President's Message
May 20, 2019
Birds of a Feather Sessions
One of the great benefits of gathering with colleagues at the ACM National Conference is the informal learning that takes place. This year in Portland, we'll continue the process with our Birds of A Feather sessions.
"BoF" is a way to gather folks together to talk about a project or an idea you want to promote - it's an informal space that YOU schedule to host a discussion at the Conference.
Interested in kicking around a great idea? Or just meeting like minded folks interested the type of work you like? Birds of a Feather is a way to spark the conversation.
You can reserve space today for Birds of A Feather at this summer's conference by emailing
kbenson@allcommunitymedia.org.
Presentation from Collaborative Journalism Summit
I saw a pretty inspiring presentation this last week from
City Bureau at this last week's Collaborative Journalism Summit held by the
Center for Cooperative Media in Philadelphia.
The message from City Bureau's Darryl Holliday is that journalism has to inform, engage AND equip people in order for democracy to thrive, and that all too often media falls short of all three goals. You can find
Daryl's presentation online.
We've invited City Bureau to be part of this year's Plenary Discussion at the National Conference along with other colleagues in the field of engaged journalism. It's a growing media practice that finds ways to collaborate with audiences to meet their needs as news and other media are created. We hope you'll be inspired as well!
FCC Updates
The highlight this last week of the first FCC oversight hearing of the House Technology and Communications Subcommittee was the
statement by Vice Chair Yvette Clarke of Brooklyn, NY who expressed deep concern about the Commission's actions in the so-called "in-kind" rulemaking that would affect channels across the US.
Our thanks go out to Rep. Clarke for supporting our channels and for her public promise to monitor the rule-making to ensure that PEG channels aren't harmed.
That promise came about because of the relationship that Rep. Clarke has with BRIC Arts Media and BRIC TV.
Congressional voices are getting noticed by the FCC. But we need more of them expressing their concern. If you have not talked with your House Member yet, now is the time to set up that conversation to urge them to express support of PEG.
You can find a
summary of the rulemaking here and
one-pagers you can use when you talk with Congressional offices here.