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Vol. I
No. 9
Friday,
March 24, 2006
Meaningful Public Access Up
for Grabs
Guarantees for democracy in HAA are a joke
Editorials
HUMBOLDT SENTINEL
 It’s
now official: Local governments are handing over control of public access
television. This should be good news for those of us who remember the
vibrant, open and accessible public access Channel 12 before it was taken
over and censored by officials in Arcata at the turn of the millenium.
Unfortunately, they’re not handing public access over to the public.
Instead, a non-profit organization, Humboldt Area Access (HAA), has been
established in secret, outside of any public scrutiny and without any
publicly noticed meetings. No provisions of the agreement between local
governments and HAA contain any requirements as to how the station is
administered and whether the public, either directly or through station
memberships, is to have any role in the governance of the station.
It's a shame to see local governments such as the City of Eureka, which
has received awards for its financial management, signs off on a hand-out
of $500,000 to HAA (and millions more in the years ahead from the cable
company, i.e. cable subscribers) without any proof of the democratic or
responsible nature of this inaccessible access group.
Many observers have given up on the likes of Arcata to provide anything
resembling leadership on this issue after their failure to hold their
own staff accountable for the mismanagement of Channel 12 for nearly six
years. County Supervisors and Councilmembers in Eureka, Fortuna, Rio Dell,
Ferndale and Blue Lake still have the authority, however, to exercise
some due oversight to ensure a public access television setup which is
transparent and directly beholden to the will of the people. This could
be as simple as inserting a requirement into all the agreements with HAA
to mandate democratic elections for its Board of Directors and publicly
announced and accessible meetings to determine its conduct.
Certain insiders close to the Humboldt Area Foundation and Arcata City
Hall are hoping to slip this one by the people without much fuss. They’ve
set up HAA to keep public access safe, non-controversial and thoroughly
corralled within the boundaries of what they deem acceptable. They want
to continue to reward people like Rob Amerman and Ruth Boyle, some of
the very people responsible for the repeated censorship of public access
programming on Channel 12.
They also see the value of using what should be local programming time
(local being a word repeatedly stressed in the Eureka City Manager’s
report) for the rebroadcast of FSTV, a station already available via two
satellite services. Instead of lobbying the cable company to simply add
this Boulder, Colorado bastion of free speech to their digital lineup,
people like Michael Twombly say “don’t fuck with Free Speech
TV” as a way to fill up endless hours of cablecast time. These stations
are a precious community resource, a form of payment, in fact, to the
people in exchange for using their public space. Scheduling en masse out-of-town
programming takes away from a resource purportedly dedicated to local
voices and local issues.
People who want reform in political fundraising should certainly be attracted
to the notion of free airtime for candidates and campaigns. Those who
see bias and distortion in media might welcome competing local news broadcasts
produced for free, commercial-free and perhaps even appearing on the same
station. Imagine the potential for discourse if some uncensored talk shows
were allowed some breathing room. All this and possibilities unimagined
are within reach, but not under the same boots which have squelched creative
freedom on local access TV for far too many years.
Cox Cable turning over the local cable system to a provider, Cebridge,
which has expressed more interested in rural markets is a good start.
Now local governments need to step up to the plate and represent the demand
repeatedly made by the public at numerous public hearings: Public access
must be available, accessible and accountable to the people. The public
must demand, directly and through their representatives, these essential
protections for this public trust resource.
Anti-Corporatists
in Need of Reform
 Apparently
there is no activity too shameless for the partisan political operatives
who make up the majority of Arcata’s Committee on Democracy and
Corporations. It’s bad enough that they use public time on the public
dime to openly plot the campaign strategy for Measure T. This comes as
no surprise to those who see the obvious connections between ACDC members,
Measure T and the organization from which they sprung, Democracy Unlimited
of Humboldt County.
Now ACDC is committed to a more massive waste of public dollars on their
pet political project through a City government-sponsored forum on Measure
T. For sheer gall in the face of such impropriety, supposed public representatives
like Ryan Emenaker and Michael Twombly must be given credit. Who else
would so openly pursue their private agenda using the government as both
platform and foil? When has any branch of local government ever sponsored
a debate regarding a contested ballot measure right before its fate is
to be decided?
The answers, naturally, are no one and never. Arcata is crossing another
line into ignominy and infamy with this foray into politicking. While
a good dose of oversight by the City Council is both entirely in order
and entirely unlikely given the majority’s lock-step obedience on
the Measure T issue, the real reform is needed on the ACDC. Empty seats
on this body should be promptly filled by citizens interested in applying
some sensible rules of ethical conduct upon themselves first and foremost.
City committees are supposed to be non-partisan and in service to the
public interest. The interests of Democracy Unlimited are clearly contrary
to these ends and should be divorced from ACDC at the earliest available
opportunity.
Unpaid
Political Ads on Local Radio?
 Unfortunately
for those of us interested in “all sides now,” the fairness
doctrine once enforced by the FCC has long since fallen under the knife
of Reagan-era regulation-slashing. Radio stations are no longer required
to even pretend to a balanced use of the public airwaves in their coverage
of political affairs, and it shows in the blatant pro-war slant of the
thousands of radio stations owned by Clear Channel across the country,
including several right here in Humboldt County.
Yet this overall rightward tilt by most commercial stations in no way
excuses a comparable bias exhibited by local “community” radio
KMUD of Redway towards the left. A number of programs from such local
luminaries as Estelle Fennell and Dennis Huber all but gave away their
game plan, which is to ceaselessly push their anti-competitive Measure
T while ignoring, denigrating or debasing any community members who dare
to oppose it. Local officials such as Water District boardmember Kaitlin
Sopoci-Belknap and Democratic Central Committee chair Patrick Riggs were
given carte blanche to expound upon their viewpoints in these programs,
often laced with biting criticism of those who don’t march in lock-step
with their agenda.
Fennell not only applies her personal bias to her impromptu talk shows,
but to her news coverage as well. Her local news program has featured
pro-Measure T spokespersons such as Sopoci-Belknap over a dozen times,
while leaving Measure T critics with far fewer chances to rebut their
arguments.
KMUD claims to follow a policy of allowing alternatives to be presented
in a just and equitable manner. How then can they explain several attempts
by community members, some of whom were characterized as racist, sexist
and pro-union busting, to give some response to the dubious claims presented
by Measure T cheerleaders, only to be met with stone walls and delay tactics?
While the fairness doctrine is no longer at issue, there are still ethical
standards which any self-respecting station should be subject to. It will
be an unexpected surprise to see three hours of KMUD programming time
devoted to an equally vociferous opposition to Measure T. Or has our local
not-for-profit station given up on its underwriters in exchange for (officially)
unpaid political advertising? If so, what kind of favors will be exchanged
for such bias?
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