The turbulent seas of public access - 1985 National Federation of Local Cable Programmers conference

Afterimage, May-June, 1998 by Lauren-Glenn Davitian

If any new course was to be charted during the national conference it was a regrouping and reconsideration of the goals of local access and the extent to which a national organization could aid in their achievement. The cornerstone of this discussion is the perennial distinction between the importance of "product" vs. "process," one that becomes more insistent as access joins the ranks of legitimate media.

Michael Barr, formerly of Fayetteville Community TV in Arkansas, noted: "Access can be frustrating. As a producer you've got a choice between doing a lot of small projects or a few big ones. I prefer to do a lot of little ones. After all, people need to know they can turn on the channel and see new programming, not just the same thing every night." Reliable and technically competent production is the best way to build an audience and attract producers within the local community. While Barr can be safely described as a devoted access advocate, there are those who forcefully argue that "cable casting" is the least of a program's value as a tool for critical thinking and social change. Disregarding standard audience expectations, they focus on teaching small groups and producing programs of interest to particular sectors of their community.

During "Vanity Video/Community Development/Alternative Video," Deborah Hill, a staunch access advocate who is now the coordinator' for Boston Community Access Foundation, blamed the intervention of cable companies into the access effort as the reason for undue emphasis on "professional standards" and successful (i.e. popular) programming. "They don't want access. They want bargain basement broadcast. These programs tell us as much about the community as if they had been shot in Hollywood." Hers is not a popular view with the brief-cased crowd that takes great pains to explain how expensive its equipment is and proudly announces how eager its students are to produce "better" (in their words, "professional") programming.

DeeDee Halleck, of Paper Tiger TV, was no less strident in her attack on the "corporatization" of access. She caused great consternation in the session entitled "Local Origination and Access: How to Successfully Co-Exist" by suggesting that the inherent schism between cable companies and access efforts means there is no possibility that cooperation will ever occur. Hubert Jessup, figurehead of the Boston Community Access Foundation, intervened to save face for local access by assuring the predominantly cable-industry audience that yes, indeed, compromise and coexistence are both possible and desired. Jessup's version of "constructive engagement" does not become more convincing when we discover that he gets paid $75,000 per annum more than the mayor of Boston and enough to feed eight hungry access workers for a year.

Perhaps the most telling measure of access success (i.e., the decentralizing of production expertise) can be seen in local approaches to training workshops. Do we put students through eight hours of studio training and encourage them to make "PM Magazine" and conduct interviews like Barbara Walters? Or, as Barbara Wolf of Highland Heights, KY, suggested, do we offer two hours of portapak training and send them into the world to report what's on their minds?