix of private versus public investment is desired.

Sirius/XM Merger an Opportunity for Openness & Access? LPFM for Satellite?
by Paul Riismandel
mediageek
05/03/08

[ comments invited ]

Matthew Lasar continues his excellent reporting for Ars Technica with an article on a recent letter from House Energy and Commerce Chair John Dingell (D-MI) and Internet subcommittee Chair Edward J. Markey (D-MA) to the FCC urging an open platform for satellite radio if the Commission approves the Sirius/XM deal. What they’re calling for is the ability for any manufacturer to make Sirius/XM compatible satellite radios, without the ability for the merged company to prevent things like iPod docks or HD Radio capability.

Lasar also notes the gathering steam in support for setting aside some of the merged company’s channel capacity for noncommercial programming, similar to what has been required for direct-broadcast satellite TV. Apparently even Clear Channel wants 5% of capacity set aside for “public interest” programming, whatever Cheap Channel means by that.

I oppose the merger on the principled basis of the fact that such a merger was specifically prohibited as a provision of the original authorization of the service. Nevertheless, I recognize that principle rarely rules the day in DC. Therefore I very much support setting aside channel capacity for non-commercial broadcasters as a necessary condition if the FCC chooses to approve the merger.

Obtaining a non-commercial channel on Dish Network was vitally important for Free Speech TV and has allowed that organization to distribute its radically critical grassroots programming in a way that it simply could not before, feeding public access TV stations around the country.

Although internet distribution is still more practical for radio programming than for TV programming, having several nation-wide progressive and grassroots radio channels nonetheless would be a great opportunity, and could be of great service to community radio stations.   —>
http://www.mediageek.net/?p=1619
~

SPARKY VIDEO CONTEST
by Roger Green
Friends of the Albany Public Library
05/03/08

[ comments invited ]

Competition showcases student productions, offers instructors a fun and thought-provoking class assignment

Six library, student, and advocacy organizations today announced the Second Annual Sparky Awards, a contest that recognizes the best new short videos on the value of sharing and aims to broaden the discussion of access to scholarly research by inviting students to express their views creatively.

This year’s contest is being organized by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) with additional co-sponsorship by the Association of College and Research Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries, Penn Libraries (at the University of Pennsylvania), Students for Free Culture, and The Student PIRGs. Details are online at www.sparkyawards.org.

The 2008 contest theme is “MindMashup: The Value of Information Sharing.” Well-suited for adoption as a college class assignment, the Sparky Awards invite contestants to submit videos of two minutes or less that imaginatively portray the benefits of the open, legal exchange of information. Mashup is an expression referring to a song, video, Web site, or software application that combines content from more than one source.   —>
http://aplfriends.blogspot.com/2008/05/sparky-video-contest.html
~

East Metro candidates to appear at forum May 8
by Gosia Wozniacka
The Oregonian
05/02/08

[ comments invited ]

County commission and state legislative candidates will appear at a voters’ forum next week in Fairview.The Spring Voters Forum will be held Thursday, May 8, at 6:30 p.m. in the Fairview City Council chambers, 1300 NE Village Street. The forum will also be televised live on MetroEast Community Media.   —>
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2008/05/east_metro_candidates_to_appea.html
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Community Media 2.0: It’s Still About Us and Our Physical Communities
by Colin Rhinesmith
Community Media in Transition (MA)
05/02/08

[ comments invited ]

My co-workers and I had a meeting today to discuss plans for our new website. Two important things caught my attention in thinking about how to frame the work we’re doing through our visual and semantic design.

First, visual design. The thing that sets us (community media centers) apart in a REALLY important way from social network websites (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, etc.) is our focus on the physical communities we serve. We need to represent that both in our stories and in our visual images online.

For example, the picture above from the staff page on the DCTV website shows the visitor that there are people involved at DCTV in a physical community. So, if you’re a worker at a community media center with a presence online show pictures of your access center and the people from your community. It not only humanizes the web technology that you’re using, but it also tells the website visitor there is a physical place and people involved that others can come to learn more about, learn from, and participate with.   —>
http://cmediachange.net/blog/2008/05/02/community-media-20-its-still-about-us-and-our-physical-communities/
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As AT&T legislation wraps up, city may be first to see U-verse
by John Rodgers
Nashville City Paper (TN)
05/02/08

[ 7 comments ]

Nashvillians and residents of neighboring counties will likely have the first crack at AT&T’s television programming later this year now that legislation is close to becoming law, a lawmaker close to the telecom said.  Sen. Bill Ketron (R-Murfreesboro), the Senate sponsor of AT&T’s legislation to start offering television programming, said Davidson County and the “doughnut counties” around Nashville would be the first areas where AT&T will offer its U-verse television services.

“Some people in the state will be able to start using U-verse by Dec. 1,” Ketron said.  In addition, Ketron said AT&T was prepared to invest more than $350 million in Tennessee.  So far, for competitive reasons, AT&T officials have not said where they would be offering U-verse if pending legislation became law.  Ketron’s pronouncement didn’t change that.  “We have not made any formal announcement at this point at all,” said AT&T spokesman Bob Corney on Thursday.   —>
http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/news.php?viewStory=59939
~

House OKS study on WiMax Internet technology
by Gina Smith
The State (SC)
05/02/08

[ 32 comments ]

A fight is looming over whether South Carolina should become the first state to adopt the next generation of broadband communication — and who should have access if it does.  WiMax would allow extremely fast connection to the Internet from anywhere in the state and access to never-before-seen interactive tools.  House lawmakers voted Thursday to appoint a panel of seven tech experts from the private sector to study the options and make recommendations to the State Budget and Control Board.   —>
http://www.thestate.com/local/story/392973.html
~

Citywide Wireless IP Network Launched in New York
by Matt Williams
Government Technology
04/15/08

[ 1 comment ]

Leave it to America’s biggest city to launch an equally big high-speed data network.

The New York City Wireless Network (NYCWiN) was rolled out to 70 percent of the city’s police precincts and firehouses on April 1, giving the city’s first responders and employees a unique public safety and public service network.

“It’s the first network of its scope certainly anywhere in the country in terms of the amount of area we’re covering,” said Nick Sbordone, spokesman for the city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT), referring to New York City’s 322 square miles. “The network is solely dedicated to city use, specifically not just for public safety, but for public service as well. It really is historic in that sense.”

NYCWiN will run on 400 nodes across five boroughs — with many of the access points perched on rooftops. New York City CIO Paul Cosgrave, in testimony to the City Council in February, said NYCWiN can support a diverse array of functions:

* Nineteen city agencies developed about 53 unique applications for the network, including an expansion of automated vehicle location, a real-time technology to track the city’s fleet.
* The New York City Department of Environmental Protection is developing an automated water-meter-reading program.
* The city Department of Transportation will use the wireless network to synchronize and time traffic signals to ease traffic congestion. Cosgrave testified that NYCWiN also will provide photos and video of traffic incidents and emergencies.

In addition, the wireless network will be a powerful tool for law enforcement and public safety personnel. The NYPD Real Time Crime Center will link into NYCWiN, which will support Internet protocol (IP)-based emergency call boxes and surveillance cameras. Police officers will have access to in-car photos and video.   —>
http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/286778
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News from the profit centres
Press freedom: Many fear the internet is killing journalism, but markets may be a more serious threat
by Geraint Talfan Davies
The Guardian (UK)
05/03/08

[ 14 comments ]

Is new media killing journalism?

The first question to ask is whether this is the right question. The new media need kill nothing. The question is how we choose to use the web. How do we respond to its strengths and to some of its weaknesses?

What I do know is that a luddite approach to the web would be plain ludicrous, even for those of us who still prefer to settle down with a newspaper than flash around the screen.

Instead of bemoaning the web, let’s seek a more positive response. It is possible that the advent of the new media may shake journalism out of a self-deprecating complacency that insists on it being a trade rather than a profession. Journalism will need to better establish its worth in the face of free, unchecked, unverified “user-generated material”. Similarly, the new media might have a beneficial effect on the Press Complaints Commission which, if it is to safeguard self-regulation – a valuable concept in a professional world – will have to do so with greater rigour and transparency in its operation and governance.

It is no accident that an organisation such as the Media Standards Trust has come into being at just this time to address constructively some of the consequences of these developments.

But there are more important questions buried in Unesco’s briefing paper, Freedom of Expression, Access and Empowerment, which says that the role of open and pluralistic media in holding a mirror to society “has fallen increasingly to the smaller community media sector as financial imperatives drive corporate media away from these core principles and into profit centres that do not cater to smaller or marginalised populations.”   —>
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/geraint_talfan_davies/2008/05/news_from_the_profit_centres.html
~

Civic Engagement, Empowerment & Respect for Diversity (CEERD)
The World Bank
05/02/08 [?]

The Program to Develop New Bank Practices in Civic Engagement, Empowerment and Respect for Diversity (CEERD) is a coalition effort involving all of the World Bank’s technical networks and regions, for which the secretariat resides in the World Bank Institute (WBI). The effort is currently focused on the Voice and Media Technical Assistance Program, which provides expert analyses and how-to advice, carried out in close collaboration with country assistance teams, to improve the enabling environment for pluralistic broadcasting in the public interest, and develop community radio prototyping and sector investment.

In the past the CEERD Program has also supported promoting respect for diversity through education, traditional knowledge and empowerment for poor producers; legal empowerment of the poor; and value-based participatory planning.

The Program currently supports analyses of the broadcasting sectors, particularly the enabling environment for community radio, in several countries, including Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, and Liberia.  Well experienced teams, including international, regional, and national experts advise during stakeholder deliberations on proposed reforms, assist in development of new broadcasting legislation, provide “how-to” guidance to improve regulatory procedures in order to distinguish between non-profit community broadcasters and commercial ones, and design community radio sector investment programs in close collaboration with national stakeholder coalitions for community radio development.  South-south mentoring and communities of practice support participatory development of community radio stations, as well as capacity development in programming, reporting, and management/resource mobilization.

An important thrust of this agenda is to help build sustained policies, practices and institutions that are megaphones for citizen’s voice and demand for good governance. Community radio development is being given special attention because it has proved to be a sustainable and interactive medium for poor and illiterate populations to articulate issues important to them, mobilize information, learn the give and take of informed discussion and debate, and become more decisive agents in their own development.  These non-profit, non-partisan stations are owned and operated by the communities they serve, and perform an important public service for poor constituencies, eliciting their views and concerns, and encouraging them to speak out, both among themselves and to local government.
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/WBI/EXTCEERD/0,,menuPK:542912~pagePK:64168427~piPK:64168435~theSitePK:542906,00.html
~

compiled by Rob McCausland
Alliance for Community Media
202-393-2650
web:  http://ourchannels.org
wiki:  http://peg.ourchannels.org

“Broadcasting, Voice, and Accountability”
Book Offers Tools to Foster Independent Broadcast Media in Developing Countries
The World Bank
05/02/08

People from the foothills of the Himalayas to small communities in Benin listen to the radio or watch TV. Now a new book seeks to help developing countries foster a diverse broadcasting sector that truly informs and empowers their citizens.

“Broadcasting, Voice and Accountability,” published this week by the World Bank Institute, is a best-practices guide to the kinds of policies, laws and regulations that result in a free, independent and responsible media, greater transparency in government, and more open public debate.

“The enabling environment for the media is crucial to the type of media we have, and that, in turn, has a critical role in development,” says co-author Steve Buckley, President of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters. “The media can play a role as checks and balances ensuring good governance and accountability.”

The 400-page book, the culmination of five years of research by six media experts, was presented just ahead of World Press Freedom Day, May 3, in Maputo, Mozambique, at a conference on freedom of expression hosted by the United Nations Educational and Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). —>
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:21753143~pagePK:64257043~piPK:437376~theSitePK:4607,00.html
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Broadcasting, Voice, and Accountability
Steve Buckley, Kreszentia Duer, Toby Mendel and Seán Ó Siochrú
World Bank Institute
05/02/08 [?]

This book provides guidelines, tools, and real world examples to help assess and reform the enabling environment for media development that serves public interest goals. It builds on a growing awareness of the role of media and voice in the promotion of transparent and accountable governance, in the empowerment of people to better exercise their rights and hold leaders to account; and in support of equitable development including improved livelihoods, health, and access to education. The book provides development practitioners with an overview of the key policy and regulatory issues involved in supporting freedom of information and expression and enabling independent public service media. Country examples illustrate how these norms have been institutionalized in various contexts.

* Introduction (PDF 54KB)
* Chapter 1 (PDF 215 KB) -
* Table of Contents (PDF 35 KB) -
* Podcast Interview with Steve Buckley (co-author and President of the WACRB)
Real Media ; MP3
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/WBI/0,,contentMDK:21747844~pagePK:209023~piPK:207535~theSitePK:213799,00.html
~

World Press Freedom Day (Malaysia)
Little Garden of Joy
05/02/08

[ 2 comments ]

World Press Freedom Day is an annual and global event dedicated to press freedom. What is press freedom? Press freedom is a guarantee by the government of free public press for its citizens, and extending to journalists, even bloggers. With respect to governmental information, the government chooses which materials are revealed to the public and which materials that should be protected from disclosure. The purpose of this is to protect national interest as to conceal matters of sensitivity and controversy. Sadly, in Malaysia, much is being concealed from public interests despite continuous appeals from the public for the government to be as transparent as possible. [ ... ]

The role of community media
Even though many media outlets have made provisions for audience participation and have therein become more accessible to the people they serve, nowhere is accessibility and specificity of purpose so well defined as with community media. Currently radio is the most widespread form of community media in the developing world because it is cheap to produce and to access, can cover large areas, and overcomes illiteracy. —>
http://sarahliane.blogspot.com/2008/05/world-press-freedom-day-malaysia.html
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World Press Freedom Day: Not there yet, say Hungarian media reps
MTI Daily Bulletin (Hungary)
05/02/08

Budapest – Hungary essentially has a free press, but needs improvement, Hungarian media organisation chiefs told MTI on the eve of May 3, UN World Press Freedom Day. “Freedom of the press is the product of democracy and societal operations: always a conflictive area,” said Pal Eotvos, chairman of the National Association of Hungarian Journalists (MUOSZ). Still unresolved problems include restrictions on court reporting and the manner in which the law determines slander. In addition, he said, the media is at the intersection of two conflicting constitutional rights: the rights of ownership and freedom of speech, adding that most Hungarian media are foreign-owned. —>
http://english.mti.hu/default.asp?menu=1&theme=2&cat=25&newsid=251966
~

Liberia: Three Draft Media Laws Advance Through Legislature; CEMESP Urges Their Approval As World Press Freedom Day Approaches
Center For Media Studies and Peace Building (CEMESP) (Toronto)
05/01/08

On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, CEMESP welcomes the introduction in the House of Representatives of three draft media laws, presented to that body on 17 April 2008 by a coalition of media and civil society organisations. Liberia’s House of Representatives introduced three draft Liberian media laws (An Act to Transform the Liberia Broadcasting System into a Public Service Broadcaster, An Act to Establish an Independent Broadcast Media Regulatory Commission and a Freedom of Information Act) during its regular plenary session on 29 April.

The laws, produced under the banner of the Liberia Media Law and Policy Reform Group, itself an outgrowth of the internationally sanctioned Partnership for Media Development and Conflict Prevention in West Africa, have been four years in the making, during which there was a series of consultations involving civil society, the media, government and the international community. —>
http://allafrica.com/stories/200805020122.html
~

Southern Africa: SADC Sliding Down Media Freedom Scale
by Kaitira Kandjii
Financial Gazette (Harare)
05/01/08

The Media Institute of Southern Africa, a regional media and freedom of expression advocacy organisation, based in Windhoek and working through national chapters in 11 Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries joins the rest of the world in marking the World Press Freedom Day on Saturday.

MISA commemorates May 3 under the theme “Press Freedom, Access to Information and empowering the people.” This theme captures all we expect from our media, and the role our governments should play in promoting media and freedom of expression rights.

The 2008 World Press Freedom Day comes at a time when the enjoyment and respect for media and freedom of expression rights in Southern Africa is on the slide. We mark May 3 under the shadow of a crisis in Zimbabwe and the deterioration of media freedoms throughout the region notably in Lesotho, Angola and Swaziland. May 3 comes at a time when the international spotlight is once again on Southern Africa, home to some of the world’s archaic and repressive media environments with Zimbabwe taking the lead.

We mark May 3 with mixed feelings, while we have made substantive strides since the Windhoek declaration in 1991, the last three years have witnessed a steady deterioration of media freedom, reminiscent of Africa’s one party state era of the 70’s and early 80s, characterised by the suppression of the basic fundamental rights of freedom of expression, assembly and human dignity. —>
http://allafrica.com/stories/200805020644.html
~

USAID Supports World Press Freedom
PRNewswire
05/02/08

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) salutes the bravery and professionalism of journalists throughout the world and condemns all actions to suppress press freedoms.

May 3 marks World Press Freedom Day, a date set aside to reflect upon the key importance of freedoms of media and information. Free media perform critical checking functions on governments, raising the quality of governance. A free press also provides voice to citizens, creates public forums to discuss key issues, and contributes to social-economic development. But journalism can be a challenging, even dangerous profession, as witnessed by the killings of over one hundred journalists during 2007.

The U.S. government, through USAID, has supported enabling conditions for media to freely provide objective news and information to citizens in more than 50 countries. USAID will continue to support those individuals and organizations that are committed to freedom of the press and looks forward to the day when independence throughout the media can be found worldwide. Examples of USAID efforts include: —>
http://sev.prnewswire.com/publishing-information-services/20080502/DC2129902052008-1.html
~

[ The communications infrastructure is not unrelated to the content capable of flowing over it. Hence, the relevance of broadband policy to world press freedom... ~ rm ]

Explaining International Broadband Leadership
by Robert D. Atkinson, Daniel K. Correa and Julie A. Hedlund
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
05/01/08

Executive Summary (PDF)

It is hard to follow broadband telecommunications policy without hearing almost weekly that the United States ranks 15th out of 30 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations in broadband adoption. But it is much less apparent why the United States is behind. Indeed, relatively little work has been done to understand why some nations are ahead, and why some, like the United States, are lagging. By examining OECD nations through statistical analysis and in-depth case studies of nine nations, including the United States, this report attempts to do just that.

In identifying factors that have spurred broadband performance in other nations, we present key findings that government and the technology industry must recognize if we are to find the right course for the United States. And we propose key policy recommendations that will drive greater broadband performance. —>
http://www.itif.org/index.php?id=142
~

[ Technology may always dazzle and divert, promising grace and glory, but in human nature lies our salvation or curse, if either there be. ~ rm ]

In Medias Res: Brilliant, Scary, Visionary, and Strange
The Parasitic Meme
by Rob
05/02/08

[ comments invited ]

Russell has some thoughts about a speech by Clay Shirkey in which he discusses his observations about social surpluses. He makes a certain case there by recounting a conversation with a person who couldn’t understand where the people who edit wikipedia articles find the time to do so. And in a speech which likens television sitcoms of the mid to late 20th century to gin pushcarts of the late 19th to early 20th century, he points out that those people have found that kind of time by not watching as much television as they used to.

I confess to being weary of tech visionaries. I don’t agree with Clay Shirkey about the transcendence of what he’s seen. Either that or I simply can’t get excited about tech progress any longer. Or I see his anecdotes as data points in much larger trends which have “changed the world” in superficial ways, but not in fundamental ones.

Consider, for example, the rhetoric that used to swirl around the invention of various devices we now take for granted. Perhaps the telephone is a good example. At first, people were shocked and appalled at a device, essentially the very first automation network, which could utter sounds made before then only by a human throat. Leave aside the notion that a human was still required to make the sound, he was still making a machine imitate it an appreciable distance away.

So, looking “from 30,000 feet” at the growth of the phone network, first, there was resistance, sometimes lots of resistance, then embrace by the wealthiest or most technologically inclined of the population, followed by a general acceptance of the tool by commercial interests, followed by general acceptance by all the population, followed by a worldwide build-out of the network.

But during those first years, the rhetoric was of a revolution in the way humans interacted. Some even declared that it would end wars, because people could then talk to one another more easily and misunderstandings could be resolved with the new gizmo far easier than with the old.

Since then the human race has fought the bloodiest wars in the history of civilization, and endured the most brutal tyrannies, alongside some of the highest and most noble expressions of lovingkindness and humanitarianism. Good and bad, but no fundamental change in human behavior, because there were now telephones.

The same sorts of things can and have been said about any subsequent innovation. Television was supposed to be a premier educational tool, bringing teachers to far-flung places. Hopefully the primary use of television today illuminates the absurdity of that assumption.

FM Radio was supposed to supplant AM Radio as a better technology than before. But RCA undertook to destroy its inventor personally, rather than buy shares in its technology.

The attitude towards the computer was that it would eventually become “machines that make big decisions / Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision” with the promise that “we’ll be clean when their work is done / We’ll be totally free, yes, and totally young, mmmm…”

What a beautiful world that will be, indeed. Donald Fagin’s “IGY” (for the International Geophysical Year declared by world scientists) captured the rhetoric of the revolutionary, common when we Americans were reaping the low-hanging fruit of the second large network to be built after the telephone, namely, the electric power grid. It was the attitude that got my American society to agree to send a man to the Moon and return him home again. [ ... ]

It is ironic that Fagin released “IGY” in 1982, when the shine had come off the electric grid, after one energy crisis and during the tail end of a second, and when pollution, global climate change (then called global cooling, actually!), and peak oil were starting to be on everyone’s mind. By then the Internet was a connection network for large computers owned by the military and the universities affiliated in one way or another with DARPA.

Ten years from that point I would be of age, and be participating in a small way in the build out of that fourth internetwork, following the voice, power, and transistor networks which had already been designed and built. At that time I was fully enraptured by the revolution the Internet and computers could provide.

Since then, I’ve seen the same things happen “over the Web” that happened with the first telephone network, and the upheavals of the power grid and the rollouts of various, faster, and smaller computers. Resistance to the new technology is most often followed by attempts by established powers to own the new technology and shape it to their benefit. Witness the fights between Western Union and Alexander Graham Bell. Farnsworth and RCA. Steve Jobs and Microsoft. Any number of music publishers and the anarchists who use the Internet to duplicate their intellectual property against all laws. Efforts by movie companies to control through the DMCA. The “Net Neutrality” debates.

That ought to be enough of a body of examples to showcase what I think is true: Visionaries can’t see the future. Bell’s prognostications about the phone network, Kurzweil’s and Gates’ about computers, Roosevelt’s about the power grid, all were partly true and partly appallingly false. The telephone network was built, the power grid, television broadcast networks, but we are not “totally free” nor “totally young”.

Instead, basic human nature continues to rule. Now, Shirken talks about a tiny fraction of all the people participating in media interactivity, blogs and online votes and Web 2.0 stuff. As a revolution, because people were choosing to “wake up” from the 20th century’s equivalent to the gin cart, namely, broadcast television entertainment.

He isn’t alone in this kind of thinking, obviously, both since it is plain to see the ease with which young people obtain cheap computers and use them to communicate with one another, and to see how baffling these new approaches to communication are to those of us who are used to older technologies.

Hopefully, though, I’ve been able to demostrate why I don’t see those things as “revolutionary” or even very important for changing society or the world. Instead of sudden, the changes he highlights appear to me to flow apace, as society behaves the same about every new innovation as it did about all the old ones. As a very early adopter of what people now call text messaging and of the power of the so-called “social networks” (I used Unix “talk” and still use Usenet, for two examples), coupled with my study of modern history (for which I am not lettered, merely educated), I claim armchair expertise in the field as a social observer.

Hence, the observation he offered is pedestrian, and not terribly inspiring to me. I claim this even as I buy new iPhones and flat screens and computers for my own use, because they are dead useful tools. But they will not help us transcend ourselves. —>
http://www.parasiticmeme.com/?p=22
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compiled by Rob McCausland
Alliance for Community Media
202-393-2650
web: http://ourchannel.org
wiki: http://peg.ourchannels.org

Spirit Freed II Art Exhibit
Perspective Prisms (TX)
04/27/08

[ comments invited ]

Paintings by San Antonio artist Rita Maria Contreras for an exhibit at the Oblate School of Theology in the Spring of 2008. The theme of the exhibit is the pain suffered by children of sexual abuse. The event was in conjunction with a talk by Patrick Fleming and Sue Lauber-Fleming on their book Broken Trust, dealing with the sexual abuse by priests within the Catholic Church. This clip was for San Antonio public access TV. Espanol-video de pinturas de la artista Rita Maria Contreras, del thema de abuso sexual de ninos.
http://perspectiveprisms.blogspot.com/2008/04/spirit-freed-ii-art-exhibit.html
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Representative Harwell supports cable bill
by Truman Bean
Truman’s Take (TN)
04/27/08

Legislative leaders reached a consensus recently on the much-anticipated “Competitive Cable and Video Services Act.” Representative Beth Harwell (R-Nashville) said she was pleased with the outcome of the strenuous negotiations, but that consumers won in the end.  “Although it has taken a while to get to this point, I am excited about the possibilities that this bill will bring,” said Rep. Harwell. “Consumers are the real winners—anytime competition can be introduced into the market, they are the ones who benefit.”   —>
http://trumanstake.blogspot.com/2008/04/representative-harwell-supports-cable.html
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BE the Media — Free Speech Unfurled
by Lauren-Glenn Davitian
Nonprofit Technology Network
04/22/08

[ comments invited ]

While mainstream media remains under the control of a handful of giant corporations, you no longer have to own a printing press to reach a dedicated audience. Gone are the days when we chose from one of three national nightly newscasts on the living room TV. Free speech, broadband services and mobile handsets are quickly dismantling the “one to many” Broadcast Age and putting media production and distribution directly into the hands of “the people”.

Building on traditions of public access, independent media and peer-to-peer networks, we now communicate, “many to many”, across phone and internet networks with affordable and high powered laptops, PDAs, phones and gaming devices. In this major step forward for free speech, the “network centric” age enables us to “be the media”, tell our stories and make social change happen.

But what media and communication tools will make the biggest impact and have the farthest reach? The choices can be daunting — especially if you are an activist or nonprofit with modest means and limited time. Whether you are planning a demonstration, a print campaign, a web site, a viral video, or a mobile action, you need to start with a goal and a strategy.

To help, we’ve compiled many of the rich resources available to the nonprofit community in these basic steps to strategic communications.   —>
http://www.nten.org/blog/2008/04/22/be-the-media-free-speech-unfurled
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State Chairman’s Prophecy About Ron Paul and Republican Convention Comes True
by Christopher Hansen
Independent American Party of Nevada
04/27/08

I was told by Ron Paul supporters that they would triumph at the Republican State Convention. I told them that the Republican Party leadership would do EVERYTHING to stop them because the Republicans are corrupt and care NOTHING about freedom and Democracy but only about power.  Here is the ONLY report on the Convention I have so far.  [...]

At the beginning of the Convention the State GOP/McCain campaign tried to limit who could be considered delegates. This prompted a floor fight that went on for hours. The record crowd wondered why they were there if the people to be voted on were already predetermined.  Already the 3 congressional districts have gone (3 delegates for each Congressional District) One district has awarded all 3 to Ron Paul, the second district went, One for Ron Paul, One for John McCain and One for NV. US Senator John Ensign and the third congressional district is unknown since the convention authorities won’t tell.

Nevada’s US Senator Bob Beers is also permanent chair of the convention. He approached the podium at 6pm banged gavel and said we lost the room, we’re in recess and have to figure out another way another time to elect the remaining 22 delegates to the national convention and left the room…. but a quorum was present and the people were not finished   After the hotel stated that they had no problem with another 3 hours of room use someone tried turning off the lights.  [...]

The entire convention was filmed by SNCAT, an impartial observer whose purpose is to simply report the actual news, no spin, no lies, just the facts.  The convention (subject to time limits) will be broadcast on Public Access Television this Wednesday, April 30th, at 8:00pm. They welcome people who took part in the convention (and they don’t care which candidate you support) to state your observations and comments, on camera, during the broadcast.   —>
http://www.independentamerican.org/blog.php?blog=1164
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Surfing without
by Melinda Welsh
newsreview.com
04/24/08

[ comments invited ]

In 2008, the internet is fair and open to all. Soon, you may have to pay more for simple services like web searches. Do we have your attention now?

You know the routine. Monday morning, 6:30 a.m: You wake up, shower, down coffee and go online to check email and CNN for gossip and news of the world. You forward a proposal you drafted over the weekend to your work email. After skipping around to a few other sites—like YouTube, Facebook or Digg—you dress, breakfast and join the Interstate 80 commute.

When you get to the job, the first thing you do, naturally, is go online. No big deal—just an average, wired morning in the first decade of a century where much of our work and personal lives revolve around being digitally connected to each other and everything almost all the time.

If you’re under 25, you barely remember a time when all this hyperconnectedness didn’t exist. But really … it didn’t. It was less than 15 years ago when the baby boomers among us were buying our first personal computers and starting to send each other glacially slow emails that seemed to move at light speed. Since then, the tech has gotten always faster, cheaper. We are communicating—sending, searching, interacting and creating content—as never before. In the upcoming years, we’re told, this capacity to connect will speed up exponentially as our internet, TV and telephone use moves to a converged platform operating off a super high-speed connection.

Or not.

You don’t have to be a paranoid techie or consumer-rights policy wonk to see that the era of an open, egalitarian and transparent internet could soon come to a screeching halt in America. The nation’s largest cable and telephone companies—the ones that control the wires, towers and switching systems that make up residential broadband in America—seem to be moving with new aggressiveness to figure out ways to establish themselves as gatekeepers on the internet.   —>
http://www.newsreview.com/reno/Content?oid=657914
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What Broadcasters Don’t Want You to Know
Groundswell
04/25/08

[ comments invited ]

For too long, TV stations have made a fortune off of the public airwaves — which they use free of charge — with little accountability to their local community.  In the fall of 2007, the FCC began to address this problem when it approved new rules that would dramatically strengthen and improve reporting requirements for TV stations.  The FCC’s old disclosure requirements asked little of TV stations, ensuring that most broadcasters were easily granted their license renewal every time stations reapplied.

Keeping The Public in the Dark

The public records that stations are supposed to keep were often incomplete and hard to access, making it difficult for local citizens to examine a station’s track record. The FCC’s new rules require that TV stations post their public files on their Web sites and that they file a new reporting form every three months.

The new form will capture more and better information on stations’ programming and will be invaluable to assessing how well they are serving the public. The FCC is asking for minute-by-minute documentation of programming and tying these reports to their programming rules and requirements. The FCC hopes that these steps will help empower local communities to participate in their local broadcast stations and give citizens more control over their airwaves.

However, there are clearly things that these broadcasters don’t want you to know. The National Association of Broadcasters just took the FCC to court to block these important new rules from taking effect. The broadcasters oppose the “scale and scope” of the FCC’s new rules, claiming that they would impose an administrative burden on stations. It would be much more convenient for these broadcasters to keep the public in the dark.   —>
http://stearns.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/what-broadcasters-dont-want-you-to-know/
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The UpTake Awarded Best Citizen Based Media Outlet by City Pages
by Allison
Walker Art Education and Community Programs (MN)
04/23/08

[ comments invited ]

For those of you who don’t know what or who the UpTake is, let me inform you now. It is definitelyy one of the most rockin citizen journalist efforts to spring from the offices, basements, and living rooms of Minnesota.  It is also the brainchild of St. Paul activist and sculptor Jason Barnett, Minnesota Stories creator Chuck Olsen, and Mike McIntee, producer of Inside Minnesota podcasts. Not only have they stayed up late covering all things Minnesota politics, but they also have loyal bloggers, video journalists, and writers all over the country covering this wacky thing we call the election. Their motto is, “Will journalism be done by you or to you?”   —>
http://blogs.walkerart.org/ecp/2008/04/23/uptake-awarded-citizen-based-media/
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Films for Action.org >> Extensive resource of online documentaries and indy film
by tribalzendancer
guerilla news network
04/27/08

Films for Action is a non-profit group that uses the power of film to raise awareness on important issues not being covered by the mainstream news. Through public screenings, the internet, our lending library program, and public access TV, we’re working to build an independent, grass-roots media network that will provide more meaningful and reliable ways to stay informed on the issues that matter.   http://www.filmsforaction.org
http://tribalzendancer.gnn.tv/blogs/28080/Films_for_Action_org_Extensive_resource_of_online_documentaries_and_indy_film
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TV Party
srsly.tv
04/23/08

[ comments invited ]

I am psyched to learn that there was a TV Party DVD released.  From 1978 to 1982, Glenn O’Brien hosted a New York city public access cable TV show called TV Party. Co-hosted by Chris Stein, from Blondie, and directed by filmmaker Amos Poe, the hour long show took television where it had never gone before: to the edge of civility and “sub-realism” as Glenn would put it. Walter Steding and his TV Party “Orchestra” provided a musical accompaniment to the madness at hand, and many artists and musicians, from The Clash, Nile Rodgers, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Bryne and Arto Lindsey were regular guests. It was the cocktail party that could be a political party.

With 80 hours of disintegrating 3/4 inch videotape as a starting point, we tracked down the trend setting participants still living today and found out what they remember of the period and how the show influenced their lives. This, combined with clips from the orginal show, became the documentary “TV Party.   —>
TV Party on YouTube
http://srsly.tv/blog/2008/04/23/tv-party/
~

compiled by Rob McCausland
Alliance for Community Media
202-393-2650
web:  http://ourchannels.org
wiki:  http://peg.ourchannels.org

Cable access television debate rages on
by Marilyn Moss
The Orange Bulletin (CT)
04/17/08

[ comments invited ]

The view on Sound View Community Media may not be so sound these days. SV is the third-party nonprofit provider of public access television for local area 2, which includes Woodbridge, Orange, Milford, Stratford, Bridgeport and Fairfield. The Committee on Energy and Technology of the Connecticut General Assembly held a public hearing on March 7 for a proposed bill, An Act Concerning Community Access Television bill No. 5814. During that hearing, details of the troubled interaction between SV and area 2 municipalities were thoroughly examined.

The legislation was proposed, in part, to address concerns by area 2 municipalities about the control of the content on their respective government channels. Several towns in area 2 want to feature their own town-specific programming. These towns have met resistance to that by the community access provider, SV. SV prefers to send system-wide programming so that each town in area 2 can watch government in action in every town in the franchise area. According to Paul Davis, a Orange and West Haven state representative, however, “If a community desires to have town-specific programming, the government should grant that choice.”   —>
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19492921&BRD=1661&PAG=461&dept_id=9538&rfi=6
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Public must fight to maintain net neutrality
by Lawrence Lessig and Ben Scott
San Francisco Chronicle
04/17/08

[ 2 comments ]

The Internet is an engine of economic growth and innovation because of a simple principle: net neutrality, which assures innovators that their next great idea will be available to consumers, regardless of what the network owners think about it.  No previous mass media technology has been so remarkably open. Traditional media – newspapers, radio, TV – have gatekeepers standing between consumers and producers, with the power to control content. The Internet eliminates the gatekeeper.  Now, however, the Internet’s unprecedented openness is in jeopardy.

Comcast, AT&T and Verizon have been lobbying to kill net neutrality. They say they won’t build an information superhighway if they can’t build it as a closed system. No other industrialized country has made that devil’s bargain, and neither should we. Without net neutrality, online innovation is vulnerable to the whims of cable and phone companies, which control 99 percent of the household market for high-speed Internet access. And Silicon Valley venture capitalists are unlikely to bet the farm on a whim.   —>
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/16/EDM11064UL.DTL
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FCC Should Send Signal And Take Action Against Comcast
by Therese Poletti
CNNMoney.com
04/17/08

On Thursday, all five members of the Federal Communications Commission will make an usual appearance in Silicon Valley, where they will host a public hearing at Stanford University for a debate on managing Internet traffic.  The hearing is the FCC’s second on “Net neutrality,” a longstanding principle which seeks to treat all Internet content and traffic equally. The principle matches the spirit of the early pioneers of the Internet, who designed a distributed network that could not be controlled by any one entity or company.

In February, Comcast (CMCSA), the largest cable company in the U.S., was in the hot seat at Harvard Law School, where the FCC hosted an all-day hearing over complaints that the cable giant deliberately delays Internet traffic for consumers accessing peer-to-peer file sharing Web sites like BitTorrent and newer ones like Vuze.  The hearing did not go well for Comcast. Even though the cable giant partially filled the room with its own paid attendees who applauded company reps, the FCC intimated it was considering action against the Philadelphia-based behemoth. A month later, Comcast and former foe BitTorrent agreed to collaborate on network capacity and management issues. Bit Torrent of San Francisco wants Comcast to use its file sharing technology and expertise to help alleviate network congestion caused by the downloading of large music and video files.  The two also agreed to work with other Internet service providers and others to explore and develop a new architecture for better distribution and delivery of rich media.

Now just two days before the FCC’s Stanford hearing, Comcast issued yet another press release, probably aimed at dissuading the FCC from taking any action against it. Comcast and another peer-to-peer company, Pando Networks, said they created their own “Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” for file sharing, much to the amusement of some legal experts..  After speaking with Comcast, it appears that their “Bill of Rights,” is really about informing the consumer that their Internet traffic could suffer delays.   —>
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200804170110DOWJONESDJONLINE000013_FORTUNE5.htm
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Need Help Hosting Citizen Media Outreach Events in Rural Minnesota
Blandin on Broadband (MN)
04/17/08

[ comments invited ]

I’ve heard great things about the training and conferences provided by E-Democracy in the Twin Cities. So I am happy to pass on the following request. It is a great opportunity for the right community!

Wanted: Partners to Help Host Citizen Media Outreach Events in Rural Minnesota (See Examples Below)
Citizen media projects are springing up across the country and the world. Between now and the end of June 2008, E-Democracy.org is hosting Citizen Media Outreach Events across rural Minnesota to showcase some of these exciting projects, and encourage the launch of similar projects in rural Minnesota.  We are looking for organizations or institutions in rural Minnesota interested in co-sponsoring a Citizen Media Outreach Event in their community.   —>
http://blandinonbroadband.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/need-help-host-citizen-media-outreach-events-in-rural-minnesota/
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Local-access TV programs home in on real estate issues
by Denise Taylor
Boston Globe (MA)
04/17/08

Earlier this month, when a home sale in Uxbridge fell through due to what she called “an increasingly common” mortgage snag in Worcester County, realtor Kelley Byrnes-Benkart was one of the first to hear. One week later, she was explaining the cause – not at a seminar, but on public-access television.  Byrnes-Benkart, owner of Realty Executives Tri-County in Bellingham, is one of a handful of area real estate professionals using public-access cable TV to turn a laser focus on the housing market in their communities.

“We hear a lot of talk in the media about the real estate market, but many times it’s painted with a broad brush. It’s often from a national perspective or a state perspective,” said Milford resident Michael Shain, a mortgage consultant with Medway Co-operative Bank. “But I wanted to do something that focused on specific towns because every market is different. What’s happening in Milford may not be the same as what’s happening in Newton, Brookline, Pittsfield, or LA.”

In September, Shain began taping “Real Estate Roundtable” at Access Bellingham-Mendon. The program, which he cohosts with Byrnes-Benkart and two other realtors and is produced monthly, airs on local-access channels in Bellingham, Milford, Medway, Upton, Grafton, and Mendon, and covers market news in those towns as well as in Franklin and Wrentham.  Guests also appear on each episode to discuss general real estate topics ranging from the short sale process to how to stage your home using feng shui. But the core of the show is the panel discussion of emerging local issues. Recently they focused on the increasing affordability and availability of single-family homes being offered for rent (by homeowners unable to sell). Next month, they’ll delve more deeply into those Worcester County mortgage issues.

“Worcester County has been declared a declining market” by commercial lenders, “which means they are requiring larger down payments,” said Byrnes-Benkart. “In Uxbridge . . . the buyer could not afford to move forward because they would have had to put 15 percent down,” after expecting to pay 10 percent.  “I try to pick topics that are important to homeowners and potential homeowners,” said Shain, whose other cohosts are Joshua Lioce, owner of Realty Executives Lioce Properties in Milford and Whitinsville, and Judy Leonelli, owner of Century 21 Millennium in Mendon.

In Millis, Joe Luker recently taped his first two episodes of “The Home Show” at Millis Community Television. A home appraiser based in Medway for 20 years and a former real estate broker, Luker said he plans to produce two shows per month.  “There’s so much turmoil in the real estate market. That’s why I’m doing this now,” said Luker.  With local lawyers, realtors, and other industry professionals as guests, Luker will cover the Millis housing market and real estate how-tos. Upcoming subjects include the foreclosure process, home inspections, and hidden issues for home buyers (such as easements, deed restrictions, and convicted sex-offenders living in the area).  “I’m not going to be out there entertaining. My goal is to produce something useful,” said Luker. “There are a lot of people in trouble right now because they didn’t know what to watch for. But I’ve seen the things that people need to know.”   —>
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/04/17/local_access_tv_programs_home_in_on_real_estate_issues/
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Beverly’s history now available free on DVD
by Cate Lecuyer
Salem News (MA)
04/17/08

[ comments invited ]

More than a century worth of local history — chronicled on video by resident Ted Josephs over the last 20 years — is now available to the public on DVD.  BevCam, the city’s local cable access station, has been consistently airing Joseph’s show, “Beverly’s Times Past,” since he started making it back in the 1980s. But for the past 21/2 years, BevCam staff has been converting the footage from the original, now obsolete, video cassettes onto DVDs.

They recently completed the project and yesterday presented copies of all 183 hourlong shows to both the Beverly Public Library and the Beverly Historical Society, where they will be available free to the public.  “If we were to lose this, we would have lost so much,” said BevCam Associate Director Walt Kosmowski.  Beverly Historical Society Interim Director Darren Brown and Beverly Library Director Pat Cirone said having immediate access to the shows, instead of having to wait for them to air on BevCam, will be valuable to the community.

The shows are centered on interviews with local people talking about their past. There’s a series that includes stories told by World War II veterans and shows actual footage of fighting that they took while oversees.  Another series focuses on the freight trains that came in and out of the United Shoe Machinery Corporation, now the Cummings Center.  The stories people tell go back to the late 1800s and are complemented by old photos, newspaper articles and other archives that Joseph found in the historical society.   —>
http://www.salemnews.com/punews/local_story_108003233.html
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Local students promote reading on TV program
by Scott Stafford
Berkshire Eagle (MA)
04/17/08

[ comments invited ]

NORTH ADAMS — Eight-year-old Noah Boucher of Cheshire likes dinosaurs. He even likes reading about them, and he’s not afraid of saying so — not even on television.  He was one of 17 second-grade students at Cheshire Elementary School who stopped by Northern Berkshire Community Television studios yesterday morning to make their opinions known about their favorite books.  “Do you like books about dinosaurs?” Noah asked the would-be television audience during the taping session. “Then you will love the book ‘How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?’ by Jane Yolan. The dinosaurs hug and kiss their moms.”

After the taping, Noah said he liked being on camera.  “I liked the book very much, and I think it is pretty cool that I get to tell my story to everyone in the world, and to my friends,” he said.  Teacher Eric Brown’s second-grade class has been writing, editing and rehearsing their presentations, inspired by public television show “Reading Rainbow,” for about three weeks.  Brown said the idea occurred to him while the class was watching an episode of that television program. He used his idea to get students excited about reading, and used the technology to enhance that motivation.   —>
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/localnews/ci_8955082
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Providence City Council meetings to begin airing on TV
WPRI.com (RI)
04/17/08

The Providence City Council will soon be on the tube. The City Council will begin televising its biweekly meetings, starting with Thursday night’s gathering.  The meetings will air nine days later, on Saturday mornings, on public-access TV. Council Majority Leader Terrence Hassett says televising meetings will allow residents who can’t make it there in person to stay informed about what’s happening in the city.  The city has purchased $4,000 of new video equipment, and five students at Mount Hope High School in Providence will be trained to film the meetings and then package them for television.
http://www.wpri.com/Global/story.asp?S=8180702
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Napa school district to show meetings online
by Tony Burchyns
Times-Herald (CA)
04/17/08

[ comments invited ]

Anyone with Internet access might be able to watch the Napa school board in action this week, district officials said Wednesday.  The Napa Valley Unified School District is testing out new software to provide live streaming video of its meeting at 7 p.m. today.  The goal is to expand public access to school board meetings. Also, the technology will allow people to watch meetings on-demand, which could be the wave of the future for the video platform.  “It’s another avenue to reach people,” said Laurel Krsek, director of technology for the Napa school district. “And it gives the public a chance to go back and watch meetings they missed.”

A consortium including the district, Napa Public Access Cable Television and the cities of American Canyon and Napa allowed for considerable savings on the new technology, officials said.  “We got a group deal that saved us tens of thousands of dollars for the entire group,” said Dan Monez, executive director for Napa public access TV.  Monez started the initiative last year when the cable channel wanted to begin streaming and archiving its programs. He said he mentioned the idea to Napa city employees and learned the city was also interested.   —>
http://www.timesheraldonline.com/todaysnews/ci_8957348
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Underground Radio: Is Salt Lake City big enough for two KRCLs?
by Ted McDonough
Salt Lake Weekly (UT)
04/17/08

[ 15 comments ]

In a cavernous basement deep beneath the Dakota Lofts on Salt Lake City’s 200 South, a group of radio enthusiasts are sweeping up cobwebs, unpacking audio equipment from boxes and trying to make a comfortable space for Utah’s newest community radio station.  “It’s real underground radio,” jokes Troy Mumm, one of the forces behind Utah Free Media, a planned Internet-only radio station that has gone from concept to flipping the switch in a few months.

Some volunteers manning the brooms come from the ranks of volunteers at KRCL 90.9 who have—or soon will—lose their on-air DJ spots to a format change scheduled to take place May 5 at the community radio station. Others, like Mumm, one-time KRCL music director, staffed KRCL in an earlier era.

Their big idea is a big experiment. Scads of radio stations now stream on the Internet. But instead of music-on-demand streaming, Utah Free Media will attempt a live broadcast hosted by volunteers. That is, freeform radio, like KRCL. Or, as some Utah Free Media volunteers say, like KRCL before the eminent format switch.   —>
http://www.slweekly.com/index.cfm?do=article.details&id=57D41F3C-14D1-13A2-9F188B4D76D07182
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Support Community Radio
by Roy Kasten
Living in Stereo (MO)
04/17/08

[ comments invited ]

I first moved to Saint Louis, Missouri in August 1987. I was 22, a student of literature and a writer. I spent most of my days and nights in the stacks and study rooms of Olin Library at Washington University.  I moved to the river city from Utah. As a teen I had discovered something called “community radio” in the form of KRCL, a volunteer-based music and talk station that broadcasted (and still broadcasts) along the Wasatch Front from the far left end of the FM dial. I think I first heard Bob Marley, the Grateful Dead, Bill Monroe, Hank Williams and John Coltrane on that station. It was a part of my secret teenage life, something no one else would understand, a place and space of solace and discovery.

In Saint Louis, I turned again to the left end of the dial, and in October of 1987, I found KDHX, which had just begun broadcasting at 88.1 FM. I couldn’t believe my ears. The programming was even more eclectic, even more passionate, smart and free than KRCL. I heard country, jazz, punk, new wave, bluegrass — and especially, soul, deep soul, spun by some guy named Papa Ray, “The Soul Selector.” I’m sure it was on his show that I first heard, or really heard, ZZ Hill, Bobby Blue Bland, Joe Tex, Bettye LaVette, Jr. Parker, Johnny Taylor, Fontella Bass, O.V. Wright and Oliver Sain. In the mostly desolate radio wasteland of Saint Louis, I’m sure I wasn’t alone in that.

I became a programmer for KDHX in 2004. My show is called Feel Like Going Home, it airs Wednesday mornings, from 8:00 – 10:00 am Central Time. I try to mix indie rock, singer-songwriters, country, soul, blues and Americana in some way that makes connections, maybe even makes sense.

There are around 200 volunteers that contribute to KDHX–I’m one of them. We all believe that “community media” (and KDHX includes a local access cable TV station, an expanding web site, educational efforts and work with film and video) is more than a noble concept. It’s a practical, viable, meaningful way of building and transforming our community. Saint Louis wouldn’t be Saint Louis without the station.   —>
http://livinginstereo.com/?p=428
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Seminar on Peoples Voices, Peoples Participation and Community Radio – 04 May, 2008
Waves of Change
04/17/08

[ comments invited ]

We would like to appreciate that the present non-political Care Taker Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh recently formulated Community Radio Installation, Broadcast and Operation Policy – 2008 and then asked for applications from interested initiators to install Community Radio in the country. In order to facilitate the application and registration process of the organizations for Community Radio, Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC) immediately opened a national help desk in its secretariat in Dhaka. As a result, BNNRC is receiving huge response from the interested development organizations for technical support in this regard.

To accelerate the Community Radio Policy 2008, we are going to organize a national seminar on Peoples Voices, Peoples Participation and Community Radio at 09:30 AM -5:00 PM on Sunday, 04 May, 2008 at UNB Auditorium (7th Floor), Cosmos Centre, 69/1, New Circular Road, Malibagh, Dhaka-1212.where resource persons from Singapore, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh will present their respective papers.  The seminar is jointly organized by Asian Media Information Communication Center(AMIC), United News of Bangladesh (UNB) and Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC).   —>
http://deepdishwavesofchange.blogspot.com/2008/04/seminar-on-peoples-voices-peoples.html
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Cable TV operations will not be blocked
Information minister says no blackout of opposition proceedings in parliament
Daily Times (Pakistan)
04/17/08

ISLAMABAD: Cable operators are the primary source of information for the public and the new democratic government will not allow anyone to block cable TV operations in the country, Information Minister Sherry Rehman said on Wednesday.  “The government believes in freedom of information and public access to information, therefore, no one will be allowed to disrupt the free flow of information,” she told a delegation of the Cable Operators Association of Pakistan, which called on her under the leadership of its chairman, Khalid Sheikh. Sherry said that the government had already tabled a bill to remove the ‘black’ media law and would take further measures for the freedom of the media. “To ensure smooth running of the cable TV network throughout the country, a hotline service would be set up at the Information Ministry, where cable operators would register their complaints of any external pressure for blocking their system or a particular TV channel,” she added.   —>
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C04%5C17%5Cstory_17-4-2008_pg7_18
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compiled by Rob McCausland
Alliance for Community Media
202-393-2650
web:  http://ourchannels.org
wiki:  http://peg.ourchannels.org

Saving tctv2 a true service
Editorial: Traverse City Record Eagle (MI)
04/16/08

The Land Information Access Association is a local nonprofit that up to now has specialized in putting land use, resource and environmental information into easily-accessible formats to help residents, planners and governments make better land-use decisions.  Now — just in time, it appears — the LIAA is broadening the scope of its educational mission to include rescuing public-access television station tctv2 from the trash heap.

It’s going to need some financial help; hopefully, some of that will come from area governments still meeting their obligations under old franchise agreements and some from a few townships that essentially reneged on old promises. Other funds are expected from services such as production assistance and studio rentals.

Back in the day, tctv2 was sitting pretty. It had a decent revenue flow, it had pretty good facilities at Northwestern Michigan College and there was a steady, if low-key, flow of locally produced programs. Some were exactly what the term public access TV brought to mind — tepid discussions on arcane subjects or variations on the home movie theme. Others, however, were creative and informative, exactly what a lot of people hoped public-access television would be.

Probably the most popular offerings were the live broadcasts of Traverse City commission meetings on Monday nights. The deathly dull always seemed to be offset by some bit of local politics that kept people watching.  Those broadcasts were a great precedent for the region. They brought local politics into area living rooms and helped raise awareness of local issues. They also led directly to similar efforts by Traverse City schools, Grand Traverse County (finally) and some local townships.   —>
http://www.record-eagle.com/opinion/local_story_107100152.html
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NB considers public access arts channel
by Jessica Musicar
The World (OR)
04/15/08

[ 2 comments ]

NORTH BEND — Coos County viewers looking to make a stronger connection to the local arts scene won’t have to leave their living rooms to do so, if the city of North Bend supports an area television station’s effort to start up a new channel.  Officials from Coos Bay-based PEG Broadcasting Services Inc., which records and televises governmental meetings on Channel 14, plan to take up a public access channel dedicated to arts and education, said Don Van Dyke, the president of PEG Broadcasting.

“There’s just tons of things we could cover and we’re talking about the whole county, not just North Bend or Coos Bay,” Van Dyke said.  He added he plans to feature local school bands, debating clubs, science fairs, and shows in a variety of Bay Area theaters. “There’s a lot of talent in this area, especially among the youth, that the public just doesn’t know about.”   —>
http://www.theworldlink.com/articles/2008/04/15/news/doc4804e67f7f4a8358850505.txt
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Democrat Steve Beshear Killing Telecom Subsidy Connect Kentucky?
by Matt Stoller
OpenLeft.com
04/15/08

[ 2 comments ]

I’ve written a fair amount about corruption and the telecom lobby.  One of the nastiest tricks the telecoms use is the notion of universal buildout to grab subsidies and then not do the buildout, which of course creates the need for more subsidies to do universal buildout.  It’s a neat trick.  Connect Kentucky is their current malignant model for doing that, a ‘public-private’ partnership funded by the cash strapped state of Kentucky.  Art Brodsky did a devastating take-down of the nonprofit, and subsequently Hillary Clinton’s internet platform has removed its references to the program which was slated to go national.

As Brodsky’s piece percolated, it generated momentum against the program, which had previously only been subjected to hagiographic pieces about how wonderfully Connect Kentucky spread broadband access.  Fortunately, Governor Steve Beshear just vetoed the program’s funding.   —>
http://openleft.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=75B2A78C4C668FC689D65C7C47D5778E?diaryId=5170
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Squabble over net neutrality resumes
by Brooks Boliek
The Hollywood Reporter
04/16/08

When the FCC convenes its second hearing on what it calls “network management” Thursday, it will have covered both coasts and the universities that played midwife to the Internet.  Thursday’s hearing at Stanford University in California and February’s at MIT in Boston complete an arc that could be described as the Internet’s Fertile Crescent.  These campuses are the staging ground for what could be the government’s foray into the Internet’s next phase. While the commission calls it network management, most of the people with a stake in the hearing call it network neutrality — a hotly debated policy notion that likely will define just how far a company can go to control what and how fast information flows over the Internet’s backbone.   —>
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/business/news/e3i94a671a1b94ff736b514c84ce14c5d2e
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Verizon FiOS proposes citywide buildout
by Joshua Breitbart
Civil Defense (NY)
04/16/08

[ comments invited ]

Yesterday, Verizon proposed to build a fiber optic network covering all of New York City. The proposal comes just one day after the City’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) published notification of the RFP for cable television providers, which is how you know DoITT’s RFP (request for proposals) and Verizon’s proposal were worked out in tandem over months of closed-door negotiations.

Verizon is offering to finish the installation by midyear 2014, provide a public safety INET (institutional network), pay franchise fees equivalent to five percent of gross revenues on cable TV service, channels for public access. As the precise details emerge and once I’ve had a chance to read the RFP, I’ll give you my assessment on the fine points, but that doesn’t sound like enough off the bat given the scope of the deal.   —>
http://breitbart.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/verizon-fios-proposes-citywide-buildout/
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The Power and Responsibility of our Nation’s Broadcasters
by Tim Robbins
Huffington Post
04/16/089

[ 232 comments ]

The following is my opening keynote speech for the National Association of Broadcasters Show in Las Vegas, which I delivered Monday night.

[ audio at Huffington Post ]

Hello, I’m Tim Robbins. I’d like to thank you for the invitation to address you here at the National Association of Broadcasters. When I first received the invitation I was a little confused because the last time I had contact with the national media I seem to remember them telling me to shut the hell up.

I would like to start with an apology. To Rush and Sean, and Billo and Savage and Laura what’s-her-name. A few years ago they told America that because I had different opinions on the wisdom of going to war that I was a traitor, a Saddam lover, a terrorist supporter, undermining the troops. I was appealing at the time for the inspectors to have more time to find those weapons of mass destruction. I was a naïve dupe of left wing appeasement. And how right they were. If I had known then what I know now, if I had seen the festive and appreciative faces on the streets of Baghdad today, if I had known then what a robust economy we would be in, the unity of our people, the wildfire of democracy that has spread across the Mideast, I would never have said those traitorous, unfounded and irresponsible things. I stand chastened in the face of the wisdom of the talk radio geniuses, and I apologize for standing in the way of freedom.

So when they asked me to come speak to you I said, “Are you sure? Me?” And they said, “Yes.”  And I said, “You know, I have a tendency to say things that I believe at the time to be well-intentioned but that are actually traitorous.” And they said, “Sure, cool.” And then I read the press release and it said, “Mr. Robbins will be speaking about the challenges of new media and delivery systems.” Oh, OK. But I just want you to know I’m not sure I know what that fucking means.  But it is an honor to be speaking to you here at this years National Association Broadcasting convention even if I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.   —>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-robbins/addressing-the-national-a_b_96836.html
Also posted at AlterNet – 25 comments: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/82510/
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Legislators Take Aim at FCC Localism Proposals
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin Receives Letter from More than 120 Legislators
by John Eggerton
Broadcasting & Cable
04/16/08

[ comments invited ]

The National Association of Broadcasters got support Wednesday in its fight against proposed new localism obligations.  More than 120 legislators signed onto a letter to Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin asking him not to impose any localism mandates on broadcasters.  A copy of the letter was released by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), but included Democrats, as well.  The letter said the FCC is considering a “radical reregulation” of broadcasting and takes aim at FCC proposals to create community-advisory boards, to require broadcasters to report on programmning in a variety of categories and to locate their studios in their community of license and have their stations staffed at all times.   —>
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6552169.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP&nid=2228
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The Future of Community Radio
by Greg Guma
Toward Freedom
04/16/08

Will audiences keep tuning in to radio if the information and music they want can be more easily accessed by other means? Can FM compete with the quality and reliability of new portable devices? And will listeners continue to pay attention to long fund drive pitches? These are some of the difficult questions public and community radio must answer in the near future.

At the moment blogs are undermining newspapers, DVRs and TiVo are allowing viewers to skip commercials and time-shift the viewing of their preferred shows, and iPods are revolutionizing the way we access and consume music. The good news is that there are traits and features specific to radio that can help. But broadcasters need to open themselves to the inevitable convergence with new media and the Internet.

So, how can community radio prepare for the future? Three ways: embrace convergence, focus on unique and thematic content, and use radio’s traditional strengths while combining them with the power of new technologies. This can lead to a new form of radio that doesn’t abandon the airwaves, but also brings quality programming that can’t be found elsewhere to new audiences and emerging media platforms.

What are Radio’s strengths, especially those can be leveraged and integrated with some of the new opportunities?   —>
http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1283/1/
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Teletubbies, Digital Zapatistas, Viral Marketing, Sign “Bombing”
by Elizabeth Coffman
elizabeth coffman’s guerilla media weblog (IL)
04/16/08

[ comments invited ]

Guerilla Media Class is nearing the end of the Spring 08 semester. Students are preparing their final community media projects and updating their blogs. I will report on the final projects soon.  The projects range from persuading Loyola Chicago’s Public Safety office to donate ‘found’ or abandoned bikes on campus to the student Bike Club, (who will place them for free around campus), to unconventional promotional efforts for a new musician, who is giving away his music online for free, to sign ‘bombings’ on a variety of issues, including guerilla support for 3rd Party Political candidates, as well as a project that documents “random encounters” on the Chicago El by the women’s rugby team, in full uniform and covered with mud.

Our readings on guerilla media, our guest speakers, our field trip to CANTV and LUC’s new Information Commons have helped us to see the digital spectrum as ranging from political activism to viral marketing, and to think through Habermas’s ideas of the ideal public sphere. The public, the market and participatory culture redefine how politics, economy, art, and pop culture interweave and overlap in old and new media arenas. From blogging in Ethiopian elections to radio listening clubs in Malawi, from the Guerilla Girls to Second Life, the participatory power of new media is obvious.   —>
http://ecoffman.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/teletubbies-digital-zapatistas-viral-marketing-sign-bombing/
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Zambia: No Politicians on Community Radio Boards – Nyirenda
The Times of Zambia
04/16/08

The Government has said that politicians should not be on the board of directors for community radio stations to avoid political interference in the editorial content of such institutions.  Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services Permanent Secretary, Emmanuel Nyirenda yesterday told the Parliamentary Watchdog Committee chaired by Namwala member of Parliament (MP) Robbie Chizhyuka (UPND).  Mr Nyirenda appeared before the Committee on Information and Broadcasting Services to explain the role of community radio stations in the promotion of governance and national programmes.

He said community radio stations were cardinal to the country’s democracy and should therefore be supported. Mr Nyirenda said that the Government through his ministry was planning to establish a Media Development Fund. The goal of the fund was to enable community media houses become sustainable and operate without any hindrances. Mr Nyirenda said even if politicians were stopped from sitting on community radio boards, they could still be allowed to participate in their formation and contribute financially.

On the establishment of the Media Development Fund, he said the decision was arrived at after the realisation that the Media Trust Fund (MTF), some donor institutions and religious organisations only supported most community stations. The Media Development Fund would focus on resource mobilisation, funding and supporting both existing and new media organisations and funding capacity building for such organisations.  He said that the funds would ensure the establishment of community radio stations in far flung areas as opposed to them being situated on the line of rail. Mr Nyirenda said this when he addressed concerns raised by Mpika Central MP, Mwansa Kapeya (PF) who wanted to know whether there were any plans to ensure that community radio stations were not only located on the line of rail.   —>
http://allafrica.com/stories/200804160434.html
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compiled by Rob McCausland
Alliance for Community Media
202-393-2650
web:  http://ourchannels.org
wiki:  http://ourchannels.org

Announcement of cable/AT&T deal set for Monday
by John Rodgers
The City Paper (TN)
04/04/08

[ comments invited ]

Leading lawmakers in the cable/AT&T negotiations over statewide franchising will roll out their compromise legislation Monday in a press conference, the House Democratic Caucus announced today.  The compromise bill marks the culmination of months of negotiations between the involved parties.  The deal is expected to have AT&T agree to “build out” its television service to a certain percentage of a town or city, as well as offer the services to some low-income residents.   —>
http://politics.nashvillecityblogs.com/?p=505
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Legislators Say Bill Sought By AT&T Finally Ready
The Chattanoogan (TN)
04/04/08

Legislative leaders said they have finally reached agreement on a statewide franchise bill sought by AT&T that is expected to result in a new cable TV option for Chattanooga residents and others throughout Tennessee.  On Monday afternoon, House and Senate members working directly in talks with AT&T and Tennessee’s cable companies are due to hold a press conference to announce the completion of a new telecommunications bill.  Officials said copies of the agreement will be provided after the Nashville press conference.

Set to take part are Speaker of the House Jimmy Naifeh (D-Covington), Rep. Charlie Curtiss (D-Sparta), Rep. Steve McDaniel (R-Parkers Crossroads), Rep. Ulysses Jones, Jr. (D-Memphis), Rep. Randy Rinks (D-Savannah), Sen. Lowe Finney (D-Jackson) and Sen. Bill Ketron (R-Murfreesboro).
The bill was introduced last year, but has gone through a number of revisions before the compromise measure was reached.   —>
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_125216.asp
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Comcast, AT&T work together on new bill for franchising rights
Memphis Business Journal (TN)
by Einat Paz-Frankel
04/04/08

After vociferously contending an AT&T, Inc.-backed bill on the state’s Capitol Hill last year, Comcast Corp. is now working with the telecom giant behind closed doors to create a new bill that will assuage both parties while changing the way video franchising rights are granted in Tennessee.  A resolution is expected this month, according to the Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association and the Tennessee Municipal League, which has also opposed the proposed Competitive Cable and Video Services Act. The bill would allow television service to be provided through a single statewide franchise agreement, instead of negotiating with each municipality separately.   —>
http://www.bizjournals.com/memphis/stories/2008/04/07/story8.html
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SEE ME, HEAR ME, PICK ME: Endorsement video of Dems for House Seat 1
by Ian Gillingham
Willamette Week (OR)
04/04/08

[ comments invited ]

For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been inviting candidates to sit down with WW and make their case for your vote—and our friends at Portland Community Media have been there to catch it all on video. Every day for the next month, we’ll post a new video of our endorsement interviews on WWire.  Today and tomorrow, we’ve got the candidates for U.S. House of Representatives, First District .  First up: Democrats (incumbent David Wu, Will Hobbs).

For footage of more WW endorsement interviews, tune your TV to Channel 30, see Portland Community Media’s Blip.tv site, or just check back on WWire tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after….  Tomorrow: House Seat 1—the Republicans.
http://www.wweek.com/wwire/?p=11440
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Cable Increases, Franchise Renewal Up for Questions
by Bernice Paglia
Plainfield Plaintalker (NJ)
04/04/08

[ comments invited ]

—>  The notice reminded Plaintalker of another issue, the cable franchise renewal process. According to a BPU report, more than 12,000 households had cable in 2005. The three-year process to determine how well Comcast has served Plainfield should have begun in August of 2006, with a report due in August of this year. The franchise expires in August 2009.  The Plainfield Cable Television Board was supposed to hold monthly meetings during the ascertainment period, make annual reports, report regularly to the mayor and council and generally to be involved in any activities having to do with local cable television, including the city’s own Channel 74.

Plaintalker has harped on this subject since December 2005 but there is not much progress to report. Click here for a file of past stories.   —>
http://plaintalker.blogspot.com/2008/04/cable-increases-franchise-renewal-up.html
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Cable Access TV and the Arts
by Salma
Souldish (NJ)
04/04/08

[ comments invited ]

Monday, April 7 – A repeat of the successful 2 hr. forum will be held at SCAN covering topics on: a) Arts and cable access TV: how to get on TV for free b) The WIN-15 TV show & publicity c) Special TV production training for those in the art.  (7p, Free) SCAN Learning Center, Monmouth Mall, Rt 35 and 36, Eatontown, NJ; 732-938-2481
http://www.souldish.com/2008/04/04/body-of-war-shamans-way-of-healing-moses-code-horned-ball-sub-swara/
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Great Falls TV station needs home
by Matt Austin
KRTV (MT)
04/04/08

Many Great Falls departments are asking for more money in the next budget, and on Friday city commission members will talk about its budget priorities.  One group which always keeps an eye on commission meetings will also be watching the budget talks as a Great Falls television channel is looking for a home.  The community access channel, Cable 7, has become a nomad in Great Falls, moving four times in just five years.

The group is currently using the waiting area at the Central Avenue office of former  KRTV anchor Cindy Cieluch. Staff members tell us that the area works well for a studio and they use another office for the director and to store equipment. The non-profit films its six studio shows at the office, and also films government meetings.  “Cable 7 provides a public service, local events” explains Executive Producer Kevin Manthey. “This is something I feel is very important to the community of Great Falls and surrounding area.”   —>
http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Global/story.asp?S=8118751
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PEG pact is unclear
by Alan Lewis Gerstenecker
Rolla Daily News (MO)
04/03/08

[ 3 comments ]

Steve Leonard, former President of Rolla Video Productions — the company that operated Channel 16 for the best part of seven years — has some concerns about an educational and governmental television channel currently considered by city and school officials and Fidelity Communications.  The PEG (Public Educational and Governmental) channel, which is in discussion stages, would be a partnership between Rolla city government, Rolla Public School District, and Fidelity Communications, Rolla’s cable television franchise holder.

Leonard, 28, expressed some of those concerns during a recent City Council meeting and then again Wednesday.  “In its current state, the contract with the city doesn’t say what they’re going to get for that $50,000,” Leonard said. “As someone who used to do programming, I’d like to think that it would spell out just what the residents of Rolla are going to get.”…

“Don’t get me wrong. I’ve moved on with my life,” Leonard said. “But if they would have offered me $50,000 for programming, I would have told them exactly what I’d have given them. In addition to City Council, I’d have televised the Planning & Zoning meetings, the RMU (Rolla Municipal Utilities) meetings, done more spring (high school) sports. I’d have done it right,” Leonard said.  “If you turn on Channel 6 now, you hear a buzz. You can’t listen long, or at least I can’t without getting a headache. I don’t know if $50,000 is going to fix that or not,” said Leonard, who is now a full-time business student at Missouri University of Science & Technology.

For his part, Leonard said he is supportive of Fidelity.  “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not knocking Fidelity. They offer some great programming, and I think they offer more basic channels for the best price. I just want to see what they’re going to offer for the $50,000,” Leonard said. “I think anyone who reviews that contract will want to know what they’re going to offer.”

John Paul, Fidelity Communications Director of Sales and top official in Rolla, said Thursday the contract with the city, Rolla Public Schools, and his company, still is a work in progress.  “I can tell you we intend cover all City Council and School Board meetings. I can also tell you we’re not just going to cover those two and then run a community bulletin board the rest of the time,” Paul said.   —>
http://www.therolladailynews.com/articles/2008/04/04/news/news03.txt
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State PEGs Tune Into “Same Channel” to Support Free Speech
by Cynthia Thomet
Akaku: Maui Community Television (HI)
04/04/08

Hawaii People’s Fund Media Justice review panel granted $7,400 to Akaku in mid-March to launch the Free Speech Hawaii Coalition, a collaborative effort to build community and ensure diverse points of view on issues of free speech across the state. The coalition is made possible by the commitment of all of Hawaii’s public, educational and governmental (PEG) access organizations, including Akaku for Maui County, `Ōlelo Community Television on O`ahu, Na Leo O Hawaii on Big Island and Ho`ike: Kaua`i Community Television.

“We’re very grateful to Hawaii People’s Fund for their commitment to media justice to fund this public awareness coalition,” says Jay April, President/ CEO of Akaku, who invited `Ōlelo, Na Leo and Ho`ike to lead the coalition’s public education messages with their respective island audiences

The grant will cover some of the expenses required for the core coalition members to work together and reach out to their respective islands’ viewers about preserving public, educational and governmental (PEG) access services in Hawaii. Some outreach measures include a vibrant website, advertising to build community awareness and localized public education campaigns to get island residents engaged in protecting their right to public access cable television and other mass media venues.   —>
http://www.akaku.org/?p=74
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Participatory Media for a Global Community: BAVC’s Producers Institute 2008
by Wendy Levy
Bay Area Video Coalition (CA)
04/04/08

[ comments invited ]

With continued support from the MacArthur Foundation, the Producers Institute for New Media Technologies will happen May 30 – June 8 here at BAVC in San Francisco. The new crop of projects coming into this year’s Institute are part of a documentary-driven conversation focused on finding and engaging diverse audiences, creating social and political networks of participation, the notion of global community, the viability of Web 2.0 social change, emerging mobile media applications, games for change, and interactive strategies for multi-platform storytelling.

Check out full project descriptions from the recent press release.

The first panel of the Producers Institute will be open to the public this year, and it revolves around marketing social justice media. The always dynamic and uber-literate B. Ruby Rich will moderate. I’ll follow up with details of the where and when, but here’s the panel description. We are hoping to see if its possible for change-the-world stories to expand You Tube sensibilities, to rock CreateSpace, to shock iTunes, to blow out XBOX. And, of course, we want to know if you can actually make money while making a difference?   —>
http://bavc.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/participatory-media-for-a-global-community-bavcs-producers-institute-2008/
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US kept in slow broadband lane
by Ian Hardy
> Click
04/04/08

We all know that America is the technology hub of the universe. It is home to Intel, Microsoft, Apple, Sun, Google, YouTube, Yahoo, MIT – the list is endless. So why, when it comes to the basics, like delivering the internet to its citizens, has it fallen way behind many other nations?

In Manhattan people pay about $30 (£15) a month for a download speed of three megabits per second (Mbps) via a DSL line. Many people are very happy with that, until they realise what is going on elsewhere in the world.  US broadband speeds are much slower than in many countries  “In Japan you can get 100 megabits for $35,” says Selina Lo of Ruckus Wireless.  “I think that has penetrated some 30% of subscribers. The government is targeting for 100 megabit services to penetrate 60% plus of the subscriber base in a few years…

Today most New Yorkers have two choices for home net – via their phone or cable TV company.  But in New York state 52% of residents do not have any internet access, especially rural areas and low income families.  “We haven’t been able to overcome those barriers in terms of increasing the technology adoption rate of those households that are on or below the poverty level,” explains Dr Melodie Mayberry-Stewart, New York State’s chief information officer.  “I think if you look at where the US is compared to other countries, given our speed, we’re not competitive with other countries.”

The lack of competition has had other consequences. Comcast, the nation’s largest residential cable TV and net company was recently accused of interfering with the downloading of video files.  Internet video directly threatens the popularity of traditional TV, so Comcast’s answer is to curtail download speeds for its biggest users.

“As we get more and more things that tie us into the internet – Xbox 360, IPTV services, all sorts of broadband gaming – we’re all getting online more and more,” says Jeremy Kaplan executive editor of PC Magazine.  “And rather than opening up and getting better service, most of these cable and DSL companies are really trying to limit what we do, put caps on what we do. As consumers we’re suffering from that.”

Public wi-fi efforts have also been held back. Several city governments have given up or reduced efforts to provide blanket coverage for their residents.  This is because they have been worn down with lawsuits and lobbyists working for the telephone companies, who want consumers to rely on expensive cell phone plans to access the net on the go.  “Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore – they all have wi-fi in public areas. People can access broadband internet when they’re out in public,” says Ms Lo.  “It is the cheapest way to offer public access. As a quality of life, as a city service, I don’t know why our city government just don’t do that.”   —>
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/7329992.stm
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More questions than answers
by Mark Jones
Reuters Editors
04/04/08

[ 1 comment ]

I was invited to a gathering of activists, academics and media practitioners by the Berkman Centre’s Media:Republic program in LA last weekend. Exhilarating to be in such exalted company but depressing to find them so anxious about the future of political engagement and so negative about big Media’s future.

The context of the meeting was to establish what we don’t understand about the emerging media landscape in order to inform the direction of future research programmes.  So, in the spirit of Donald Rumsfeld, what do we know that we don’t know?

How distributed can the production of meaning be?
An academic question from John Zittrain of Berkman but very much with real world concerns in mind. He’s worried about where the atomisation of media consumption and production will take society. In an elitist world, one in which communication channels (including media) are controlled by the few, then it is relatively easy to see how the politics of consensus and compromise can be pursued. But many felt that the new social technologies were creating new silos, reducing the quality of public discourse, accelerating disengagement from politics and, possibly, creatng the conditions for extremist politics.

How can we get the public to eat their broccoli?
Traditionally, nearly all media has followed a public service remit to some degree and mixed content with public policy relevance with the really popular stuff. So you get a smattering of Darfur in a diet of domestic news, celebrity and sports. But that only works when publishers control the medium.

I know I wasn’t the only one to squirm as David Weinberger, co-author of the seminal Cluetrain Manifesto, described how increasingly anachronistic the Big Media model of editors deciding what it was appropriate for readers to read was beginning to seem. What seemed to worry this group more than anything else was that if consumers control their ‘DailyMe’ — a personalised news service — then how will the public service stuff get through?   —>
http://blogs.reuters.com/reuters-editors/2008/04/04/more-questions-than-answers/
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compiled by Rob McCausland
Alliance for Community Media
202-393-2650
web: http://ourchannels.org
wiki: http://peg.ourchannels.org

Candidates to appear on public-access TV
‘Experiment in democracy’ sponsored by Time Warner, Times West Virginian
by Bill Byrd
Times West Virginian
03/23/08

[ comments invited ]

FAIRMONT — Candidates for local and statewide offices in the May 13 primary will be appearing soon on public-access television — Channel 19 — of the Time Warner Cable Co., said D.D. Meighen.  “We are doing what public-access television is supposed to do, broadcasting information of important events to the viewing audience,” said Meighen, director of Marion County TV-19.

“The public is invited to attend and watch our videotaping of this forum,” he said.  “This is the first time this has been tried in Fairmont. It’s an experiment in democracy.”  The program is being sponsored by the Times West Virginian newspaper and the Time Warner cable system, he said.

Viewers will be able to see nearly 75 candidates who are on the ballot from the comfort of their living rooms in the month of April, he said. The brief profiles will air twice daily throughout the month.  “Even people who will vote in early voting will have time to view these profiles,” Meighen said.   —>
http://www.timeswv.com/intodayspaper/local_story_083015422.html
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A show we’d like to see: The legislature on TV
by Jack Betts
Charlotte Observer (NC)
03/23/08

Sixteen years ago, the late N.C. Sen. Mary Seymour of Greensboro dropped a two-page bill in the hopper that could have given the state’s residents a front-row seat for gavel-to-gavel televised coverage of legislative sessions.  Identical to a House bill sponsored by then-Rep. Judy Hunt of Boone, the bill went nowhere. But it was a good idea then and an even better one now.

That thought occurred to me as I sat in the audience Thursday at the annual Sunshine Day observance at Elon University and heard state Sen. Eddie Goodall, R-Union, repeat his call for a study commission to assess the need for televising all legislative sessions and certain committee meetings.

He’s right to pursue a study; legislative leaders have not backed the idea of gavel-to-gavel coverage in either chamber, though of course commercial and public television stations provide varying kinds of new coverage on issues. But what the legislature needs is that kind of daily coverage so the public can see what’s going on — and what’s not.   —>
http://www.charlotte.com/291/story/548997.html
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Insiders enlisted in back-room cable war
Top lobbyists work on TV bill in Naifeh’s office
by Theo Emery
The Tennessean
03/23/08

[ 28 comments ]

A small group of lobbyists gathers outside the office of House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh each week, checking BlackBerries and chatting as they wait to be invited through the doors of the speaker’s office and into a conference room in the back.  The subject of those meetings is an issue that could touch every corner of the state: whether telephone giant AT&T will receive statewide permission to offer television service in competition with cable companies like Comcast and Charter, and how widely available AT&T’s service will be.

The meeting participants come from a wider cast of characters: dozens of lobbyists, lawmakers and others on Tennessee’s Capitol Hill whose relationships and loyalties make a potent stew of politics. They include numerous former members of Gov. Phil Bredesen’s administration and two married couples.

“I think every lobbyist in Nashville’s been hired on one side or the other,” said House Commerce Committee Chairman Charles Curtiss, the Sparta Democrat who sponsored the AT&T legislation last year.

The quiet negotiations in Naifeh’s office, which participants are reluctant to discuss, stand in stark contrast to last year’s knock-down public fight over the legislation, which would allow AT&T to franchise its new service statewide instead of negotiating with each individual city, town or county.   —>
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080323/NEWS0201/803230420/1001/RSS01#gslPageReturn
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Verizon mum on extent of FioS for city
‘City will not allow cherry-picking,’ city spokesman says
by Aaron Nathans
The News Journal (DE)
03/23/08

[ 20 comments ]

Verizon workers are wandering through Wilmington neighborhoods, mapping them in preparation for offering its FioS television service in the city. Workers have even started installing the necessary fiber-optic wires in some areas.  But city officials haven’t yet received a permit application from Verizon to offer the service. And the mayor’s office says it will insist on one big condition: wire everyone.  Although city officials aren’t highlighting it, that means that even the city’s poorest neighborhoods would need to be properly wired to be able to opt for FioS television and Internet service as part of any permit deal.

Verizon isn’t ready to discuss its plans for Wilmington, said William Allan, the company’s Delaware president. He confirmed the company is working on plans to offer FioS in Wilmington but said not to assume too much from one sighting of fiber wire crews.  “If you went around the city, you would see pockets of activity in lots of places right now,” Allan said. “None of it is being driven by ‘where is the income?’ “   —>
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080323/BUSINESS/803230313
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South Bronx businesses in Internet dumps, but help could soon be on way
by Nadia Zonis
New York Daily News
03/23/08

[ 1 comments ]

Tenants in the Harlem River Transportation and Distribution Center have easy access to the Major Deegan and Bruckner expressways – but when it comes to the information superhighway, sometimes there’s no entrance ramp.  “I’ll be working during the day, and for a period of maybe 10 minutes, the Internet system goes down,” said Tony Ricchio, senior vice president of the management company that runs the large industrial park in Port Morris.

Lack of reliable high-speed broadband Internet access is bedeviling many businesses in the South Bronx industrial zones. Most are far from residential areas wired by Cablevision or Verizon for cable and DSL   While the city is studying the issue and companies are coming up with alternatives, Bronx business owners say they are wallowing in a digital divide.

“To be competitive, you need fiber optic,” said John Mullane, head of Transcon International Inc., a company in the industrial park that moves and stores fine art.  He wants to expand to serve museums, but can’t without state-of-the-art Internet service.  “It’s like years ago when we started, people would ask if you had a fax, then e-mail, and you’d be embarrassed to say you didn’t,” he said.

Experts say part of the problem stems from franchise agreements with cable companies.  “Cable doesn’t have to go to places where there aren’t residents,” said David Birdsell, dean of the Baruch School of Public Affairs and a member of the Broadband Advisory Committee created by the City Council. “So there’s very little incentive for … Verizon … to go and provide high-quality copper and local stations that will multiply the DSL signal.”   —>
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2008/03/23/2008-03-23_south_bronx_businesses_in_internet_dumps.html
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Timing on new cable till fuzzy
AT&T’s is licensed to provide cable TV in Albany, but there is no word on when — or if — service might start.
by Susan  McCord
Albany Herald (GA)
03/23/08

A new Georgia law allowed AT&T to purchase on Feb. 14 a single state video franchise that includes much of metro Albany, but the company is slow to say when it will bring U-verse television service to Southwest Georgia.  “We do have a limited launch in the Atlanta area and we are committed to bringing our U-verse products to other markets,” AT&T Corporate Spokesman Joe Chandler said Friday.   —>
http://www.albanyherald.com/stories/20080323n8.htm
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Cable-TV crew digs new digs
$8.7m project created space in old building
by Paysha Stockton Rhone
Boston Globe (MA)
03/28/08

It’s a regular Wednesday night, and the new home of Boston’s public-access cable network is buzzing. In the computer lab, three teenagers edit their new show, “Swagger.” Upstairs, newbies gather in Studio A to discuss production. And in Studio B, Southie artist Dan McCole is warming up for his weekly arts talk show, “Citizen’s Corner.”

At the Boston Neighborhood Network, almost anything that can be videotaped will be.  “We don’t allow anything with flames,” digital media director Christine Kelly says. But that leaves plenty of room for heat-free chefs, Afro-Brazilian drummers, call-taking cops, Chinese dancers, Alzheimer’s experts, and local pols. About 40 different shows air on Comcast channels 9 and 23 throughout each month.   —>
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/03/23/cable_tv_crew_digs_new_digs/?page=full
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Millis – Comcast Deal Unsigned
by Calvin Hennick
Boston Globe (MA)
03/23/08

After months of negotiations, Comcast and town officials have yet to finalize an agreement on renewing the company’s local cable-television franchise. James Neville, president of Millis Community Access Television, said the town had hoped to have the new deal signed by mid-January, when the previous license expired. He noted that Comcast representatives had been unable to attend several meetings with town officials.

An initial agreement calls for keeping the 4.5 percent surcharge on customers’ bills that funds the town’s public-access TV operation. Comcast has also agreed to provide the town with $100,000 for capital expenses for the station. Under the agreement, Comcast would reconstruct the system that delivers the public-access signal by May 1 or face fines. Comcast spokesman Marc Goodman said the work to resolve the channel’s reception problems has already begun, and he does not foresee any changes to the preliminary agreement. He said he expects the contract to be signed soon.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/03/23/post_graduation_education/?page=2
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Folk singer Jori Costello to feature for poetry collective
by Cat Donnelly
Northwest Arkansas Times
03/23/098

Local poetess and singer / songwriter Jori Costello will feature for Ozark Poets and Writers Collective at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Nightbird Books, Fayetteville’s best little independent book store ! She promises to deliver her sophisticated fusion of jazz, folk rock and blues, along with performance poetry. Costello also considers herself a puppeteer and artist, along with her regular job as Community Access Television’s Outreach Coordinator. Costello was born in St. Louis and moved to Arkansas 11 years ago. She is in a committed four-year relationship. Costello claims that after her 20-year companion, Allie Cat, passed away she was immediately reincarnated as Hobbit, who at 6 months old, is already a feline television celebrity on CAT Channel 18.   —>
http://nwanews.com/nwat/Living/63442/
~

compiled by Rob McCausland
Alliance for Community Media
202-393-2650
web:  http://ourchannels.org
wiki: http://peg.ourchannels.org

Comcast Cameras to Start Watching You?
by Chris Albrecht
NewTeeVee
03/18/08

[ 104 comments ]

If you have some tinfoil handy, now might be a good time to fashion a hat. At the Digital Living Room conference today, Gerard Kunkel, Comcast’s senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who’s in your living room.

The idea being that if you turn on your cable box, it recognizes you and pulls up shows already in your profile or makes recommendations. If parents are watching TV with their children, for example, parental controls could appear to block certain content from appearing on the screen. Kunkel also said this type of monitoring is the “holy grail” because it could help serve up specifically tailored ads. Yikes.   —>
http://newteevee.com/2008/03/18/comcast-cameras-to-start-watching-you/
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City takes business to airwaves
by Susan Larson
The Daily Journal (MN)
03/22/08

[ comments invited ]

As a cameraman films, Community Development Director Gordon Hydukovich tells Lynne Olson, assistant to the city administrator, about an exciting new project happening in the city. Later in the day, the whole community will know about it when they watch, “City of Fergus Falls Update” on PEG Access channel 18.

Call it Regis and Kelly with a local twist. Implemented in February, the program is an effort by the city to keep residents informed about what’s happening around them in an entertaining way.  “We’ve heard from council that a concern they hear among the people is they want improved communications,” Olson said.  What better way to do so than through television?

“We highlight different departments, a project or special event,” Olson said. “We try to pick a timely topic.”  In this most recent case, the subject was a tabletop planning session set for April 10 regarding the west river area of the city. Hydukovich, who will lead the meeting, finds the show to be a means of making such meetings more effective.  “I can explain (a project) to people in a room while they’re sitting there,” he said. “But this gets it out and gets people thinking about it before, so they can come prepared and ask questions.”

Each episode airs the same day it is filmed, Jim Francis PEG Access executive director, said. It is played about 14 times until the next segment is filmed. Go to PEG access website — www.pegaccess.com — and look under “schedule” for the schedule.   —>
http://www.fergusfallsjournal.com/news/2008/mar/22/city-takes-business-airwaves/
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Tuned In: What do you want in local TV news?
by Rob Owen
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
03/21/08

—>  When I asked two weeks ago what viewers expect of local newscasts, I knew I would get some feedback. But I honestly didn’t expect the outpouring of response from more than 100 viewers, many of them frustrated with the state of local TV news.  Many of those responses — about 35 printed pages’ worth — have been posted in Tuned In Journal at post-gazette.com/tv. The recurring complaints were these:

• Too much news time…
• Too many teases; too much hype…
• Too many Steelers stories as news…
• Too much weather…
• Too many stories with no relevance to the average viewer…
• Too many references to Web sites…
• Too few stories on the arts…
• More serious news…
—>
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08081/866779-237.stm
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Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade as Internet Providers Pull Out
by Ian Urbina
New York Times
03/22/08

PHILADELPHIA — It was hailed as Internet for the masses when Philadelphia officials announced plans in 2005 to erect the largest municipal Wi-Fi grid in the country, stretching wireless access over 135 square miles with the hope of bringing free or low-cost service to all residents, especially the poor.

Greg Goldman is chief executive of Wireless Philadelphia, a nonprofit organization set up to help administer the program. He said that about $4 million was needed to cover the rest of the city.  Municipal officials in Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and 10 other major cities, as well as dozens of smaller towns, quickly said they would match Philadelphia’s plans.

But the excited momentum has sputtered to a standstill, tripped up by unrealistic ambitions and technological glitches. The conclusion that such ventures would not be profitable led to sudden withdrawals by service providers like EarthLink, the Internet company that had effectively cornered the market on the efforts by the larger cities.  Now, community organizations worry about their prospects for helping poor neighborhoods get online…

“The entire for-profit model is the reason for the collapse in all these projects,” said Sascha Meinrath, technology analyst at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit research organization in Washington.  Mr. Meinrath said that advocates wanted to see American cities catch up with places like Athens, Leipzig and Vienna, where free or inexpensive Wi-Fi already exists in many areas.

He said that true municipal networks, the ones that are owned and operated by municipalities, were far more sustainable because they could take into account benefits that help cities beyond private profit, including property-value increases, education benefits and quality-of-life improvements that come with offering residents free wireless access.  Mr. Meinrath pointed to St. Cloud, Fla., which spent $3 million two years ago to build a free wireless network that is used by more than 70 percent of the households in the city.   —>
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/us/22wireless.html?_r=2&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1206288773-PL75ZM9YC3lgl8yEPjCHww&pagewanted=all
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An ideal future communications infrastructure, how do we get there, and what is stopping us!
by Russell McOrman
itWorldCanada
03/20/08

[ comments invited ]

Whenever the discussion of “Net Neutrality” comes up we often get stuck with how the current network is configured, who provides it, and other historical issues. I would like to toss out that history for a moment and offer what I believe to be an ideal, talk about transition issues, as well as some of winners and losers in that transition (and thus who the greatest opponents are)

Future network infrastructure

Imagine a municipal ultra high speed network (Fiber to the premises/Home, or whatever future technologies may be even faster) that allowed the city residents to make arbitrary connections from their home to other points in the city. Sometimes they would connect to other citizens, and other times they would connect to companies.  These companies would offer a wide variety of services, mirroring many legacy services and having the ability to innovatively create more.

What we currently think of as “phone” service would be handled by competing companies that offered directory services and voice (and possibly video for video phones) connectivity between municipalities, as well as gateways to legacy “phone” networks (domestically and internationally). Voice communication between municipal residents could go point-to-point without the need of an additional intermediary.

What we currently think of as “television” service would be handled by people being able to directly subscribe and connect to various networks individually. I may be a fan of CBC and thus I would have a subscription with them. Individual community based stations would be relatively cheap to set up compared to the current system which either needs wireless transmitters or an agreement with both a cable company and the CRTC. Like the voice services, there would be competing companies offering the service of bringing in “television” stations that are not part of the networks who offer their stations directly in the municipality.

Switching from any service a company offers to a competitor should be very easy given the connection to ones home is entirely neutral to any company.

Transportation and utilities offer a path to this ideal

What I consider to be the ideal should sound familiar, as it is the system we use for our ground transportation system and many utilities including electricity. We have municipally owned/managed road infrastructure which allow us to travel between any two destinations within the city. We don’t have a “Walmart road” as well as a “Canadian Tire” road running to our homes like many of us in Ontario have a “Rogers” and a “Bell” wire running into our homes. The municipality — unlike the legacy phone and cable companies — doesn’t claim some alleged right to actively inspect the contents of all our vehicles or “traffic shape” roads based on whether they like the contents of our vehicles or not.   —>
http://blogs.itworldcanada.com/insights/2008/03/20/an-ideal-future-communications-infrastructure-how-do-we-get-there-and-what-is-stopping-us/
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Tibet could be a public relations fiasco for Beijing
by Ken Kamoche
NationMedia
03/23/08

The Tibetan crisis is once again revealing some serious weaknesses in the way China handles threats to its much-vaunted quest for harmony. The riots in Tibet have also put to the test China’s slogan for the games: “One world, one dream”. In one part of the Himalayas at least, that dream is fast turning into a nightmare…  Imposing a media ban, ordering foreign journalists out of Lhasa, demonising the Dalai Lama and the hardline approach the government has taken all suggest that China has some way to go if it is to achieve internal harmony and gain the respect of the international community…

Beijing ought to have learnt some lessons from the collapse of the former Suharto regime and in particular how deceptively simple technologies like text messages played such a pivotal role in mobilising a street revolution. The same goes for Tibet.  You can cut off the formally constituted communication channels, chase away foreign journalists, block access to the Internet and foreign TV channels; but it is a losing battle.

Information seems to have a life of its own. It seeps through the cracks, bypasses the controls and gets to those who need it, or is dispatched by those who have to. The mess that is going on in Tibet cannot be swept under the carpet. If it continues to simmer, it will also further alienate the Taiwanese who fear they might go the way of Tibet.   —>
http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=25&newsid=119614
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Think You’re Not an Anarchist? Download This Book!
by Phil Grove
A Cooperative, Unending Endeavor
03/22/08

[ comments invited ]

Anarchism is political philosophy of radical humanism that commends itself to Quakers and many others who should give it more attention. It’s a vision of human relations that is egalitarian as opposed to hierarchical; communitarian as opposed to individualistic; and ecological and sustainable as opposed to extractive and doomed. Anarchists assess the modern condition as slavery to modern instutions of dominance and oppression; and they seek freedom for all.

The anarchist vision is not an unconstrained, chaotic nightmare that replaces modern institutions with nothing; it is a highly organized, nonheirarchical web of community-scale institutions within which to conduct human activities. By far, it is the political philosophy most compatible with Quaker testimony and practice; and also most compatible with the values of many advocates of participatory democracy, equal rights, feminism, environmentalism, and holistic health and living.

Anyone interested in anarchism should read Getting Free: Creating an Association of Democratic Autonomous Neighborhoods by James Herod. In this succinct work, Herod makes the case for some form of anarchism as the only viable alternative to the current system of global capitalism. But more importantly, he addresses the question of strategy in a straightforward manner. He conducts an unblinking critical survey of the failed past and current strategies of the left, rejecting them all as unable to defeat the capitalist system.

Our alternative parties, our vigils and demonstrations, our civil disobedience, our single issue campaigns, and our educational efforts are all ineffective against capitalism, in Herod’s view. The most they can achieve is to temporarily curb the worst abuses of capitalism. Depressing stuff, but I would suggest that a lot of the torper we feel on the left stems from our repressed understanding that Herod’s criticism is correct. We have not been getting anywhere.

But Herod doesn’t leave it at that.  In place of past strategies to overthrow or reform capitalism, Herod advocates a strategy of the gradual abandonment of capitalist institutions and substitution of alternative, community-based democratic structures. Here is the list of specific strategies he proposes:   —>
http://philgrove.blogspot.com/2008/03/think-youre-not-anarchist-download-this.html
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compiled by Rob McCausland
Alliance for Community Media
202-393-2650
web:  http://ourchannels.org
wiki:  http://peg.ourchannels.org

Luminaria Arts Night Part 1
by South Texas Media Access
03/21/08

[ comments invited ]

Video of the the 1st annual Luminaria Arts Night in San Antonio, TX, March 2008. Featuring artwork by local artists. Part 1. This clip was for San Antonio Public Access TV Perspective Prisms and Springtime65 Show.
http://txmediaaccess.blogspot.com/2008/03/luminaria-arts-night-part-1.html
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Editorial Short takes: Live legislative coverage
Marshall Independent (MN)
03/21/08

[ comments invited ]

SIDEWAYS THUMB: Because it is Sunshine Week, which emphasizes public access and open government, a reader e-mailed us, expressing frustration that Marshall’s public access cable channels don’t broadcast live coverage of the Minnesota Legislature. The coverage is available on the Internet, but the reader said not everyone has Internet access, so TV coverage would be valuable. We don’t disagree, but city officials say making it happen isn’t so easy. —>
http://www.marshallindependent.com/page/content.detail/id/500314.html
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Time Warner, WSKI form partnership
by Ann Bryant
Sun Journal (ME)
03/21/08

[ comments invited ]

CARRABASSETT VALLEY – Time Warner Cable and Snowfield Productions, owner of WSKI-TV 17, have entered into a partnership, Nadene McLeod of WSKI-TV said Thursday. The partnership will continue to bring “WSKI programming to cable television watchers in the Carrabassett Valley area as they have over the past 25 years and plan to continue to provide for many years to come,” McLeod said.

The station provides ski trail and weather reports for Sugarloaf, area events, sports coverage, news and advertising. The partnership resulted from a question raised in December about whether the public access television station should be made public or remain in the control of a private company. Time Warner became the area cable provider in 2006 and continued to provide the town with Channel 17 at no charge…

Hogg says the town is allowing WSKI, a private entity, to manage Channel 17 free of charge. The town never operated a public access channel, although one was reserved for the town, according to Town Manager Dave Cota. Since January, a committee has been looking at benefits, expenses and whether the town wants to operate a public channel.

Selectmen recently asked Cota to send a letter to Time Warner that states “the board has agreed to relinquish Channel 17 as the town public access channel to allow Time Warner and WSKI-17 to negotiate a private agreement with the contingency that Time Warner agrees to reserve Channel 22 as the town public access channel should the town vote to operate a public access channel,” Cota said. —>
http://www.sunjournal.com/story/257288-3/Franklin/Time_Warner_WSKI_form_partnership/
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Mar. 26: Grassroots Fundraising for Community Media Workshop at MNN, New York, NY
MediaRights
03/21/08

Attend MNN’s Upcoming “Grassroots Fundraising for Community Media” Workshop on Wednesday, March 26th @ 6:30pm

MNN’s Community Outreach & Media Department presents a series of production, post-production, distribution and funding workshops designed for groups who are interested in incorporating video in their organizing, outreach and advocacy efforts. —>
http://www.mediarights.org/news/2008/03/21/mar_26_grassroots_fundraising_for_community_media_workshop_at_mnn_new_york_ny
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“Postcards from Charlottesville,” Show #6
by Dave Norris
CvilleDave
03/21/08

[ comments invited ]

Dr. Lynn Rainville joins me on this month’s show. Lynn runs some excellent websites/blogs focused on Charlottesville-Albemarle history, including LoCoHistory, the LoCoBlog, and African-American Cemeteries in Albemarle & Amherst Counties. She is doing a wonderful job of helping to make history come alive (both for adults and for kids) and helping to connect area residents with their own past.

Click here to see the show, which will be broadcast throughout the coming month on Charlottesville Public Access TV (Channel 13) —>
http://cvilledave.blogspot.com/2008/03/postcards-from-charlottesville-show-6.html
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Larry Lessig: Time to reject corporate influence on Washington
by Anne Broache
CNet News
03/20/08

[ 14 comments

WASHINGTON--Iconic Internet law professor Larry Lessig may have cast off plans for a congressional bid of his own, but he still wants to turn the political process as we know it upside down. No more money from corporate political action committees and lobbyists. No more earmarks to fund pet projects in federal spending bills. Public financing for all congressional campaigns. And throughout it all, transparency.

Those are the four pillars of Lessig's "Change Congress" movement, which he unveiled, along with a beta Web site, which he describes as a "mash-up applied to politics," at an event here Thursday afternoon. For the project, he has teamed up with Joe Trippi, best known as the national campaign manager for Democrat Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign and its pioneering use of online organizing.

None of his ideas, of course, are particularly new, which Lessig himself readily acknowledged. A number of organizations--including Ralph Nader's Public Citizen and the Sunlight Foundation, which sponsored his talk on Thursday--dedicate themselves exclusively to promoting government transparency. Projects like Open Secrets offer more readily searchable databases of political campaign contributions, while groups like Citizens Against Government Waste have made it a mission to expose congressional pork-barrel spending. --->
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9899828-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
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Closing the Rural Broadband Gap, Presented by the Internet Innovation Alliance
by Geoff Daily
Apprising.com
03/20/08

[ 1 comment ]

—> Atkinson was also the first to strike a contrarian note when the panel moved into an open discussion as while most of the panel cited the need for and benefits of competition he called its efficacy into question in rural areas, in particular as it relates to giving new entrants additional incentives just for the sake of spurring competition.

I’ve long wondered how competition is the answer to increasing capacity and availability in rural areas; if we’re having trouble getting one company to invest how can we expect to get two, especially when the more competitors the smaller the slice of customers each one gets.

I managed to sneak in a question at the end trying to ask about the gap between how so many people say it’s too expensive to get big broadband to rural areas yet rural areas are likely the ones that could most benefit from that connectivity. Unfortunately I included in that question my belief that the ultimate goal should be a fiber pipe to every home.

This led the answers to focus on questioning if that truly is the goal. After a brief discussion a consensus emerged on the panel that rural broadband deployment should focus more on getting current broadband technology to everyone than next-gen technology to anyone.

I completely agree that the first order of business in considering the rural broadband challenge is making sure that everyone in America has access of at least 750Kbps or higher. But at the same time why aren’t we setting a longer term goal that’s much more aggressive?

One argument put forth was that if you start talking about getting too much bandwidth into rural areas the cost becomes too great and can scare off all deployment, be it public or private because it requires too much of an investment. I understand that as well, but I still don’t see why we can’t set a long-term goal of a fiber pipe to every home, no matter where it is.

In the meantime, this panel did a great job of laying out some of the most important things we can be doing to spur deployment to rural areas today:

- Robust mapping so private providers can know where the gaps are and move to fill them in
- Local community teams and technology centers that can spur the adoption and use of the Internet that will grow the demand that can drive deployment
- Tax credits and other incentives for the companies willing to deploy to rural areas to help make the business case more attractive

The only thing missing from this discussion was an advocate for municipal broadband. I have to admit I still have some reservations about public entities competing with public enterprise for consumer dollars, but I can’t deny the reality that in many rural areas some form of municipally owned, financed, and/or operated deployment might be the only way those communities can expect to have their infrastructure upgraded in the next twenty years. —>
http://www.app-rising.com/gdblog/2008/03/closing_the_rural_broadband_ga.html
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Media’s “New” Community Role
by Dan Schultz
MediaShift Idea Lab
03/21/08

[ 11 comments ]

I just got back to the U.S. from my first visit to Rome. The whole trip was great, but my favorite part was The Roman Forum. This ancient gathering place represents, as far as I’m concerned, the epitome of community facilitation given the resources available at the time. This may not seem like a relevant anecdote at first but the point is that I think members of the news industry who are looking for a role in this crazy Internet filled world may discover that the answer to their identity crisis isn’t so new after all.

This post is about where I think news organizations, especially local news organizations, need to take their digital presence. This is the conversation I hoped to seed with my analysis of the Anonymous activism against Scientology. It also turns out that this post will work nicely with the recent conversation on this blog about the need for news organizations to change the way they operate online.

Context and Clarification
In my posts about Anonymous I tried to identify some of the subtleties of online community coordination and pull out any lessons that could help us in our journalism-industry-wide quest to effectively utilize digital technology.

Based on a few of the comments to those posts it seems there was a little room for confusion. Some thought I was trying to provide a recipe for media outlets to take advantage of existing online communities or artificially manipulate the masses. In other words, not everyone understood what I believe the technologies should be utilized for. In a comment I wrote:

“[In these posts] I tried to look at what might have been a reason for [Anonymous] success and largely cite the fact that physical communities don’t utilize the kinds of digital communication tools that you guys have. This is where (for instance) local newspapers, which are desperately trying to find their place on the internet, could fill a role. Not for profit, but instead to get back to the public service that they were supposed to be providing in the first place – an outlet for community voice and an amplification of community issues.”

From what I understand, some of the original driving forces that inspired local news media were the demand for outlets of community voice and the need for amplification of important community issues. Ethics, practices, role, and tradition – i.e. hard news, public service journalism (which I will refer to as “hard journalism” from now on) – grew over time.

By focusing on those initial demands and drawing on “hard journalism” practices for reinforcement rather than direction, our adaptation to a new medium will hopefully becomes a little more manageable. That focus is what I wanted to develop with those posts (plus the whole Anonymous effort continues to fascinate me).

A New Community Medium
If my interpretation above is even partially accurate, it seems that local news operations are supposed to be information hubs for the communities they serve. When using a one-to-many medium such as Television or Print, reporters and editors try to represent their community by proxy. For old media that was fine because, realistically, it was the only way for the job to be done.

With digital media, as everyone seems to have figured out years ago, it isn’t enough to just have an online newspaper. What people are realizing now is that it also isn’t enough to simply enable comments, publish the occasional user-submitted-photo or blog, or incorporate a few pieces of interactive content. All of these things are small steps in the right direction, but small steps are slow and costly in the world of software.

This time around news organizations need to do more than just learn to use the media, they need to host a community with it – an idea that Richard Anderson put out there in his first post to this blog. People want a place, digital or otherwise, where they can gather and learn about the community in which they are a part, a place where they can get in touch with the issues, and a place where they can pick up on the “vibe.” They want a modern Roman Forum.

If news orgs don’t provide this then someone else will. What is troublesome is that the “someone else” won’t necessarily incorporate hard journalism in their vision. What makes THAT troublesome is that such services directly compete with the news.

Facilitating Community Agenda
In the words of Paul Monaco, much of media’s social influence comes from its ability to set agendas, not by “[telling] its readers and viewers what to think so much as it points them toward what to think about.” Social Media, Digital Media, many-to-many conversations, and all those other phrases that are thrown around describe the tools being used to push that task of issue definition back to the community. —>
http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2008/03/medias-new-community-role.html
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compiled by Rob McCausland
Alliance for Community Media
202-393-2650
web: http://ourchannels.org
wiki: http://peg.ourchannels.org

U-Verse’s Sorry Excuse For Public Access TV
CT’s version of public access CSPAN a little annoyed….
by Karl
Broadband Reports
03/17/08

[ 27 comments ]

As Verizon and AT&T lobbyists worked to eliminate the local video franchise system, consumer advocates pointed out that such moves resulted in the death of public access. In States where lawmakers insist, AT&T has to carry public access — but localities haven’t been all too thrilled with the results. In Connecticut, AT&T is trying to pass preferred “franchise reform” legislation that would change how PEG channels are offered. The free, 24-hour local government policy public access channel (Connecticut Network), worried that the bill would kill off viewership, has created a video showing what locals have to do in order to access the channel in Michigan.   —>
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/UVerses-Sorry-Excuse-For-Public-Access-TV-92721
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Franchise, Phone Bills Percolate In Pa.
Cable, Verizon Put Lobbying Voice Behind VoIP Deregulation
by Linda Haugsted
Multichannel News
3/17/08

Pennsylvania lawmakers may consider a state franchising-reform bill, but the industries most affected by that bill, the cable and telephone companies, are teaming up to put their lobbying muscle behind deregulating voice-over-Internet protocol phone service.

Cable operators and Verizon officials testified last week before the state Senate’s consumer affairs committee in favor of SB 1000, which would prevent any government agency from trying to regulate the product.  Virginia, New Jersey and Delaware have already written into law that VOIP can be deployed without regulatory hurdles.

The state video franchising proposal — HB 1490 — was drafted in part by labor groups and neither cable operators nor phone companies like the bill.  “HB 1490 is a bad idea. You don’t amend or negotiate a bad idea,” Broadband Cable Association of Pennsylvania president Dan Tunnell said.

Most states adopting statewide franchise require a new provider to submit the names of executives, state office locations and a description of the intended franchise area. Pennsylvania’s draft bill goes further, requiring an applicant demonstrate the legal, financial, technical and managerial qualities needed to build and operate a system — much like the deep level of operating data local communities demand for cable franchises.

HB 1490 would also give the state Public Utility Commission up to four months to act on an application, a period during which three public hearings must be held. At the end of that period the PUC has the option to deny the application.

The bill also would establish:
• A six-year franchise;
• A requirement incumbents can’t be state franchised until their current pacts expire, unless the local franchiser consents;
• A build-out schedule that requires new providers to reach 35% of their declared franchise areas within three years of launch. A quarter of those customers would have to meet a low-income test. By year six, 70% of the franchise would have to be served, including 30% low-income households. If the franchise is renewed for another six years, the provider would have to serve the all households in the franchise by the end of year 12;
• And a rule that all installations, maintenance and customer service be done within the state.
—>
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/03/17/3331198.htm
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Bridgeport schools showcased on TV
by Linda Conner Lambeck
Connecticut Post
03/17/08

[ comments invited ]

BRIDGEPORT — “Great Expectations,” a 30-minute news magazine showcasing all the good things happening in city schools, premieres this week on public access television.  The Bridgeport Public Education Fund is bankrolling the program, along with seven others, at a cost of about $5,000 per episode.

The program is hosted by Gina LeVon Simpson, a school system outreach worker with a background in television, and is produced by Borres Productions of Bridgeport.  Others involved in the production include students working in front of and behind the camera. They include: Justin Flores and Ahlaam Abdul, both students in Bassick High Schools Arts and Media Academy; and Rondique McLeon and DeSheena Kinney from Harding High.

The first episode features Hernan Illingsworth, parent of a fifth-grader at Classical Studies Academy and president of the citywide Parent Advisory Council.  “I hope this TV show starts to change expectations,” Illingsworth said. “Sometimes the expectations are bad. I hope this TV show shows a lot of the good stuff.”

A camera crew followed Illingsworth around for about three hours one day, filming him at work, during school and community activities, and at home.  “I believe the message was to get the aspect of me as a parent leader,” Illingsworth said. He hopes the show will get more parents involved and show the general public that Bridgeport parents care.   —>
http://www.connpost.com/breakingnews/ci_8601676
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Does Big Media’s One-Two Punch Knock Out the Internet?
by Jonathan Rintels
SavetheInternet.com
03/17/08

[ one comment ]

Last week saw Big Media deliver a powerful one-two combination of punches that may knock out today’s wide open Internet. First, in a speech delivered by Motion Picture Association of America President Dan Glickman, the nation’s media conglomerates vowed to fight increasingly vocal calls from policymakers and the public for “network neutrality” — a requirement that broadband Internet consumers be permitted to access the lawful content of their choice.

That’s hardly a revolutionary concept, unless you’re a broadband gatekeeper like Comcast that makes its customers’ choices for them by discriminating against some websites and favoring others.

To justify allying with Comcast, ATT, and their ilk in a mega-million dollar lobbying campaign to beat back government action that might prevent such anti-competitive, anti-consumer discrimination, the media congloms cited the need to combat piracy of their valuable content over broadband networks.

But as much as we also support fighting piracy, the MPAA’s invoking that fight here is a diversionary smoke screen for what’s really going on. The existing FCC policy principles that call for network neutrality, as well as every proposal to turn those principles into enforceable rules, speak to ensuring that broadband providers allow consumers “to access the lawful Internet content of their choice.”

By definition, pirated content is not “lawful content.” Big Media’s claim that Net Neutrality rules will prevent it from combating piracy goes way too far, as evidenced by Comcast’s recent blocking and slowing of its customers’ access to content distributed by BitTorrent. In kneecapping BitTorrent, Comcast didn’t just block pirated content, but all BitTorrent content, including legitimate un-pirated content such as a file containing the text of the King James Bible, and video that BitTorrent was distributing on behalf of its clients Fox, Time Warner, and Viacom – all card-carrying members of the MPAA!

Now consider the second powerful blow Big Media leveled against the open Internet last week. On Wednesday, Hulu.com went “live” after months in beta, streaming video of film and television produced by most of the media congloms that make up the MPAA.

[BTW, as Nikki Finke asked, how is it that this NBC-Universal and News Corp. (FOX) “joint venture” to distribute via Internet content owned by these companies, plus that of Sony, Warners, MGM-UA, and others, doesn’t violate antitrust laws? After all, not even the Bush administration’s “anything goes” antitrust regulators would allow these same alleged competitors to create a “joint venture” to distribute their content via movie theaters or a Dish Network-type satellite system.]

Allowing Comcast, ATT, and other broadband gatekeepers to discriminate against video content delivered by the BitTorrents of the Internet world vastly strengthens Hulu’s competitive position as the leading and “safe” web distribution method for video.

And can there be any doubt that as a condition of Big Media’s allying with the broadband providers to fight net neutrality that there is a clear understanding between them that Hulu will never be discriminated against in the way BitTorrent was? Look for all the Big Media companies currently using BitTorrent and other distribution over the Internet to sign up soon with Hulu.

Following that, to ensure they are not discriminated against by broadband gatekeepers and placed at a competitive disadvantage, look for many more video content creators to place their content on Hulu. In a world without Net Neutrality, linking up with Big Media’s Hulu — and its insulation from Comcast-style discrimination and degrading — will be a matter of self-preservation.

Kudos to the Independent Film and Television Alliance (IFTA) for immediately calling out the MPAA and exposing its anti-competitive collusion. Writes the IFTA:   —>
http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2008/03/17/does-big-medias-one-two-punch-knock-out-the-internet/
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MIT’s Jenkins, Johnson Talk Community, Creativity
by Jessica Maguire
Gamasutra
03/17/08

[ one comment ]

MIT’s Jenkins, Johnson Talk Community, Creativity Amidst accusations of the dumbing-down of American youth, Henry Jenkins stands as a profound defender of popular culture, and a notable commentator on media and video game-related issues.

The Co-Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT, author of numerous books including Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide and Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture, shared the stage with Steven Johnson, author of Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software, Everything Bad Is Good for You, and other popular books about emerging technology, for the opening remarks at SXSW 2008.

The Decline Of Youth Culture?

To begin their conversation about the impact of new media and gaming culture, Johnson asked Jenkins about the emergence of books like The Dumbest Generation and the big NEA report about the decline of reading among kids today.   —>
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17829
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NCVO: Over 120 MPs demand local TV on freeview
politics.co.uk
03/17/08

Over 120 MPs have signed an Early Day Motion demanding that the Government introduce a local television network on Freeview before switching off the analogue TV signals.

Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum are backing a plan put forward by United for Local Television, a coalition of local TV operators and campaigners. This would see the introduction of “Channel 6” as a new local channel broadcasting on the Freeview platform. No matter where you live in the UK, Channel 6 would be a local channel offering local news, local programming and local advertising. Channel 6 would also carry ‘networked’ public service content covering interests such as the arts, business, industry, rural affairs, tourism, health and social issues.

The Early Day Motion has been proposed by Ian Stewart MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Community Media, and is rapidly gaining support from MPs.  Ian Stewart, MP for Eccles, said:  “UK citizens are amongst the least well served in the entire democratic world for access to local news and information from television. It is vital that at least one channel (out of a potential 30+ channels on Freeview) is protected as a local channel providing a forum to debate and discuss local issues. I feel very strongly that local TV must be extended so that everyone has access to a local channel on Freeview no matter where they live and without the need to subscribe to pay-TV or the internet.”

The Government is committed to the expansion of local TV. Section 244 of the Communications Act 2003 gives the Culture Secretary the ability to enact a Local Digital Television Order which would roll out local TV services across the UK. MPs are now calling on the Government to enact these provisions.   —>
http://www.politics.co.uk/press-releases/ncvo-over-120-mps-demand-local-tv-on-freeview-$1213353.htm
~

compiled by Rob McCausland
Alliance for Community Media
202-393-2650
web:  http://ourchannels.org
wiki:  http://peg.ourchannels.org

Kenya’s Indy Media
by Michelle Chen
In These Times
03/14/08

[ comments invited ]

While news reports across the world have displayed images of chaos shaking Kenya, an alternative media system driven by ordinary Kenyans is emerging in the East African country to help raise the voices of the seldom heard. The violent aftermath of President Mwai Kibaki’s disputed election in December has detonated Kenya’s festering ethnic, land and power struggles, leaving hundreds dead and displacing hundreds of thousands. But it has also energized the country’s independent media-makers, many of whom see their work as key to overcoming the crisis.

Fusing mass communication with political organizing, the Kenya Independent Media Center (IMC) has aired local activists’ perspectives on the violence and its root causes. Through its growing network of independent reporters, IMC Kenya aims to generate “information for action,” according to co-founder John Bwakali. The organization also tries to lead by example through its non-hierarchical structure as a collective—a potential model of radical self-empowerment in a society besieged by political disillusionment.

In an IMC audio piece, Jimani, a young activist with the Warriors, a Nairobi-based self-help group, reflects on the desperation that has pushed many of Kenya’s youth into violent clashes. “Why has a youth gone out to fight, ready to die?” he asks on a recording produced shortly after the elections. “Is it freedom for those who are oppressed in this world? Maybe you can say so.” But he continues: “As a [young] man is ready to go out there and die because he wants his voice to be heard, we need to give them that chance. We need to hear what they have to say to us.”

Some youth are amplifying their voices through a video collective called Slum-TV, led by Kenya-based media activists. By documenting everyday struggles in Mathare—a densely populated slum in the capital Nairobi—the project enables young people to produce homegrown media and, through local public screenings, fosters community dialogue. Following the outbreak of the post-election violence, Slum-TV has focused on current recovery efforts that bring together activists from different ethnic groups. Slum-TV co-founder Sam Hopkins noted the contrast with corporate media’s coverage of “tribal” violence. “The idea behind focusing on characters who have crossed the ethnic divide is really just to provide another version of what’s happening, to counteract the mainstream international media,” he says.

As an ear to the ground in their communities, grassroots media activists have sometimes been ahead of the news. Patrick Shomba and fellow artists, who founded the Ghetto Film Club media collective in 2006, foreshadowed the approaching unrest in a screenplay titled “The Ghetto President.” The film, created last year as a civic-education project, explored issues of corruption, voting rights, youth rights and ethnic conflict. After scraping together volunteer help and borrowed equipment, the group completed the film a few days before the election and held a public screening in a Nairobi slum. Their next film, they hope, will be about reconciliation.

Since cities like Nairobi are ethnically diverse, Shomba views street-level art as a way to “maintain the peace here in the urban sector, with a mix of culture and a mix of tribes.” Local youth lead the project as actors and producers—a rare opportunity for them to overcome marginalization. The group aims to eventually turn media work into a sustainable income source for young people wrestling with poverty, crime and lack of schooling in their communities.

In the post-election turmoil, Shomba is also working with Kenya’s budding community radio scene to air local news, as well as anti-violence messages, on three small urban stations, with an estimated reach of more than 2 million listeners. “What our guys can do at the grassroots,” he says, “the mainstream media can’t come and do.”

Though still in its infancy, grassroots reporting is gaining traction in Kenya. Since 2007, the Web-based Voices of Africa project, an initiative of the Africa Interactive Media Foundation, has delivered field reporting from mobile-phone-based correspondents in Kenya. Its coverage features video commentary from everyday people on politics, underlying social problems and concerns about the ongoing mediation talks.

Although Kenya’s independent media-makers generally do not face outright authoritarian restraints, more insidious barriers can impinge on their work. —>
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3565/kenyas_indy_media/
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Broadband fight pits corporations against users, Internet future at stake
by Charlie White
DVICE
03/14/08

[ 2 comments ]

Whatever happened to the Information Superhighway? It was the big talk of the 90s, but now the United States has fallen to 16th place in the world for broadband deployment and availability, according to a survey by the Communication Workers of America. While we sink in the world rankings, service providers such as Comcast are slowing down the Internet connections of users who partake of too much of the touted “unlimited” service.

Meanwhile, the government is watching and listening to complaints of customers and users, but not doing much yet to stand in the way of the purveyors of Internet connectivity. Instead of expanding the pipes of the Internet, companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner have chosen to invest in acquiring smaller companies, amassing power and influence so they can dictate terms to the government and broadband users. They’d prefer to abolish Net neutrality and move toward a tiered service, vowing to control what we can see and hear on the Web, while leaving the services of competitors on a slower tier.

While these greedy corporations fight for control of the Internet and vie for the right to charge whatever prices they can extract, paying customers are trapped in a broadband world of lame connectivity that creeps toward obsolescence, without much recourse. With the future of the Internet and free speech at stake, what’s next? —>
http://dvice.com/archives/2008/03/shift_broadband.php
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Verizon Gets Cozy With P2P File-Sharers
by Peter Svenson
AP Technology Writer
Seattle Times (WA)
03/14/08

Peer-to-peer file sharing, the primary vehicle for online piracy, has been as unpopular with Internet service providers as it has been popular with users. Providers have banned, blocked or slowed peer-to-peer traffic in their efforts to keep the flood of music, video, games and software from overwhelming their networks.

But Verizon Communications Inc. has broken ranks with the industry and announced Friday that it plans to help its users share files faster _ at least those who do it legally. With researchers at Yale University and a group of companies that make file-sharing software, Verizon collaborated to enable faster downloads for consumers and lower costs for participating ISPs. —>
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004281516_app2pverizon.html?syndication=rss
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BitTorrent CEO: Rethinking Media Store, No Business Impact From Comcast
by Dan Frommer
Silicon Valley Insider
03/14/08

[ comments invited ]

BitTorrent’s two big projects: Getting media giants to pay them to deliver video over its peer-to-peer network. And getting BitTorrent’s downloading software pre-installed on consumer electronics devices like DVR set-top boxes, home network routers, and TV sets.

So how’s it going? New CEO Doug Walker says his company can undercut content distribution firms like Akamai Technologies (AKAM) and Limelight Networks (LLNW) by 50%, and will have a some big deals to announce within a month. And he expects more than 5 million BitTorrent-enabled consumer electronics devices to ship in the next year; he says he’ll be able to get 50 cents to $2 in licensing fees per device.

Both business-to-business pitches are a big shift from the company’s first project after making nice with Hollywood more than two years ago: That’s when BitTorrent started building a consumer-focused digital media store, including movies, TV episodes, games, and music. Via deals with News Corp. (NWS), Viacom (VIAB), and Time Warner (TWX), that’s helped big media companies get comfortable with the idea of working with BitTorrent. But the store hasn’t taken the market by storm: Its most popular movie available for purchase right now is 2007’s “The Reaping.”

Walker talked to us about his new projects and whether cable giant Comcast’s (CMCSA) policy of disrupting some BitTorrent file transfers has affected his business. —>
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/3/bittorrent_ceo_rethinking_media_store_no_business_impact_from_comcast
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Group considers ways to build educational TV
New offering would be similar to CitySpan10
by Ted Holteen
Durango Herald (CO)
03/14/08

A new task force charged with deciding how a future educational cable channel in Durango will be run met for the first time Thursday, but there are sure to be more questions than answers for a while. An educational channel, or more accurately, funding for an educational channel, is included in the agreement between the city of Durango and Bresnan Communications, the local cable provider serving about 6,000 Durango households.

Under Federal Communications Commission regulations, the cable franchisee is required to pay the city a fee for Public, Education and Government, or PEG, programming. Each cable subscriber is charged a nominal fee for PEG channels to cover Bresnan’s cost.

Currently, Durango Community Access Television (DCAT, channel 22) receives about $7,000 in PEG fees for the public portion, and CitySpan 10 receives an equal amount for the government portion. There is no educational channel, but DCAT has been airing Durango School District 9-R board meetings for the last two years. Each channel also receives separate city funding for operations and equipment.

Assistant City Manager Greg Caton said there is about $13,000 in educational channel money in city coffers that has accrued since a new franchise agreement was signed with Bresnan in January 2007. The Durango City Council directed the formation of the task force last fall to find the best way to use those funds, find more money and decide who will run the channel and where it will be housed.

Most local educational institutions are represented on the task force – the school district, Fort Lewis College and Pueblo Community College – as well as DCAT, Inside Durango TV (IDTV channel 15), CitySpan 10 and several at-large community members. All agree that the need exists for separate educational programming, but starting a new television channel is neither easy nor cheap.

“Seven thousand dollars won’t pay to run a channel – others will have to step up,” said Marc Snider, owner of Exposure Productions. Snider’s company is contracted by the city to run CitySpan 10. Both Snider and DCAT Executive Director Chris Hall asked City Council for the right to run an educational channel during budget discussions last fall, prompting the formation of the task force to make the decision. —>
http://durangoherald.com/asp-bin/article_generation.asp?article_type=news&article_path=/news/08/news080314_5.htm
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Kankakee County tuning in local TV
by John Stewart
The Daily Journal (IL)
03/14/08

[ comments invited ]

Anybody can post a video on YouTube.com with a cheap Web cam and an even cheaper microphone. But not everyone gets on television or can make a video that gets on television. That’s because television still has a “mystique,” according to Steve Bertrand, assistant director of the Kankakee Public Library.

Although television might be “dying,” Bertrand believes there is still something very appealing about saying “I made something, and I got it on TV.” Bertrand is one of more than a dozen Kankakee County people who have spoken up recently in favor of public access television — TV made by the people for cable television. According to its proponents, it is good for the people and for their government. But locally, it has been a reality in just the village of Manteno.

Among those interested in establishing public access are seven Kankakee County Board members, who voted last month to tell local cable provider Comcast to make public access available in the area the county is responsible for — outside the cities and towns. County Board member Ann Bernard said if the county government takes the first step, it could lead to other governments participating.

In Manteno, local programming is found on channel 4 and is created by Village View, a group of 12 volunteers. Village View was started in 1989, according to President Mike Hill. Funded by the village board through the cable television tax, Village View elects its own officers and does all the videotaping and editing.

Village View content ranges from weekly church services and monthly local government meetings to sports and community festivities. The nongovernment or church activities totaled 96 events last year, Hill said. While YouTube may be popular with the Internet-savvy, public access brings school events, including concerts, to those who cannot attend.

A special public hearing about Aqua Illinois taking over the public water supply, a change that had the potential to affect the entire community, was also covered on television — making government more accessible. Bertrand said the library could provide video of its public speaker series to public access. An upcoming library expansion will include a lab where local people can learn not only how to surf the Web, but also how to take digital photographs and to share them. He sees a day when lessons will also be taught in making videos. “Television is old technology,” Bertrand said, but “public access isn’t. The concept is very new.” —>
http://daily-journal.com/archives/dj/display.php?id=416294
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Can you hear it pumping on your I-Pod?
Five Public Opinions
03/14/08

[ 2 comments ]

Sammy Jankis has tagged me with the following meme: “What are your favourite 3 podcasts? Why?“

For mine (and for Sammy, incidentally), the cream of the crop has to be The Atheist Experience. This is actually a public access TV show filmed in Austin, Texas, on behalf of the Atheist Community of Austin, but it is also available in audio format. Several of the hosts are ex-fundamentalist Christians, including the host Matt Dillahunty whose no-nonsense approach–particularly when dealing with fundies who call in with (as Sammy puts it) “phone in one hand Bible in the other to tell some atheists what atheists think”–is an absolute pleasure to watch (or listen to, as the case may be). The Atheist Experience experienced a recent upsurge in intertube notoriety when a portion of a February show, in which a caller threatens to come down to the studio and punch Dillahunty’s “fat face”, was YouTubed. RUNNER UP: Atheist Talk.

My second pick is another product of the ACA: The Non-Prophets. This one is also hosted by Dillahunty, and is co-hosted by Denis Loubet (whose trademark is to phrase the introduction of each show in the form of a logical fallacy) and Russell Glasser (who often appears on The Atheist Experience as well). The website could do with an upgrade, but these guys have mastered the art of eviscerating apologetics and other religion-inspired chicanery with equal parts wit and outrage. Accept no substitutes, folks: what Lord of the Rings is to the fantasy genre, The Non-Prophets is to atheist podcasting. RUNNER UP: Another Goddamned Podcast. —>
http://fivepublicopinions.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/can-you-hear-it-pumping-on-your-i-pod/
~

Your very own TV show …
by Terry Doyle
Amesbury News (MA)
03/14/08

[ comments invited ]

Gloucester – Imagine: you’re 18 years old. Your passion is film and your local cable access channel is looking for the next Scorsese or Kubrick or Spielberg — and they’re providing the best cameras and editing suites to boot.

So there you are, 18 years old — an idea in your head and the gumption in your gut to go for it. You rally a few pals, head down to the beach for a bite to eat and some arcades and while you’re there you rattle off a thousand and one absurd ideas that no one outside of your friend group will ever find remotely humorous. But, you think, who cares?

You brainstorm and brainstorm and brainstorm till your head feels thick and the blacks of your eyes swell and contract uncontrollably. And then finally an idea sticks. “We’ll make our own talk show…” …About things that no one else will care about.

Adam, the one who is as dynamic as he is gangly and without an ounce of shame, will play host. “What will the rest of us do?” “We’ll be the guests.”

Keegan, Sean and Sean will be the house band. Mark can dress up like a clown. Terry, you can be the resident, uh, literature guru. Greg will direct Carl will grow a beard.

“What will we call it?” “Wiggin’ Out with Adam Wiggin.” “What are we going to do for segments?” “I don’t know.”

So you brainstorm again. You hit the drawing board. “We could go to a buffet and see who can eat the most food.” Episode One—“The Great American Eat Off.” “The Topsfield Fair. Let’s do something at the Topsfield fair.” Episode Two—“Something at the Topsfield Fair.” “But no one is going to care about any of this,” chimes the lone pessimist. “Who cares?”

And then something funny starts to happen. Other kids at school are talking about Keegan’s fear of clowns or Sean’s thrashing guitar solo or the inflatable silver couch with the slow leak that Adam’s guests sit on during interviews. People are watching, you find out. People care.

That’s what happened to my best friends and me while we were in high school. We had an idea and we ran with it. Our local cable access channel was kind enough to let us use their studio for an hour of debauchery each week, and because of that the creative revelry continues to this day. Though we no longer have a television program, everyone involved with the production of that show is still involved in one way or another with the writing or directing of, or the acting in, creative film.

So when Stacey Randall, a member of the Cape Ann TV Board of Directors, told me that she hopes Cape Ann TV can reach out to the Cape’s youth, I couldn’t help but remember those days when my best friends and I made our own show. Sure, we didn’t think anyone would care. Frankly, we didn’t care if anyone cared. It wasn’t about money. It wasn’t about anything but being young and having a creative outlet. So to all of you out there who have forever longed to star in a television show or write and direct a musical, please, reach out to Cape Ann TV. It could be the most rewarding thing you ever do.

Terry Doyle is a reporter for the Cape Ann Beacon. He made his TV debut on “Wiggin’ Out with Adam Wiggin”’ which ran on Amesbury’s public access channel 12. If you’d like to get involved in public access television at Cape Ann Cable TV, contact the studio at 978-281-2443, or visit www.capeanntv.org.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/amesbury/news/lifestyle/columnists/x1092586121
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The Triumphant Return of the Television Horror Host!
by Jason Buchanan
The AllMovie Blog
03/14/08

[ comments invited ]

For those of use who grew up watching Count Scary, The Ghoul, Sir Graves Ghastly, Elvira, or even Commander USA, the mere thought of schlock horror flicks hosted by wisecracking characters on ramshackle studio sets is enough to make us instinctively reach for some non-existent, noggin-top rabbit ears in a nostalgic bid to clear the static distortion of our collective memories. Thankfully, we need not lament the death of a bygone era or regret the fact that we’ll never be able to share those memories with our own children any longer, as – at least in the Detroit television market – good-humored lycanthrope Wolfman Mac is primed and ready to revive this long-dormant television sub-genre with his late-night horror show entitled Nightmare SINema. —>
http://blog.allmovie.com/2008/03/14/the-triumphant-return-of-the-television-horror-host/
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compiled by Rob McCausland
Alliance for Community Media
202-393-2650
web: http://ourchannels.org
wiki: http://peg.ourchannels.org

YAC at KZSU
by Midpeninsula Community Media Center
Media Center YAC
03/11/08

[ comments allowed ]

The Youth Advisory Council goes to visit KZSU Stanford radio station. (34:25)
http://mediacenteryac.blogspot.com/2008/03/yac-at-kzsu.html
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No More School Board Meetings On Public Access Television?
by Steve Shuler
STEVE SHULER for Hillsborough County School Board District 5 (FL)
03/12/08

[ comments allowed ]

If Time Warner gets its way then you and I will no longer be granted our public access channels. In other words, our free speech will be stifled, eventhough, we, as a community, had given them monopoly access to our cable television market and our private land for their underground cables so, in turn, we would be allotted a number of channels for import things like School Board, City council, etc. But, they are doing their best to resolve themselves of this burden. —>
http://shulerforschoolboard.blogspot.com/2008/03/no-more-school-board-meetings-on-public.html#
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Ward 3 Update from Councilmember Teri Anulewicz
by Mason
SmyrnaBlog.com (GA)
03/12/08

—> ALL City Council meetings are open to the public, and if you are a Charter Cable customer, you can watch the meetings live on Charter public access channel 19. You can also stream the meetings on your computer when they are rebroadcast on TV 23, Cobb County’s public access cable channel. For information on meeting rebroadcast schedules, go to http://communications.cobbcountyga.gov/tv23/.
http://smyrnablog.com/?p=284
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Channel 17 to host media night on advertising
Burlington Free Press (VT)
03/12/08

“Advertising Inside Out, how we make up our minds,” is the subject of this month’s Media Education Night on Channel 17. The live, one-hour call-in talk show will be on March 26 at 6:30 p.m. These shows are interactive, topical discussions that provide thought on media consumption, production and experience. Attending the recording also allows the public to see behind the scenes of community media-making in the Channel 17 studio. Those who would like to volunteer to work on the series should contact morourke [at] cctv [dot] org. Groups and classes are welcome to attend.
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080312/NEWS/80312005
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Conejo Valley Republican Women Watch: The Gameplan to Keep the White House
FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog (CA)
03/12/08

[ comments allowed ]

Mike Stoker, an attorney whose practice emphasizes land use, government, and business law, and who is the volunteer Chairman of the John McCain Presidential Campaign in Santa Barbara County will be addressing the Conejo Valley Republican Women today. The topic of his speech: “The Gameplan to Keep the White House.”… The speech will be recorded by public access cable television if you cannot make the event today.
http://flapsblog.com/?p=6580
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PEGspace at Drupalcon 2008
by Colin Rhinesmith
Community Media in Transition (MA)
03/12/08

[ comments allowed ]

For those interested in learning more about the intersection of Public Access Television and free and open source software, Jason Daniels (medfield.tv) forwarded along a link to audio & meeting minutes from a gathering of public broadcasting and public access media folks during the recent Drupal conference held in Boston, this year. —>
http://cmediachange.net/blog/2008/03/12/pegspace-at-drupalcon-2008/
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Public ownership of broadband access is best
by Christopher Mitchell
Eureka Reporter (CA)
03/02/08

[ 2 comments ]

Too many cities in California are stuck with slow (or no) broadband access. As the United States continues to dip in international broadband rankings, individual communities have a choice: build their own broadband network or hope someone else does it for them.

Broadband may be comparatively new, but these difficult questions of infrastructure have been with us for far longer. One hundred years ago, communities were told electricity was too complicated for municipal meddling and they should wait for private companies to electrify them. Thousands of communities realized that a community cannot wait for essential infrastructure. They accepted responsibility for their future and wired their towns. How little has changed since then.

California’s Broadband Task Force has released its final report, complete with maps showing some 2,000 communities without any access at all. Many more communities are underserved, offered an always-on connection faster than dial-up, but not by much. The Broadband Task Force recognizes the importance of universal broadband access in California. Broadband has already had an impact on education, economic development, public safety and entertainment. It may well revolutionize health care, especially in rural areas.

Unfortunately, the Broadband Task Force has chosen the seductive path of dependence on private providers for these networks. Public ownership is a better plan. Broadband networks are here for the long haul, and our dependence on them will only increase. Many citywide wireless networks are privately owned, depending on city government as an anchor tenant. The network requires city money without offering the city any control. Under such circumstances, owning beats renting.

The Broadband Task Force clearly views public ownership as a last resort, allowing community services districts to offer broadband only when a private provider refuses. Once the CSD has taken the risk and built a functioning network, it must sell it to an interested private provider.

Public ownership should not be a fallback option. Digital Rio Dell, a collaboration with the local community media provider Access Humboldt and the city of Rio Dell, has shown the power of a community-led alternative. —>
http://eurekareporter.com/article/080302-public-ownership-of-broadband-access-is-best
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[ Here's a good, lengthy cover story on Philadelphia's Media Mobilizing Project. - rm ]

The Revolution Will Be Digitized
The Media Mobilizing Project works to bring grassroots organization into the 21st century.
by Doron Taussig
Philadelphia City Paper (PA)
03/11/08

[ comments allowed ]

A cab driver, a janitor, a maintenance man, a nurse and several other mostly blue-collar workers are seated around a square of tables. The room they’re in is a converted truck garage — one of the walls is just an enormous door — and the neighborhood is Brewerytown, a pocket at the edge of lower North Philly where the contrast between the developing city (in the form of new Westrum townhouses) and the decrepit city (the shells of old row homes) has reached almost caricatural proportions. It’s Sunday. They’ve come here to learn how to make a documentary.

In the arbitrary front of the makeshift classroom, three young white women guide a discussion. “What stories do we hear in the media?” they ask. The class answers: politics, celebrities, new development, crime, sports, drugs (there’s a long tangent about Barry Bonds). Then the teachers ask what stories the students would like to tell. “Unsafe schools,” says the maintenance man. “Murders and robberies of cab drivers,” says the cabbie. “The impact of language as a barrier,” a health-center worker from Haiti chimes in. “Job competition from immigrants,” offers the janitor.

Just outside the classroom door, next to a loud, on-its-last-legs coffeemaker, a satisfied-looking man named Todd Wolfson stands, discoursing about the rationale behind a class likes this. He talks about “Ford-ism,” and how there was a time when workers used the physical proximity of the factory to organize into collective bargaining units. That doesn’t work as well in a service economy — cabbies, for instance, are rarely all in one place at one time. But, Wolfson points out, there are other ways for workers to talk to each other. “New media also organizes, because it’s a decentralized communications form,” he says.

Wolfson, 35, is of average build, with long hair and a beard that combine to form a kind of mane. A middle-class white guy with hard-left politics, he once spent three years living in Namibia and Kenya before deciding he “didn’t want to be a white male anthropologist who studies in Africa.” He came to Philly to pursue a Ph.D. at Penn, chose as his dissertation subject the Philadelphia Independent Media Center (IMC), and became preoccupied with the role of communications in organizing. In 2006, he joined with four other local activists to found the Media Mobilizing Project (MMP), an organization that seeks to bring 21st-century media technologies to the grassroots. —>
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/03/13/the-revolution-will-be-digitized
~

compiled by Rob McCausland
Alliance for Community Media
2020-393-2650
web: http://ourchannels.org
wiki: http://peg.ourchannels.org

Sevierville BOMA among opponents of AT&T proposal
by Derek Hodges
The Mountain Press (TN)
03/10/08

[ comments allowed ]

That vote was conveyed to state lawmakers representing the area and was done immediately following a request from AT&T representative Dennis Wagner that the Board of Mayor and Aldermen support the move.  It was Wagner’s second appearance before BOMA; both times he got a negative reaction. Mayor Bryan Atchley said he expects the board’s opinion won’t change.

“Cities across the state have taken the position that it is not unreasonable to ask AT&T to follow the rules as they have applied to the other companies for 25 or more years,” Atchley said. “It is a little more difficult for them, but it’s not something they can’t do.”  Atchley says the current system does not inhibit competition. To illustrate that, he points out the city itself is studying the idea of offering cable service. The very fact the city can do it shows state laws don’t limit where cable companies can offer their services, Atchley said.  Further, the mayor said city leaders have other concerns. Chief among them: losing franchise fees and local channels…

While Sevierville city leaders may not be pleased with the proposal, AT&T has offered compromises that seem to have appeased established cable companies, which started out as the bill’s biggest opponents.  The sticking point for the cable companies was not that the move will introduce competition, but that the first bill didn’t give cable companies the same statewide franchise license. However, a provision has been added to the bill that would allow for equal treatment.

With that compromise, the cable companies seem resigned to accept what they now see as an inevitability.  “It’s the will of the General Assembly that they’re going to have that law in place after this session,” said Nick Paulis, state director of government relations for Charter Communications. “At the end of the day, what we want is a level playing field.”   —>
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19376352&BRD=1211&PAG=461&dept_id=169689&rfi=6
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County’s legislators support change to help AT&T
by Derek Hodges
The Mountain Press (TN)
03/10/08

[ comments allowed ]

“I’ve gotten more correspondence from voters on this one issue than I have about anything else since I got elected,” State Sen. Raymond Finney, R-Maryville, said. “I’ve been amazed at just how strongly people feel about this.”  State Rep. Richard Montgomery, R-Sevierville, notes Finney wasn’t in Nashville as officials debated the creation of an income tax, an issue that drew response from every corner of the state. Still, Montgomery said he, too, has gotten a lot of response on AT&T’s proposal to allow state-issued cable franchising.

“I have had a lot of citizens call me, write me and talk to me about this,” Montgomery said. “Most of them have been in favor of the change. The way we do cable now, it’s like saying we’re only going to allow one grocery store to operate in Sevier County. It doesn’t really make sense for them to go to every county for licenses when they’ve got the ability to serve the whole state. At the end of the day, we have to listen to both sides of the issue and decide what’s best for the 80,000 people living in Sevier County.”   —>
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19376349&BRD=1211&PAG=461&dept_id=169689&rfi=6
~

[ Here's an article on a community's cable franchising process that spends more than the usual amount of time on PEG access and related concerns. - rm ]

Town specifies its cable needs
by Donna Boynton
Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA)
03/10/08

[ 4 comments ]

GRAFTON— The town has advanced in the cable licensing process with Verizon, issuing a detailed report outlining the town’s needs weeks ahead of schedule.  The Board of Selectmen initiated licensing proceedings with Verizon New England Inc. in October, and Verizon submitted an application for a cable license Nov. 29.

The Issuing Authority Report approved by the Board of Selectmen last week is the town’s response to Verizon’s initial application and is a detailed account of what the town’s needs are, according to Robert Hassinger, chairman of the Cable Advisory Committee. The committee worked to draft the report with Town Administrator Natalie T. Lashmit.

The report was due March 21. Verizon now has 30 days to respond to the report, and then the negotiating period begins. The Board of Selectmen approves and issues the license.  If negotiations are successful, Verizon cable services could be offered in Grafton in the fall, said Mr. Hassinger.

The specifications in the report are based on the existing license with Charter Communications, in keeping with the legal requirement to negotiate “on a level playing field.” The report also recognizes that some of the terms of the Charter contract are outdated, such as the needs of the public access TV channels, and contains additional specifications.  Mr. Hassinger said Verizon’s recently completed negotiations with Westboro will serve as a model for how Verizon and Charter can work together.

Grafton’s pact with Charter is seven years old, and the town has initiated the renegotiation process with Charter. That process is different from the licensing process with Verizon.  The town has told both Charter and Verizon that, among other things, it will need a new, larger cable studio and new equipment.

The Issuing Authority Report also states that the town is interested in a 10-year contract, though the town can be flexible on that term. Verizon initially indicated it was interested in a 15-year contract, Mr. Hassinger said  The report states the town will need one-time payments of $375,000 for public access capital for the 10-year license or $562,500 for a 15-year license. The new cable studio is among the capital needs.

The report also asks that Verizon support public, educational and government access programming, also known as PEG access, by providing at least three channels. The report asks Verizon to detail how those channels will work in concert with those already provided by Charter. Additionally, the town asks Verizon to define how digital cable will affect PEG access broadcasts, given that current PEG access programs are broadcast in analog format.

The town also is asking that Verizon keep existing channels at the same channel numbers, making it more convenient for subscribers and the public, as well as a detailed explanation of the packages to be offered to subscribers.

In addition, the town is requesting detailed explanations of the construction, installation and overall subscriber network. Verizon is being asked to offer free service and outlets to the municipal buildings and the schools, and free or discounted Internet service to those buildings.

The report also discusses the town’s need for a fiber-optic institutional network, or I-Net, for high-speed data, video and voice transmission. The existing I-Net was built in 1983 and is outdated and unreliable. That service will be for all town buildings, including the Community Barn on Wheeler Road, which is often used for municipal purposes.  The report notes that the School Department is particularly concerned with having the ability to broadcast from the high school, and having the capability to offer archived, “on demand” educational access programming.   —>
http://www.telegram.com/article/20080310/NEWS/803100550/1101
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Cable Deals, cont’d
by Jeff
Wormtown Taxi (MA)
03/10/08

[ comments allowed ]

Grafton is not at all like Worcester when it comes to the process of negotiating with a cable company. Today’s article in the T&G describing the current point in that process between Grafton and Verizon certainly illustrates that.

Where the process in Grafton is transparent and easily understood, the so-called process in Worcester is thoroughly opaque and pretty much in the secretive hands of only one person (the city manager). Where the concerns of the public access, educational, and government access channels are an important and openly addressed issue in Grafton, any specific attention on the PEG channels in Worcester appears to have been completely downplayed in any public discussion, and apparently omitted from the contract so that the city can use whatever funding they get for whatever they feel like spending it on… whenever they feel like spending it.

I sincerely hope that the city will, at some point, allay my fears that the community access TV station in Worcester is on the chopping block. I look forward to some point in Worcester’s new cable contract faux process that will reveal what so far has been hidden, …namely, what the community access station has to look forward to over the next five years of this new contract with Charter, as well as what lies beyond.

Quite frankly, the utter lack of any definitive public utterances from City Hall on this particular subject has reached the point where I, for one, find this whole thing mostly (and very offensively) indicative of there being something to hide.    —>
http://www.wormtowntaxi.com/2008/03/cable-deals-contd.html
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Siouxland Community Media gives students hands-on training
by Earl Horlyk
Sioux City Journal (IA)
03/10/08

[ comments allowed ]

Moments before he was due to go on the air, Tony Ullrich discovered he couldn’t read the TelePrompTer.  “Lemme see your eyeglasses,” he motioned to Tonya Woehler.  “We share everything around here,” Woehler, a volunteer member of the skeletal television crew, joked. “Even eyewear, apparently.”  Welcome to public-access television.  And welcome to Siouxland Community Media.

Started in 2006, Siouxland Community Media produces programming that is either produced or sponsored by local nonprofit organizations or individuals. It can be seen by CableONE subscribers in Sioux City, North Sioux City and Sergeant Bluff daily from 6 a.m. to noon and from 8 p.m. to midnight.  The programming can also be accessed on YouTube.

“Things like this have a way of happening on ‘Series Night,’” production manager Ben Rouse said of the eyeglass snafu. “I see things are just going according to plan.”  “Series Night” is when the production company tapes Ullrich’s weekly “Focus On The Community” as well as the monthly “Extension Connection” (also hosted by Ullrich and sponsored by Woodbury County’s Iowa State University Extension Office), “It’s Someone You Know,” produced by the Council On Sexual Assault & Domestic Violence and “Workers Have Rights Too,” hosted by labor activist Dick Sturgeon.

“This is our marathon night,” noted Deanna Dirks, who’s acting as the evening’s technical director. “This is when we tape the shows back to back to back.”  For not-for-profit organizations such as the domestic violence council, free or reduced-rate exposure on cable public access has proved to be invaluable.  “Our marketing budget is getting tighter all the time,” development director Brooke Goodwin said. “Knowing that our organization has a regular TV presence has been very exciting.”

So has the Internet exposure.  “Knowing that folks from around the world can access our videos on YouTube is a little bit nerve wracking,” Goodwin admitted, “but it certainly helps us to get our message out.”  For Siouxland Community Media, it’s important to give nonprofit organizations the tools they need to produce programming.

Equally important to Rouse is the company’s commitment to providing his all-student crew with the nuts-and-bolts experience of television production.  “We’ve had students from both Morningside College and Western Iowa Tech Community College,” he explained. “We’ve even had kids from East High School seek us out for internships.”   —>
http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2008/03/10/news/top/02bfa4b4346666b886257408000504ac.txt
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Postal inspectors in Chicago target scams with public-access TV show
by Jeff Coen
Chicago Tribune (IL)
03/10/08

[ 1 comments ]

In a bid to counter the growing number of fake-check scams, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Chicago is branching out to a new medium: public-access television.  Inspectors plan to air a new show at least each month offering advice to consumers. “Don’t Fall For It” will be hosted by Tom Brady, the inspector-in-charge for Chicago.  The agency launched its new effort this month on CAN-TV, focusing the first show on what investigators say is the leading scam in Chicago. The scams involve con artists sending out counterfeit checks, trying to persuade victims to wire back part of the money before realizing the checks have bounced.

Postal inspectors are producing the show inexpensively at their Chicago headquarters in a studio they typically use to make in-house training videos. They hope to reach a new audience as they try to educate the public.  “Whatever we can do to put the scammers out of business is what I want to do,” Brady said.   —>
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-postal-tv-showmar10,1,1206369.story
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Local TV show sheds light on mental illness
UU minister conducts mental health ministry via public access TV (CA)
by Jane Greer
uuworld.org
03/10/08

Kathryn Lum was describing what it was like as a person with mental illness to first feel the positive affects of medication. “I remember for the first time lying in bed feeling like I had just been thrown up on the shore,” she told the cameras. “I had been shipwrecked and the waves had been crashing over me and I had been struggling to keep afloat. Then I found myself on the beach and resting. Feeling peace for the first time.”

Lum, who has schizoaffective disorder, was a guest on a new public access cable TV program called “Mental Health Matters—Alameda County,” which debuted last fall. The show is trying to counter the stigma and prejudice often attached to mental illness by talking with people who actually suffer from various conditions as well as with family and loved ones who live with them.

The monthly TV show is the brainchild of the Rev. Barbara Meyers, a UU community minister associated with Mission Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Fremont, Calif. As a community minister, Meyers’ work takes her outside the church and into the community. Her own particular ministry centers on mental health issues. “With as many as 20 percent of the populace living with a mental health problem at any one time, there is a lot of needless suffering that could be alleviated with more information and understanding,” she wrote in a press release for the show.

The series of 30-minute programs is broadcast on Comcast public access channels in Alameda County, Calif. The first show focused on the stigma frequently attached to mental illness. Succeeding programs have been devoted to suicide, schizophrenia, recovery, bipolar disorder, and African American mental health. Each show concludes with a list of resources for people interested in finding out more.   —>
http://www.uuworld.org/news/articles/102032.shtml
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Journalism in the Hands of the Neighborhood (PA)
by Noam Cohen
New York Times
03/10/08

PHILADELPHIA — “We are uncomfortable with the term ‘citizen journalism,’ ” said Todd Wolfson, 35, a doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the organizers of the Media Mobilizing Project in Philadelphia. “We prefer the term ‘community journalism.’ ”

Citizen journalism has become the faddish name for the effort to encourage regular folk to use the Internet to report the news directly, but Mr. Wolfson had a point: many of the people whom his organization and an immigrant rights group, Juntos, are teaching to make video reports for streaming on the Internet are not citizens. Many are not even legal residents.  The hope, however, is that they can be journalists.

The classes are supported by a $150,000 news challenge grant from the Knight Foundation in Miami, which is donating a total of $25 million over five years “for innovative ideas using digital experiments to transform community news.”   —>
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/technology/10link.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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We’re Not All ‘Citizen Journalists’
by Sara Melillo
McCormick Media Matters (MN)
03/10/08

[ comments allowed ]

—>   The Media Mobilizing Project isn’t the only initiative trying to train and disseminate news from community members and ethnic media. Check out Twin Cities Daily Planet (www.tcdailyplanet.net), an MTF grantee, which has been training and disseminating content from ethnic and community media in the Twin Cities for several years. The Daily Planet’s recently re-designed Web site features some new multimedia options and its network of contributors continues to grow.
http://mccormickmediamatters.blogspot.com/2008/03/were-not-all-citizen-journalists.html
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Report from the Queens hearing of the Broadband Advisory Committee
by Joshua Breitbart
Civil Defense – a weblog (NY)
03/10/08

[ 2 comments ]

The NYC Broadband Advisory Committee held its fourth public hearing on Monday, March 3, at LaGuardia Community College in Queens. Much thanks to Joly MacFie of the New York Greater Metropolitan Area chapter of the Internet Society for documenting the hearing. His detailed summary and a full audio recording is available on the ISOC-NY website (scroll to the bottom for the audio).

The highlight for me was when former Senator Larry Pressler, who authored the 1996 Telecommunications Act said, “If it is found that in New York City the spectrum and the broadband is not totally out there, that would be a tale that needs to be told.” Indeed.

Councilmember Brewer asked him a question about E-Rate, the federal program to fund Internet access in schools and libraries, and he agreed that it needs to be revisited. As it is now, the federal government tightly restricts E-Rate funds so they can’t even be used to cover access for administrators; they can’t pay for necessary hardware or training; and they can’t support public access, even though schools pay for bandwidth to be available 100% of the time while school is only in session about 15% of the time. In other words, E-Rate is easy money for the big Internet service providers.

If the BAC, or even just Brewer, is pondering reforms to federal policy, that is an extremely positive development. To date, very few municipal broadband task forces have addressed themselves to this area, even though there are many current regulations that hamstring their efforts to improve local infrastructure and expand high speed Internet access. Any worthwhile municipal broadband plan must include policy reform at the federal level.   —>
http://breitbart.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/bac-in-queens/
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FCC chief Martin hasn’t lost focus on cable
by Paul Davidson
USA TODAY
03/10/08

[ 2 comments ]

WASHINGTON — If Kevin Martin, the Republican chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is smarting from bruising battles last year with fellow commissioners, Congress and the cable industry, he’s showing no signs of it.

Last November, commissioners of both political parties accused him of concealing key information that undercut his push for a finding that could have led to sweeping regulation of the cable TV industry. Following other complaints that Martin doesn’t give commissioners enough time to vote on certain proposals, a House committee launched an investigation into whether the agency conducts its business openly and fairly.

Generally known as a shrewd consensus-builder, Martin seems undaunted by the ruckus. And he still has the cable industry in his sights. In an interview, he said he’s determined as ever to do something about soaring cable TV prices. And he says the agency doesn’t need to pass new rules to crack down on Comcast (CMCSA) if it determines the cable giant unfairly impedes Internet traffic.  “Working with all the commissioners is always difficult and always challenging,” the soft-spoken 41-year-old says of the turmoil as he sips tea. “But you always have to regroup and say, ‘OK, how do we now try to move forward?’ “

As for criticism about his communication style, Martin, whose tenure could be in its final months with a new president taking office next January, says he’s not “doing anything differently than what any other chairman has done.”  Still, in recent months, Martin has arranged daily meetings between his staff and those of commissioners and started publicizing agenda items three weeks before a meeting. Previously, an agenda came out a week before the meeting.   —>
http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2008-03-10-fcc-martin_N.htm
~

compiled by Rob McCausland
Alliance for Community Media
202-393-2650
web:  http://ourchannels.org
wiki:  http://peg.ourchannels.org

Regular channels on AT&T sought for community access
by George Moore
MyRecordJournal.com (CT)
03/07/08

HARTFORD – Public television officials and others argued before the state legislature Friday that AT&T should be required to offer community access and government television as regular channels in its new U-verse television service.  AT&T’s new “internet protocol” television service plans to offer all of the state’s local community access stations under a drop-down menu accessed from a single channel, 99.

Community access officials said it would take as long as a minute to find a community access program and that the signal quality would not match that of commercial stations.  Officials discussed AT&T’s new service as a part of hearing on a bill before the General Assembly’s Committee on Energy and Technology.

The U-verse presentation of community access programming “looks like YouTube on TV,” said Jennifer Evans, production manager for West Hartford Community Television. The law, she said, should “insist that public access be delivered at equivalent capacity.”
http://www.myrecordjournal.com/site/tab1.cfm?newsid=19372062&BRD=2755&PAG=461&dept_id=592708&rfi=6
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Schedule for Durham’s public access shows
The News & Observer (NC)
03/07/08

[ comments allowed ]

For nearly 20 years, church folk in Durham have been broadcasting their sermons and ministries on cable Channel 8.  You might have caught the story Tuesday on the city and county’s agreement with Time Warner cable. The news, essentially, is that due to changes in cable franchise laws, the city and county will now have to pay $12,000 a month for public access programming to be aired. These are shows that used to be broadcast for free in Durham.

In tomorrow’s issue of The Durham News, you’ll read more about how ministers have used the public airwaves to spread The Word.  Meanwhile, here’s a schedule of the variety of shows coming up this weekend. We couldn’t fit the schedule in the newspaper.   —>
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/bullseye/index.php?title=schedule_for_weekend_church_shows&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
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VT Edition Interview: Tim Nulty & Bill Shuttleworth on the East Central Vermont Community Fiber Network
by Jane Lindholm
Vermont Public Radio
03/06/08

Town Meeting voters in more than 20 towns, from Montpelier to Windsor, gave overwhelming support to the East Central Vermont Community Fiber Network on Tuesday. The broadband project is a subscriber-based service that would be supported by residents and the non-profit ISP ValleyNet. The network would offer high-speed internet, telephone, and cable services. VPR’s Jane Lindholm speaks with ECFiber Chairman ,Tim Nulty, and Vermont Telecommunications Authority Executive Director, Bill Shuttleworth about the next step for these towns, and what their approval means for other broadband projects across the state.
http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/79638/
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Police, fire officials join for community TV show
Marin Independent Journal (CA)
03/07/08

[ comments allowed ]

The Novato police and fire officials are joining forces with the city’s public access television station to air “On the Scene,” a community awareness show.  The first show is set for production next week, said Liz Greiner, Novato police department community services officer. The topics will be varied, from child car-seat safety, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, disaster preparedness, bicycle safety and smoke and carbon monoxide alarms.   —>
http://www.marinij.com/marin/ci_8498457
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Weston Speak Up is on television
by Kimberly Donnelly
The Weston Forum (CT)
03/07/08

Want to hear what’s on the minds of Westonites? Tune in to Cablevision Channel 79 and find out.  Weston’s Speak Up 2008, the League of Women Voters of Weston-sponsored event that took place in February, will be streaming this weekend on the town’s public access television station.  Tune in anytime, Friday afternoon, March 7, through Sunday evening, March 9. Speak Up 2008 will be playing on a continuous loop.

The 16th annual Speak Up featured town and state officials answering questions from the public in an “anything goes” question-and-answer format.  Topics ranged from school start times, the status of the Revson baseball fields, the future of a town cemetery, and the possibility of a community center in town, among others.  Speak Up 2008 is also available online at www.aboutweston.com.
http://www.acorn-online.com/news/publish/weston/29940.shtml
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Film About Coney Island Wins High School Film Prize
by Ben Badler
Kinetic Carnival – The Coney Island Blog (NY)
03/07/08

[ comments allowed ]

First place in Tuesday night’s BK 4 Reel competition – in which local high school students submitted 2-3 minute videos depicting ‘their Brooklyn’ – went to Park Slope teen Derek Garcia, for his film about taking the F train down to Coney in the wintertime.  Tied for second place were Shalik Wilson for his film about life in Bushwick’s Borinquen Houses, and Axel Lindy for his film about sneaking out at night to hang out on the Brooklyn Promenade.  All three films will be shown on the BK 4 Reel program and Brooklyn Community Access Television.
http://kineticcarnival.blogspot.com/2008/03/film-about-coney-island-wins-high.html
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[The subject is a documentary film, "King Corn"...]
by Lulu McAllister
Lulu’s User-Friendly Guide to San Francisco (CA)
03/07/08

[ comments allowed ]

My good friend Elizabeth Carroll has become a local talking head on San Francisco Public Access television!… Here is a clip of Liz’s debut on a show called SF Live. The subject is a documentary film, “King Corn”, and her guests are from an organic garden organization in the city:   —>
http://blueyedlu.blogspot.com/2008/03/my-good-friend-elizabeth-carroll-has.html
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Letter: Veto the FCC’s Big Media Handout
by Alexandra Russell, Free Press
Missoula Community Radio
03/07/08

Dear Missoula Community Radio,

Congress can overturn the FCC’s bad rules to further consolidate local media.  Veto the FCC’s Big Media Handout   Now’s your best chance to stop media consolidation in Montana.  The Senate introduced legislation earlier this week that would reverse the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to let the nation’s largest media companies swallow up more local and independent news outlets.  Congress has just 60 legislative days to pass this bill. By acting now, you can help make it happen:   —>
http://mcrfm.wordpress.com/2008/03/07/veto-the-fccs-big-media-handout/
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ACTION ALERT: Senators Seek to Overturn New FCC Media Ownership Rules
by Dibya Sarkar
The Community Bridge Blog (KS)
03/07/08

[ comments allowed ]

A bipartisan group of senators today introduced a resolution to stop regulators from easing media-ownership rules in the nation’s 20 largest cities.  They fear the Federal Communication Communications (FCC) rule would leave newspaper readers, radio listeners and TV viewers with fewer choices. Several consumer groups are challenging the rule in federal court.

The “resolution of disapproval” was introduced by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., along with 13 Democratic and Republican co-sponsors  to stop the FCC from implementing the new rule that the agency approved in December. The FCC published the cross-ownership rule in the Federal Register on Feb. 21.

“When nearly half of the people in this country are told that in their cities and towns the media will get the green light to consolidate, they will not be happy,” said Dorgan in a release. “The proposal would also create a greatly relaxed approval process for newspapers to buy TV stations in any U.S. media market and spur a new wave of media consolidation in both large and small media markets.”   —>
http://communitybridge.blogspot.com/2008/03/action-alert-senators-seek-to-overturn.html
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The FCC & Censorship: Legendary Media Activist Everett Parker on the Revocation of WLBT’s TV License in the 1960s for Shutting Out Voices of the Civil Rights Movement
Democracy Now!
03/06/08

JUAN GONZALEZ: We take a look now at the only time a television station had its license revoked for failing to serve the public interest. It was in the 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi. TV station WLBT had its license revoked for attempting to squelch the voices of the civil rights movement of the time.

The station first came under scrutiny by the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ. The Office was founded and headed up by media activist Everett Parker. He identified WLBT as a frequent target of public complaints and FCC reprimands regarding its public service. Parker filed a “petition to deny renewal” with the FCC, initiating a process that eventually got the station’s license revoked by a federal court and had far-reaching consequences in American broadcasting.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Everett Parker joins us now in our firehouse studio. He has been a media activist for more than six decades, currently an adjunct professor of communications at Fordham University. He’s ninety-five years old. Welcome to Democracy Now!   —>
http://i4.democracynow.org/2008/3/6/the_fcc_censorship_legendary_media_activist
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Community TV faces blackout
by Sally Jackson
The Australian
03/06/08

Community TV stations would close before the end of the year unless the federal Government moved quickly to guarantee their digital future, the sector warned yesterday.  Perth’s Access 31 and Brisbane’s Channel 31 were most at risk, said Andrew Brine, general manager of Access 31 and president of newly-formed peak body the Australian Community Television Alliance.

The five capital-city stations announced yesterday they had split from the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia and joined forces in ACTA to more effectively lobby the Government.  “There are over 300 community radio stations and only five community TV stations (in the CBAA),” Mr Brine said.  “We were to some degree getting lost in the mix and we felt as a sector we would be better doing it by ourselves.”

While the commercial and public TV networks were already simulcasting in analog and digital ahead of the switch-off of the analog signal in December 2013, community TV was marooned on the analog signal, with no government plan or funding to go digital. Uncertainty over the stations’ future was deterring program-makers and sponsors, and audiences were dwindling as viewers migrated to digital TV sets, Mr Brine said.

“Perth has lost on average 12,000 viewers a month over the last year or so (and) 90 per cent of it would be because of digital take-up,” he said.  “For Brisbane and Perth especially it is stretching the ongoing viability of the services. Unless there is something done in terms of a digital future for us, within a year we will lose one or two services.”   —>
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23325518-5013871,00.html
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Media Watchdog Calls for More Pressure on China Over Human Rights
by Tendai Maphosa
NewsVOA.com
03/07/08

With just five months to go before the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, there has been increasing scrutiny of China’s foreign policy as well as its human rights record. The media watchdog group, Reporters Without Borders has issued a statement saying it has not seen any evidence that human rights and freedom of expression have improved in China. Tendai Maphosa has more in this report from London.   —>
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-03-07-voa58.cfm
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The Pearson Foundation and the Jane Goodall Institute Form Digital Arts Partnership
Relationship To Support Institute’s Roots & Shoots Global Youth Program
CSRwire
03/07/08

The Pearson Foundation today announced commitments to support digital arts and environmental and humanitarian education for youth around the world. Pearson Foundation President Mark Nieker made the announcement at the WNET/Thirteen and WLIW21’s Teaching & Learning Celebration in New York City alongside renowned primatologist Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE.

The Pearson Foundation announced that the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) has joined the Digital Arts Alliance, a consortium that promotes digital arts in K-12 education through fully funded and staffed programs that deliver technology and curricula directly to schools and community centers nationwide. The Pearson Foundation is the founding partner in the Digital Arts Alliance. Other members include Nokia, Adobe, The National Academy Foundation, and the American Red Cross.

The Pearson Foundation and JGI will kick-off their partnership at Jane Goodall’s Global Youth Summit in Orlando, Fla., on Earth Day, April 22, 2008. Working through the Digital Arts Alliance, the Pearson Foundation will introduce digital film making, media strategies and leadership skills to 100 young people from around the world attending the summit. In addition, the Pearson Foundation will give participating youth the tools they need to create video messages about their commitment to making a difference in the world, and to share these short films with each other and the thousands of youth participating in its other programs.

The Pearson Foundation has also committed to bring its digital media curriculum to Roots & Shoots groups in five locations around the world. Roots & Shoots is JGI’s environmental and humanitarian youth education program. By extending youth engagement beyond the summit itself, the Pearson Foundation is creating a global dialogue among young people regarding the critical issues facing our planet.

“Dr. Jane Goodall embodies the idea of global youth education, and Pearson shares her passion for inspiring young people around the world and for giving them unique learning opportunities,” said Nieker. “By providing digital technology to the Institute’s Roots & Shoots program and Jane Goodall’s Global Youth Summit this April, Pearson Foundation supports the spirit of environmental and humanitarian learning with a world leader in this field.”

“In the Internet age, technology is critical to advocacy, which is why we are so excited about our partnership with the Pearson Foundation,” said Goodall. “Like the Pearson Foundation, we support the use of digital arts for youthful self-expression. Working together, we hope to empower young people around the world to address the issues facing their communities and, ultimately, create the next generation of leaders.”   —>
http://www.csrwire.com/News/11316.html
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compiled by Rob McCausland
Alliance for Community Media
202-393-2650
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