Members of the Durham community gathered Saturday to discuss the future of the city's public access television stations and the creation of a community media center.
After a revision in North Carolina law, the contract between local station Channel 8 and Time Warner will expire Jan. 1, 2009, and public access programming will no longer be aired. At "Imagining Durham Community Media"- a public forum hosted by the Durham Committee for Community Media-approximately 60 speakers and attendees offered ideas for the proposed media center and how it can facilitate more community-based public access programming once the contract with Time Warner ends.
Durham City Council member Mike Woodard, Trinity '81 and co-founder of WXDU at Duke, said he hopes public access programming will provide a critical assessment of issues facing the city that is organized by and directed to Durham residents.
"As a long-time citizen of Durham and a Duke graduate, I really care about that notion of telling Durham's story-and who better to tell our story fully than the people who live here?" he said.
After several speakers and clips of Durham-based public access programming, community participants broke into small groups to discuss specific aspects of the project. Each group presented its suggestions, and the notes from each group will be compiled for a follow-up meeting Oct. 25.
Rebecca Cerese, a committee member and local documentary filmmaker, said the committee hopes the new station will provide outlets to residents who do not have access to media to share their experiences. It would also give programs like Duke's Center for Documentary Studies an outlet to screen local work on a larger scale.
Cerese said the discussion was successful in generating conversation and interest.
"We thought a lot of people in Durham wouldn't even care about this issue because... people don't know about it," she said. "I feel like there was a lot of great energy and people were really excited about this possibility."
Chad Johnston, a member of the national board of the Alliance for Community Media and executive director of Chapel Hill's The Peoples Channel, said although Time Warner has fulfilled its obligation to facilitate public access television, a community-run channel could provide Durham residents with regular education and outreach opportunities.
"Community media is important because it lets communities tell their own stories," he said. "You get to see stuff, and you have the opportunity to go into the media and respond to that, and it creates this circle of people sharing ideas, thoughts and opinions."
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