“I’ve used it before to cover statehouse issues that were of local interest to us,”
said David Boraks, publisher of DavidsonNews.net and CorneliusNews.net, local news websites in suburban Charlotte. The town of Davidson owns part of a municipal broadband service and faced dramatic changes in 2011 during legislative discussion banning cities from owning municipal broadband. It was an issue important to Boraks and his readers, he said, but he was too busy to make the two-hour-plus drive to the state capitol.
But archives at Voter Radio are labeled only by time. The vision for the new service calls for it to be searchable, which would make the information far more accessible—and it would have video as well, to allow watchdogs to see what’s going on in the legislature. In Morgan’s dream world, she said, there would be even more: a mix of video programming, public affairs content, interviews, streaming coverage of the General Assembly, and government and civic information.
The challenge now, of course, is turning the enthusiasm into something concrete. Morgan said the workshop and report have spurred discussions among cable providers, news organizations, and others. And UNC has given the project its imprimatur. The webpage for the university’s report features a video of Susan King, dean of the journalism school and a television news veteran, describing the vision for the state public access network. “That was her setting the priority,” Morgan said.
The UNC report made other recommendations, many of which apply nationally: encouraging the FCC to relax media cross-ownership rules, calling on the FCC to help resolve uncertainty in IRS policies that affect media nonprofits, and urging more partnerships between working journalists and journalism schools. But here in the Tar Heel State, the top priority remains the C-SPAN-style project.
“If nothing comes out of this except a state public affairs network,” Morgan said, “that’s a lot.”
Ironically, the agency that was poised (and had offered interactive programs) to provide this service, The Agency for Public Telecommunications, was disbanded this spring. Numerous efforts through the years explored creating just such an initiative. The weekly cable television program, OPEN/net, aired, giving citizens an opportunity to talk directly with their elected officials. Again, I find the timing of all this ironic.
#1 Posted by mary leaver, CJR on Fri 6 Jul 2012 at 03:09 PM
Thanks, Mary, for the comment. Fiona talked about this group, and the report done by the Center for Public Policy Research in North Carolina.
It sounds like some of the planning needs to focus on a way to exist without state funds, or when state funds get tight.
Charlotte's WTVI faced similar budget challenges recently, and its license was transferred to the local community college.
#2 Posted by Andria K., CJR on Fri 6 Jul 2012 at 07:36 PM
Adding to the previous comment, the late founding director of the North Carolina Agency for Public Telecommucations (APT), Ms. Lee Wing, her successors and staff at APT, and others in NC state government championed this same concept and led many efforts over the past 30 years to establish C-SPAN-style coverage of the NC General Assembly.
OPEN/net, produced by APT and supported by NC cable television leaders and elected officials for nearly three decades, was a nationally recognized model for providing -- through television and later online -- unfiltered, interactive public access to, and information about, NC state government, its lawmakers and public officials. Unfortunately, and for as many decades, our state's highest legislative and adminstrative leaders in Raleigh have yet to prove to be as visionary as Ms. Wing and others -- including the US Congress and the cable industry -- have been about using television and online technologies to enable more open and accessible government.
It is more than ironic that this leading recommendation from a UNC report comes just two months after NC Department of Administration officials ended OPEN/net and closed APT -- the sole state agency for 32 years that had been staffed, equipped, dedicated, in planning, and best positioned to implement C-SPAN-style coverage of the legislature. The demise of APT and its loss to the state is referenced in the UNC report, noting "North Carolina has the dubious distinction of being the largest state in the nation without a [C-SPAN-syle] channel, and the recent closing of ... APT has added urgency to the
issue for advocates who’ve worked 30 years to create one."
North Carolinians all should endorse this proposal from UNC’s School of Journalism and call on our state elected officials to finally implement the same form of modern democracy that our Congress has provided for the nation all since 1979. If NC officials truly believe we are a progressive state, here is an ideal opportunity to demonstrate that belief.
Esse quam videri, remember?
#3 Posted by Eugene Murray, CJR on Fri 6 Jul 2012 at 07:38 PM
The need for a statewide C-Span in North Carolina (as in many other states) is a wonderful idea because it create broader transparency among the both legislative bodies with their citizens. There are some state legislatures(i.e., Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc.) that already have statehouse C-spans where citizens, activists, and related interests gain closer insight into the innermost workings of their legislatures.
#4 Posted by Adrian DeVore, CJR on Sun 8 Jul 2012 at 09:51 PM