From the Alliance for Community Media:

The Alliance for Community Media is sponsoring a 90-minute webinar on Citizen Journalism, Tuesday, March 2nd at 1 PM EST for the irresistibly low member cost of $10. Sign up today and pass this on to others who would benefit.

A number of community media centers are participating in exciting new collaborations with local organizations, neighborhood activists, schools, and media outlets to create online, hyperlocal, citizen-journalism sites.

Learn how citizen-journalism projects have been set up by Cambridge Community TV and Grand Rapids Community Media Center. Get an overview of 56 different projects nationwide that have been funded by J-Lab, The Institute for Interactive Journalism. Hear an editor’s point of view when it comes to generating credible and competent content from local residents for the Twin Cities Daily Planet.  Pose questions to our four distinguished panelists to understand the rewards and challenges of these innovative projects that are using digital technologies to generate civic awareness and participation even as traditional journalism institutions are facing their greatest challenges to sustainability.

Registration Information:

Webinar: Tuesday, March 2nd, 1 PM EST
Cost:  ACM Members:  $10 / Non-members: $15
Registration link:  http://alliancecm.org/civicrm/event/info?id=16&reset=1

After registration, you will receive a URL, a telephone number, and an access code for participation.

This webinar and others to follow in the coming months are made possible by a grant to the ACM from the Surdna Foundation.  In addition to the webinars, Surdna has supported the creation of the Community Media 2.0 blog site, featuring interviews with PEG practitioners discussing their best practices.

Panelist information:

Laurie Cirivello is Executive Director of the Grand Rapids Community Media Center, where she leads a staff team providing services in public access cable, community radio, and nonprofit IT support and web development. GRCMC received a grant from the Knight Foundation and the Grand Rapids Community Foundation to launch an online citizen journalism outlet called “The Rapidian.”

Laurie has been an executive director of PEG operations since 1993 and has assumed numerous leadership roles within the Alliance for Community Media.

Colin Rhinesmith is Community Media Coordinator at Cambridge Community Television (CCTV) in Cambridge, MA. Previously, Colin was Digital Media Producer for the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, where he produced audio & video podcasts for MediaBerkman and the Citizen Media Law Project.

At CCTV, Colin manages the NeighborMedia program and other community media and technology projects. He also teaches many of CCTV’s web media courses. Colin wrote his Master’s Thesis on the intersection of PEG Access Television and the Social Web. Colin’s blog can be found at http://colinrhinesmith.com.

Jan Schaffer, former Business Editor and a Pulitzer Prize winner for The Philadelphia Inquirer, is executive director of J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism and one of the nation’s leading thinkers in the journalism reform movement.

She left daily journalism in 1994 to lead pioneering journalism initiatives in the areas of civic journalism, interactive and participatory journalism and citizen media ventures.

J-Lab is a center of American University’s School of Communication. She launched J-Lab in 2002 to help newsrooms use innovative computer technologies to engage people in important public issues. The center now spotlights new forms of digital storytelling on www.J-Lab.org. It rewards innovative practices through the Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism. It funds cutting-edge citizen media start-ups through its New Voices project. It built web tutorials on how to launch and manage community news sites (www.J-Learning.org). It collects information on community, citizen and original journalism projects with the Knight Citizen News Network and it raises awareness of women in media in a partnership with McCormick Foundation through the New Media Women Entrepreneurs project.

J-Lab is the successor to the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, a $14 million project which Schaffer previously led. The center helped to fund more than 120 pilot projects that developed new reporting techniques to engage people better in public life.

Mary Turck is the editor of the TC Daily Planet, a title that encompasses tasks ranging from reporting on legislative hearings to bringing snacks for citizen journalist and community media partner meetings. Mary is the former editor of the award-winning Connection to the Americas and AMERICAS.org. She is also a recovering attorney and the author of many books for young people (and a few for adults), mostly focusing on historical and social issues.

She currently teaches workshops on citizen journalism and immigration. Mary lives in St. Paul with her husband, their two daughters and two dogs. Mary’s blog is called Keeping the Faith.

Elliot Margolies, the Moderator, was Executive Director at media centers in Palo Alto and Cupertino, California.  He has a background in documentary and news production and a masters degree in broadcast journalism.

On Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s website, there is a list of ways for citizens to use media to stay informed and involved in civic affairs. As the screen capture above shows, the Governor recommends that residents use YouTube AND Public Access Television as tools for civic engagement.

For more on the discourse surrounding YouTube v. Public Access Television, visit my archived posts at Community Media in Transition.

The Knight Commission on Information Needs of Communities released a momentous new report, entitled “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age,” last Friday at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

For those of us working in community media and technology, the report provides overwhelming support for our field and creative strategies to help us push it forward.

The report envisions a world where community voices truly matter. It provides residents with opportunities to become more actively engaged in community life through media. It provides parents and educators with thinking about how youth can gain digital and media literacy skills today and into the future. And there is much more to the report.

As the report’s website explains:

“The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy is a group of 17 media, policy and community leaders. Its purpose is to assess the information needs of communities, and recommend measures to help Americans better meet those needs. The Knight Commission sees new thinking about news and information as a necessary step to sustaining democracy in the digital age.”

The complete list of findings and recommendations are also available on the website. Here are a few of my favorites:

Recommendation 2: Increase support for public service media aimed at meeting community information needs, including this zinger: “Public broadcasting needs to move quickly toward a broader vision of public service media, one that is more local, more inclusive, and more interactive.”

Recommendation 6: Integrate digital and media literacy as critical elements of education at all levels through collaboration among federal, state, and local education officials.

I was quite pleased to see this statement: “It may be tempting for teachers and administrators who are themselves uncomfortable with new media to view digital and media competencies as ‘addons’ to basic learning in ‘reading, writing and, arithmetic.’ These competencies are, however, new forms of foundational learning.” Absolutely.

Recommendation 11: Expand local media initiatives to reflect the entire reality of the communities they represent.

When community media are at their best, this is how they should perform: “Local media have the unique potential to enable citizens to see how life looks from the perspectives of multiple groups and to engage people in conversation across group lines . . . Just as the diversity of a newsroom can bridge across a community’s various constituencies, so can and should diversity in a community’s media ownership. ”

And finally, my personal favorite:

Recommendation 7: Fund and support public libraries and other community institutions as centers of digital and media training, especially for adults.

The entire last paragraph of recommendation 7 is worth sharing here:

“The Commission also endorses digital literacy funding for community institutions, such as community centers and community-based development organizations.  These organizations provide crucial services in the area of digital and media training, and can be useful sites to engage even moderately Internet-capable adults in sharing their knowledge with those less skilled. Community organizations that already serve as trusted information providers to underserved populations are well situated to help integrate their clients more effectively into the community’s information networks.”

Video from the event is available on the Commission’s website, which also provides readers with the opportunity to discuss the report online.

My hope is that policymakers at the local, state and federal level will act quickly to implement the Commission’s recommended strategies.

The report is licensed his work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

On May 24th, 2006, community media and network neutrality supporters came together for a national Day of Out(R)age to protest efforts by giant telecommunications companies to take away local control of media and create a less open Internet.

(To learn more about the nationwide protests in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York on that day, visit Save Access. To learn more about the events in Boston on that day, read this report (w/video) from Andy Carvin)

Three years later, the big telecos are back. But this time they have another strategy – to change the laws one state at a time.

The new video service provider on the block (aka, Verizon), also the current Internet provider in Massachusetts, wants to make it more difficult for local officials to negotiate franchise agreements with video service providers within a reasonable period of time.

Cambridge Community Television (where I work) writes more about the details of the Verizon-supported legislation (House Bill No. 3765 and Senate Bill No. 1531, An Act Promoting Consumer Choice and Competition) soon to be decided on Beacon Hill:

Verizon’s proposed bill is harmful to cities and towns. It includes a shot clock provision where communities must act upon a new cable television license as follows:

A. Within 10 DAYS of receipt of an application, a city or town shall begin negotiations with the carrier, regardless of the city or town’s ability to identify its basic negotiations needs in such a short period of time.

B. Within 90 DAYS of receipt of an application, a city or town shall hold a public hearing on the financial, technical, and other qualifications to operate a cable television system.

C. Within FIVE DAYS of the public hearing, the city or town shall either approve or deny the application. If approved, a final license document must be issued within those five days! Issuing a final license document within five days of a hearing is obviously unfair and unreasonable.

This is a bad bill, written BY AND FOR one company without adequately balancing the needs of cities and towns in the Commonwealth. The current licensing law protects the needs of cities and towns to enter into thoughtful and meaningful negotiations.

The impact of this legislation could be devastating for local control of media.

Visit Open Mass to read more about House Bill No. 3765 – “relative to choice and competition for cable service” and Senate Bill No. 1531 – “for legislation to promote consumer choice and competition for cable service.”

To show your support for community media in Massachusetts on July 22, CCTV writes:

What YOU can do:
1. Come with other CCTV members and staff to the State House to show your opposition to this bill. Meet at CCTV on Wednesday, July 22 at 9AM to travel by Red Line to the State House, or meet us in Room A-1 at 10AM. You need not testify – just showing up will help to make the point that citizens of the Commonwealth do not want this legislation.

2. Send an email or letter to the senators and representatives on the Joint Telecommunications Committee – a list of their names and addresses and a sample letter is attached.

3. Make sure that your state representatives and senators, and City Councilors, know that you want them to oppose this legislation – send them copies of your letters and emails – their addresses are also attached.

4. Please send copies of any correspondence to CCTV, 675 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139. info@cctvcambridge.org

If you care about free speech and local control of our media system, then I hope you will join us on July 22, 2009 at 10AM in Boston to show your support and stand with us once again.

(Photo above by Steve Garfield available on Flickr under a Creative Commons license)

I had the good fortune to speak with Elliot Margolies, Media Strategy and Production Consultant at Midpeninsula Community Media Center, ETC., recently for a podcast series he is producing at Community Media 2.0.

Elliot writes:

In the intricately networked web world, the role of a brick & mortar, public access media center is a work-in-progress. What are the key ingredients to be a relevant and sustainable community resource?

This is a series of podcasts sharing best practices and advice for community media center advocates, managers, staff, producers, and volunteers. It features interviews with leaders in the field who share their expertise and perspectives.

The series is being made possible by The Surdna Foundation, Media and Democracy Fund and Media Justice Fund.

I feel honored to share the same page with some big names in community media. Elliot’s previous podcasts include interviews with Sue Buske of the Buske Group, Alliance for Community Media Executive Director, Helen Soule and “Father of Public Access TV” and NYU Professor, George Stoney.

I want to thank Elliot for asking me to participate in this series and for his work raising awareness about the ongoing need for community media in an “intricately networked web world”.

I just finished listening to Friday’s episode of Radio Boston on “Super Local News” with Adam Gaffin (Universal Hub), Dan Kennedy (Media Nation), David Dahl (Boston Globe) and an all too short (2 minute) conversation with Marcela Garcia (El Planeta). It made me think about community media’s role in all of this.

With all the recent coverage surrounding the turmoils of the newspaper business, I rarely see any mention of community media and their potential in this situation.  After all, this is a time when newspapers are increasingly using “citizen journalism” or “user-generated” stories for their news “content” online.

As commercial businesses have experienced a convergence in cross-media platforms over the past few years, so too have Public, Educational and Government Access Television (community media) centers experienced a similar convergence through their use of both community television and the social web – as well as other media platforms.

For example, just this past week, Dakota Access Media, Community and Government access television for Bismarck-Mandan, North Dakota provided live updates on the flood emergencies using their Twitter feed.

As they recently stated about this convergence on their website:

We are at a very interesting time in the world of marketing, as many are aware. With the ever-growing popularity of Facebook, YouTube and other user-generated content sites, it is a constant source of debate as to the future of traditional media (radio, TV, newspapers, etc) and new media.

At Dakota Media Access, we see our role in the same way that we always have. Helping individuals and non-profits gain access to equipment and skills to help them develop the digital media content in order to use multiple communication vehicles simultaneously.

So, in this discussion about the future of local news, here are 3 important lessons that can be learned from what’s happening in community media across the U.S. (where they still exist):

1. Community Media Are The Community – The story from Dakota Media Access above is just one of the many reasons why community media centers are uniquely positioned to provide important news and information to residents in local communities. Particularly in locations where a city or town’s community newspaper only has one or two on staff on-board to report on the critical local issues affecting its residents. Community media are created by and for the people who live in the community.
2. Community Media Provide Media Training – Many community media centers also provide media training on the equipment needed to report the news. As I’ve mentioned before, our “hyperlocal” program, NeighborMedia has benefited from those journalists who have been told that they need to gain “multimedia” skills to report the news in a digital age – they’ve come to us. This is another important contribution that community media centers can make to help train the next generation of super local newsmakers.
3. Community Media Build Community – Because community media centers are physical places, they help bring residents together to make media and share their voices on issues that matter to them and others in their community. As online tools become increasingly popular, community media centers help ground the communication and information in lived spaces.

For these reasons and more, I believe there are exciting opportunities for local newspapers, and others concerned about the future of their news, to work together with their community media centers to create new models for sustaining local news and information now and into the future.

I’m excited to announce that I’m producing a special live television program tomorrow night, entitled “We Report, We Decide: Civic Media’s Impact on Mainstream News” on Cambridge Community Television.

The program will go live at 7pm on Channel 10 and will also be webcast. Unfortunately, our live webstream is not entirely sturdy, so I hope to provide live updates using my Twitter feed during the evening.  Video from the event will be available on our website and at the Center for Future Civic Media at MIT later in the week.

I want to thank the speakers and crew in advance of the production for volunteering their time and efforts on this important and timely discussion.

This weekend, I was delighted to discover the “Community Media Sustainability Guide: The Business of Changing Lives” via Persephone Miel, author of one its articles, entitled “Small Towns Find a Voice Online” and speaker at “We Report, We Decide: Civic Media’s Impact on Mainstream News“.

As a community media worker here in Massachusetts, the report reminded me of how important community media are to people all over the world.

In section one, the guide lays out the core principles and definitions of community media.

“All community media must have a community and the intention to serve and build the community. A quality community service is one that:

• Validates and strengthens communities
• Covers topics that are relevant to the community
• Encourages community discussion and debate in producing and sharing content.
• Facilitates community participation in production and dissemination of content
• Ensures that voices of marginalized, stigmatized, and repressed sectors of communities are heard
• Provides spaces for perspectives and views that are alternative to those originating from mainstream media”

At the end of the first section, the authors conclude:

“We hope the guide will be of value to the thousands of community media activists and practitioners engaged in the daily struggle to build sustainable community media and to the many donors and development agencies that support them.”

I look forward to spending more time with this guide and learning from its examples.

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Colin Rhinesmith. I am a Supporter of Access SF. Without public access television, cities and towns across this country would lose a vital community resource – they would lose the ability to see themselves and their neighbors on television. Just like libraries, community media centers create stronger and more vibrant communities. As a community media worker living in Massachusetts, I have seen how community media centers, such as Access SF, can serve their residents with the communication tools needed to participate in a 21st century culture and global society. Community media provide physical community places so needed in this age of online social networks and other Internet-based media tools. Community media connect individuals through the act of communicating, creating and making media with one another. We need community media and we need Access SF!

I am greatly concerned about the future of public access in San Francisco. Access SF provides community members training in television and Internet production as well as access to channels on which their programs can be shown. Without public access, the City loses diverse, community-based programming developed by independent media producers and nonprofits.

A new State law known as the Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act (DIVCA) threatens public access funding. Because of the law, cities are no longer permitted to negotiate local cable franchises nor require operational funding for public access. Without this source of revenue, the City has limited operational funds to grant to the local operator of public access.

The City (through the Department of Technology) is planning to drastically cut operational funding for Access SF July 1, 2009. The level of funding being proposed would result in greatly reduced staffing causing significant cuts in services.

I strongly urge you to find a way to support public access in San Francisco. The training, facilities, and expertise provided by this community center cannot be replaced by YouTube or any similar Internet-based video site. Cable operators provide millions of dollars per year to the City as part of their franchise agreements. Currently, San Francisco allocates only about $100,000 of these millions to support public access. In addition, Congress and the State Legislature must change the provision in the Telecommunications Act of 1934 and DIVCA eliminating the prohibition of these funds from being used for operational expenses.

I urge you to work with the management of Access SF, as well as with a strong coalition of public access individuals and non-profit organizations in San Francisco to help solve this critical funding problem before June 30, 2009.

Colin Rhinesmith

Support Access San Francisco!

This afternoon, I had the opportunity to lead a workshop with my fellow Boston Action Tank colleagues Marie Celestin and Felicia Sullivan at the Be The Media! Mini-Conference. The title of our workshop was “Strategies for Shaping our Media Future: Envisioning Change with the Boston Action Tank”. Here’s the description from the website:

The media/communications environment is rapidly changing. Who will control the networks and tools that we use? How can we work pro-actively for media & technology systems to better serve our communities? We will talk about the types of policies, technologies and economics that can create a better media future, and how to win and protect what we need and want. This workshop will use strategy mapping tools in small groups, and is designed for 10-25 people. We hope to learn from you, and to share some tools to help you position your current work in a long-term strategic framework.

During the workshop, we had a terrific group of passionate, committed communications workers located in area non-profits who helped us envision what they’d like to see as their ideal future media system in an age of networked communication.

The topic of social media literacy played a large role in the discussion. Most participants felt that there should be places where community members in physical places can go to gain access to and learn more about networked technologies and their impact on our everyday lives. In addition, most believed that Community Media & Technology Centers are key within this future.

Not surprisingly, I was excited by the response and energized to see the enthusiasm from the group about how community media/technology centers can play a role in this work.

The need for social media literacy is becoming a common thread through my interactions with community members at CCTV and in the discussions I’ve been apart of and read online. I do believe that community media/technology centers can in fact fill that void where people are feeling the need to share physical space with others around their online media use.

At the end of the workshop, the group agreed that they would like to be a apart of future discussions, with previous workshop participants, to expand our conversation today about how to create a shared community-vision for our media future.

I would like to thank the conference organizers for allowing us to be apart of this conversation.