[Boston-wkg-video] Re: Program Polling: 2nd Round

[Gary S. Trujillo]

This past Friday, Andrew wrote:

> As Gary has been so supportive and on top of our project, I hope you
> will consider rejoining IMC, or at least this project hence I've Cc'd
> you.  You're name came up last night (before you called in!) regarding
> your wealth of knowledge on public domain video that we could use for
> the show.

Though I don't have the time and energy to commit to helping with the
program, I would be willing to share some of the videos I've collected.
However, I'm not sure how many of them are really in the public domain.
Someone would have to do some research and make some contacts to see
whether there might be legal problems with airing some of the materials
I have, most of which come from the BBC and from commercial producers
in the U.K.  With a bit of effort, I could export a subset of the data-
base I use to keep track of my videos, so someone could look through it
to see what might be interesting.  I tend to think that they might be
better suited for local showings at places like the LPC than for cable-
casts, due to legal considerations.  I'd love to be proven wrong, though.

Speaking of videos, I would like to be able to borrow the DVD for the
excellent "Urban Warrior" documentary done by Matt Ehling, et. al. on
the militarization of the police in this country, which was shown on
SCAT at 9PM last Thursday, if it's possible, so as to take notes on
some of the specifics brought up in the program.

And speaking of public access television, I highly recommend everyone
interested in the subject to listen to the interview that Scott Harris
did on WPKN this past Monday with Russ Newman of Free Press (more info
on him is at "http://www.freepress.net/content/people") on that subject.
In the interview, Russ talks about current legislative threats to the
future of community access TV stations (like SCAT) coming from how
telecommunications companies are trying to exploit changes in the high
speed digital landscape.  I have clipped that interview from a recording
I did of the program as it aired and placed it at:

  ftp://ftp.biochem.uthscsa.edu/pub/gst/misc/051114-cp-russ_newman.mp3

I sent a reference to Sofia just over three months ago, the first time
I had heard about the issue, along with a strong recommendation that
this is a matter that deserves coverage, and an offer to help get some
materials to prepare for covering the story.  Here's the description
from the page at "http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2620" for the
"Counterpoint" program (produced by FAIR - Fairness and Accuracy in
Reporting):

| ...if you're only looking at the country's major media, you likely know
| nothing at all about bills currently before Congress that would allow
| cable companies to offload those pesky public access requirements that
| are supposed to part of their lucrative franchise agreements. We'll hear
| more about this latest attempt by corporate media to profit from the
| public while shutting them out from Anthony Riddle, executive director
| of the Alliance for Community Media ("http://www.alliancecm.org").

You'll find a link on the page whose URL is noted above to get to the
streaming and downloadable versions of the broadcast.

Lastly, for anyone who receives this message in time, you might want
to tune in to the re-broadcast of today's "News Hour with Jim Lehrer"
on channel 44 (program starts at 11PM, feature starts at about 11:25),
or pick up the report, entitled "Citizen Journalism" from the page at
"http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html" - RealAudio available
via a link from that page - RealVideo available later via a link from
that page or you can cut-and-paste the following URL into your RealPlayer:

    rtsp://audio.pbs.org:554/virage/newshour/pbsnh051116_220k.rm

(should be available later tonight or Thursday morning - this is the
high-bandwidth version, links from page later will provide lower-
bandwidth and Windoze media player versions, and a transcript of the
report with some photo snaps).

This report makes one realize that the sort of thing that has been
pioneered by IndyMedia (which wasn't even mentioned in the piece)
may become a lot more commonplace in the future.  I think that this
reality (if it is one) might be a useful idea for the group to
contemplate.

That's all for now.

Gary