TV3 Needs to do More Community Outreach

– Joe Viglione

There’s been a lot of chatter in town about the local TV station and how to bring access television to the attention of those who fund it – cable subscribers – and those who may benefit from it: cable viewers, Medford residents, members of civic groups, people affiliated with businesses in the city of Medford.

“Outreach” is a serious component of the contract Channel 3 Medford has with the city. It is not a vague term. According to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition it is: “The act or process of reaching out or A systematic attempt to provide services beyond conventional limits, as to particular segments of a community”

A politician looking to be elected stopped by our home in 2008 and chatted with me. I said “Why don’t you go on access television?” He wasn’t even aware that he could go on the “soap box” that is public access television.

He never got a phone call from his local TV station, or a letter in the mail, or any kind of personal knock on the door inviting him to participate in what is his TV station. So whatever “outreach” was happening at TV 3 never reached a politician. With that in mind, how will the everyday average Medford citizen ever hear about it?

It’s the responsibility of the TV station to reach out to the community to generate interest in access television. In order to communicate properly we don’t change the words in the dictionary, nor should a TV station change a definition of a word in order to avoid abiding by the rules.

The best form of “outreach” is by fostering access TV. This means no member of the board of directors or former member of the board should have “first dibs” on equipment or airtime if someone in the community has something to say. A “Board of Directors” is in place to ensure that the community has access, not the other way around. It is preposterous to turn on the television and see members of a non-profit board biting the hand that feeds. That is not Access TV and, rather than reaching out, it has the opposite effect – people tend to shy away from hostile atmospheres where people who are supposed to provide services feel persecuted, hold information close to the vest, and don’t believe in open and free elections so that talented individuals with experience and a passion for the medium are given the opportunity to build a better, more efficient, more responsible access station and community media center.

The Honorable Judge Marie O. Jackson-Thompson (retired) said in the paper about TV 3 “”I’m here to make sure that this TV station is the best it can be for ourselves and for our children…”

That’s all the public wants – the best possible use of the funding for the people of Medford.

Joe Viglione is a media professional who first hosted an access show in 1979 at 58 Day Street in Davis Square, Somerville, in the original Warner Cable studios before Somerville Community Access TV was formed. He has interviewed over a thousand personalities on radio and television, was the Director of Research for a corporation that created PBS specials for actor Paul Sorvino and mezzo soprano Marilyn Horne, and has essays published in over half a dozen books on music ranging from Rock to Country & Western, Hip Hop and other genres. His program, Visual Radio, is on in Mahnattan, Boston, Cambridge, Stoneham, Winthrop …dozens of cities and towns.