PUBLIC AFFAIRS RETURNS TO COMMUNITYVISION 21

A brief history of Public Affairs programming at CommuniTyVision 21:

In 1998, when James Diaz arrived to take the role of Statewide Coordinator for Community Access, he was surprised to find no local community affairs programs being created here in Newtown nor did he find the opportunity for residents to take an internship in TV production. Community producers were creating all kinds of programs, Religious, Environmental, Political, Holistic, but mostly by relying on the assistance of CTV staff. No one was actually fully producing their own show and no one program was representing the entire franchise area.

By creating an internship, James was also creating a community workforce to produce a local public affairs series. With the start of Intern Session 1 in September of 1998, HomeFront (taped) and HomeFront Live! were born. Having already created a successful model for a similar intern-produced public affairs series in Eastern CT James knew this show would provide a boost to local community televison on several levels:

• Provide information about local topics not covered by the electronic media.
• Provide a voice for community organizations and individuals not able to create their own programs.
• Provide a real world hands-on training environment to Interns, instilling in them the confidence needed to produce their own programs.
• Provide CTV 21 staff with on-going production experience to refine their skills as teachers.
• Provide programming which promotes community television opportunities while setting an example for what good community programming can be.

    HomeFront and its companion program which was broadcast live featured a variety of topics, issues, guests and organizations. It was hosted by John Murphy general manager of WHUS radio in Storrs, Connecticut and was produced from 1999 to 2002. Unfortunately, we lost our mentor and leader, James Diaz to cancer in 2000, and in 2002, Host John Murphy informed us that he could no longer make the journey from Storrs. We did our best to make the series last out the year of 2002 by casting for, and finding suitable hosts. Though they seemed suitable at first, both replacements turned out to be a disappointment and soured us on continuing the search for another permanent host. HomeFront was shelved.

Over the next 3 years we asked, and searched local media for potential hosts, and experimented with different community members. To those that took the invitation and helped us over the rough spots - We Thank You (Dick Cronin, Eugene Rosen, John Bell).

During a staff meeting in early 2006, we began a brainstorming session on how to create an atmosphere within the station that outside entities would consider award-winning. The staff wanted to do this by creating more opportunities for Interns to gain studio production experience. In the past 2 years we had been producing more and more truck shoots and fewer studio productions. The truck shoots, while great for some interns, were challenging for others. To provide equal experience for Interns in the field and in the studio, we needed to find a host who could commit to at least one taping each month on a year-round volunteer basis and possess some public-speaking experience. The staff suggested something we had never tried before, use the Community Bulletin Board and the website for an open casting call.

    To our surprise we were contacted by several interested community members through this open call. Not all met our criteria, and in those cases we encouraged these applicants to stay and participate in the station where they might gain the experience they needed. This resulted in a dual benefit with most of them deciding to take the internship. After the interviewing process was over, we found ourselves with an embarrassment of riches; we had two great candidates for this volunteer position. John Hatch, Trumbull resident, and Tim Washer, a Ridgefield resident. The solution we found was to create 2 separate programs: IN YOUR COMMUNITY and LOCAL EDITION. Without providing much guidance we wanted to see how each program might form around the personality of the host. We appreciate their patience and their generous nature for allowing us to pull them this way, and that way, to numerous shoots both studio and location, before guest after guest, sometimes with just a brief warning of the issue to be discussed.

Update: We would like to welcome Pyhllis Cortese, Newtown resident as our newest host of Local Edition. Tim Washer is still with us, we are currently developing a new program with Tim that audiences and interns will find fun and informative. Working Title: "Second Edition" Tim is king of the on-the-spot interview and we will be visiting different locations around Western CT and interviewing some of the areas most interesting people. Maybe you'll be our next guest?

With the help of these new hosts and the interns who sign on to help us, we continue to make community television something real and valuable to the 14 towns in Charter's Western Connecticut franchise.