J-Lab New Voices Grant

SPNN got some nice news this past week about grant support for a news project we’re developing from the New Voices project of J-Lab. What’s even nicer is other community media and media justice groups (Reclaim the Media, Access SF, Cambridge Community TV) got awards for new projects.

The press release on the awards is here.

Does this guy Sleep?

Oh my god. I am tired and need some B vitamin after reading Colin Rhinesmith’s blog.

It’s a great compendium of “stuff” surrounding digital culture, law, participatory culture, media arts, and just as importantly, community television.

Oh, and he’s a graduate student working part-time. I remember now. He doesn’t sleep.

How do we clone this guy?

Citizen Media meets Citizen Media

Here’s a mention of community radio station KAXE in Grand Rapids MN working with some of the people involved with citizen empowerment on the web in Minnesota. I don’t know Griff Wigley that well, but he’s sort of a friend of a friend and has been involved with MN e-Democracy. Nice to see, especially because KAXE has such a great tradition of giving citizens a voice in their community.

How to Cook a Mancini’s Steak

Serving Our Troops, a local volunteer group in Saint Paul, has been leading a support effort for troops and Minnesota National Guard stationed overseas in Kosovo and Iraq the last three years. The latest effort will ship over 11,000 steak dinners from the Saint Paul steakhouse Mancini’s to troops in Iraq in April. Then families in Minnesota will join their loved ones via video teleconference for a family meal together. It’s a great community project.

My thanks to John Marshall for asking SPNN to be a part of this project.

MN Testimony on Statewide Video Franchising

There’s a really nice summary of Friday’s testimony in the MN House on statewide franchising on The Blandin Foundation Broadband blog.  Blandin has been a leader in the philanthropic community in Minnesota in trying to make broadband availability a top state priority.

If you want the video link to see the testimony, go here.

All Things Access

Hey, here’s our standing access production in Saint Paul, All Things Access.   Other episodes are at our website.   Enjoy!

Fighting the Dark Side

Here’s an excellent post from Barry Orton at UW-Madison, rebutting the internet vs. public access television nonsense coming out of the Wisconsin debate on cable franchising.

Local filmmakers Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan - creators of Chad Vader, Darth’s little brother - efficiently demolish the idea that YouTube and other social technologies replace the need for community television. They send much love to the Eau Claire and Madison operations where they began to learn their craft.

On Wisconsin!

Perhaps Barry should have been in Massachussetts this last weekend: There’s a parallel discussion on the Center for Citizen Media blog, which features a summary of a panel on The Future of Public Access from the Beyond Broadcast conference in Cambridge.

Why does an “expert” in citizen participation come up with an idea like this one, getting rid of public access over a five-year period? Has this person ever talked with any citizens who produce media at community media centers throughout the entire United States? Can we find a way to introduce him to some citizen producers and some viewers, like buy him a Greyhound bus pass to tour centers throughout the U-S?  Or maybe we need to find ways to get community television producers to attend Harvard and UC-Berkeley to learn about developing grassroots media…

Props go out to participants at the event who focused on building on a long tradition of citizen participation in media, and for focusing on innovation to make things better.

Things to do in Denver

There’s a nice plug of deproduction and Denver Open Media,the Denver community media group, on newsassignment.net this week.

Working with “niche” audiences who intensely value community media, I don’t know if I quite buy the wisdom of crowds philosophy entirely. The number theory geek in me appreciates it. But I also think James Madison would never have written the Bill of Rights with this kind of model. What’s the other term that comes to mind?

More importantly, beyond the buzzwords, Denver Open Media along with our friends at MNN are trying to come up with an innovative approach to reach people, and reach people in relavent ways.

Nothing wrong with that, right?

Great Caesar’s Ghost!

Time to shill for some friends: Check out the Twin Cities Daily Planet, and see if there’s a way you can steal or apply the concept to your community.

Adapt is the better word. That’s what members of the Twin Cities Media Alliance did as they began putting together this on-line community in 2005. They looked at the success of the Korean on-line innovator OhmyNews, and wondered if there was a way to take the model of citizen’s making and reporting news in their world and use it to foster independent reporting in Minneapolis - Saint Paul.

It’s been pretty successful so far, primarily taking news feeds from other like-minded media outlets (ethnic press, neighborhood press, community radio) and creating their own stringer pool.

The other side of the story is the fact that the website has been increasing English-speaking traffic to great sites like Hiiraan.com, which up until last year produced content primarily for Somali speakers worldwide. Since 1993, Minneapolis - Saint Paul has become a center of the worldwide Somali diaspora, rivalling population centers like Toronto and Copenhagen. Hiiraan has becoming the leading website for Somali news worldwide, basing a lot of its production on talented academics and media producers here in the Twin Cities. Hiiraan is now the best English language site I’ve found for getting news about Somalia (Keep that in mind as you hear more about U-S involvement in the Horn of Africa).

So steal the concept, but at least give them credit.