Kenosha Community Media (KCM) invites you to take part in these upcoming activities:

•  Fridays, April 16 and 23 from 6-8 PM:  Take Your Photography To The Next Level.  Kenosha News photographer Kevin Poirier welcomes you to a two-evening course in the art of photography.   Call (262) 656-8497 to register.  This course is open to photographers of all skill levels.   Fee required.

• Saturdays, April 24, May 1 and May 8 from 8 AM-3 PM.   Video Production Course.   Don't just watch television, create it!   Learn video production as a hobby or for a future career by enrolling in Applied Video Production.   This course takes you through the basics in field production, TV studio production, and editing.  You'll receive hands-on training with equipment provided by Kenosha Community Media.   You'll create videos that you may air on Kenosha TV Channel 14 as well as online.  Call (262) 551-5924 to register.  Course is provided by Kenosha Community Media in association with Carthage's Enrichment and Continuing Education program.   Fee required.  Participants must be age 18 or older.

• Monday, April 26.   Southport Press/Sketchcrawl Kenosha Meetings.  Southport Press, the small press publishing division of KCM will host two meetings at Carolyn's Coffee Connection, 1351 52nd Street.  

From 6:00-6:30 PM, Southport Press will welcome everyone to learn about Sketchcrawl Kenosha.  Sketchcrawl Kenosha is a part of a world-wide network of sketchbook artists who enjoy documenting their community with the use of a pencil or a brush.  

Beginning at 6:30 PM,  Southport Press will host a follow-up meeting to its March gathering, so participants may work toward transforming ideas into projects that build community as they also reflect our area's rich environment in the arts, history, and culture.   Both events are free.  The public is invited.

• Saturday, May 15 at 10 AM.   Sketchcrawl Kenosha begins its Spring Crawl.   Meet at Carolyn's Coffee Connection, 1351 52nd Street, for a jolt of java or taste of tea before heading out with fellow artists to scenic destinations.   Destinations will be announced prior to May 15.   Join the Sketchcrawl Kenosha meeting on April 26 at 6 PM at Carolyn's Coffee Connection for details.  Photographers, writers, and videographers are welcome to accompany Sketchcrawl Kenosha and document the day and the surroundings.

 

Until this year, I'd never heard of white spaces or white space devices, yet, according to this article by Sascha D. Meinrath of New America Foundation, they "have the potential to be one of the most revolutionary new technologies to come along in the past twenty years".  Prometheus Radio Project has also recently provided an article on white spaces and promises more information in the near future. (While you're at the Prometheus Web site, please take time to read its home page on Prometheus ongoing' work to bring low power radio stations to more communities.)

Kenosha Community Media will be the videographer for the Community Spelling Bee, presented by the Kenosha Literacy Council.   This event takes place on Wednesday, April 22nd at the Madrigrano Auditorium of Gateway Technical College, 3520 30th Avenue, from 5:30-9:00 PM.   It features teams which represent area businesses and organizations and a panel of celebrity judges.   Tickets are $20.00 each or $150 for a table that seats eight.  

Local businesses and organizations will field their own spelling bee teams, competing for a team trophy, bobble-head individual trophies, and bragging rights. 

100% of proceeds support the English literacy programs of the Literacy Council. The 2009 Spelling Bee is sponsored in part by a generous donation from the John J. and Ruth F. Kloss Foundation.

For more information, visit the Kenosha Literacy Council Web site here.  The Literacy Council provides English literacy education to adults with the assistance of trained volunteers.

 

Kenosha Community Media and Kenosha Public Library want to hear from you about your favorite book, CD, magazine, DVD, or audiobook.   Visit Southwest Library, 7979 38th Avenue, Kenosha, on Saturday, April 11th from Noon-3:30 PM where Library mascot Book Bug and friends will invite you to appear in front of a Kenosha TV camera to give us your review in sixty seconds or less.   All ages are welcome.   Your video may appear on Kenosha TV 14, the KCM Web site, and on social networking sites of the Kenosha Public Library.   It's fun.  It's free.  Tell your friends about it.   This activity precedes National Library Week, April 12-18th.  Visit Kenosha Public Library online here.

 

 

One of my favorite Web sites is Ted.com (Technology • Entertainment • Design = TED) where some of the world's greatest thinkers and doers present their stories and ideas.  TED is embarking on a new experiment and hopes that someone like you, dear reader, may help them. 

Here's how: First become acquainted with TED.  New programs are available on a regular basis on this Web site.  I first became acquainted with TED through a link at ExposeKenosha.com which directed me to a marvelous talk by symphony conductor Benjamin Zander .  I later read his book, The Art of Possibility, which he co-authored with his wife, Rosamund, and am currently immersed in Mahler's 9th Symphony, conducted by Zander.  Zander is one of many creative thinkers who populate TED to share their wisdom and humor with you. 

Next, consider holding a salon or book club around TED content.  You could hold this activity in your home, at dinner parties, brown bag luncheons, or at the Kenosha Media Center, where you could screen TED videos on the Center's giant screen.  You could invite your friends and fellow Kenoshans to join you.  Your friends at Kenosha Community Media could help you put this type of activity together.    Anyone interested?

I read with dismay that Kenosha's online news source, The Daily Kenoshan, is for sale and could close down by the end of the month if no buyer comes forward.   I've enjoyed reading the Daily Kenoshan and hope I can continue to read it.   I think the future of journalism is online and that the Daily Kenoshan regularly has outdone that other news source/daily paper here in town.   Thank you to John Nordquist, owner/publisher of the Daily Kenoshan, Lisa Loring, editor, and all of the other contributors to it. 

How about it, Kenosha, will a viable new owner of this news source please come forward?  Click on the Daily Kenoshan logo for information.  You will be directed to DK's Web site.

 

In the heart of the media world, the City of Los Angeles, through California State legislation, appears to be shutting down public access television operations by the end of this year.  Read and hear more about this action at Full Disclosure.net

A little closer to home, the City of Madison's Mayor Dave Cieslewicz recently mentioned an idea to remove funding for WYOU, Madison's public access TV channel, and direct these funds instead to Madison City Channel, broadcaster of City meetings and civic activities.  As reported in the Madison paper, Isthmus, by Vikki Kratz, the Mayor's goal "is not to kill WYOU, but to find efficiences.  Kratz quotes the Mayor: "I understand WYOU provides a service.  I want to discuss with them if there's a way to do it differently."   WYOU has since launched a petition for the Madison area to save its station.

Entry revised 10/01/08.   Since this blog was posted, Madison's Mayor announced he would not cut funding to WYOU in 2009, but would seek to cut it by 50% in 2010, and to cut funding entirely in 2011.    Read and view more on this story at WYOU.

Entry revised 10/03/03.  Los Angeles isn't the only California city in which public access TV faces extinction.   In Ventura County, public access TV operations to the City of Ojai face the end of operations by year's end.  As reported on the Ojai Valley News Blog by Nao Braverman, "Public access cable services provided by Time Warner, which have dwindled over the years, will be terminated at the end of December, according to Time Warner’s spokesperson Patricia Fregoso."

 

  Check out the third category from the bottom of the WGTD website (of the Gateway Technical College's radio station) for Associated Press and WGTD short videos.  Click on one of the subjects, and you get to a screen where there are lots of choices of subjects, from Local to World, Hurricane Footage, Politics, Health, Show Biz, and other subjects.

One drawback is that you are forced to wait for a 15 second video commercial to play before each video you choose will play.  I made that a little less annoying by turning down the sound of my computer during the commercials.

Another drawback is that I wish my computer would load the video faster. But it’s pretty interesting anyway. Has a lot of potential to be even better, I think, when more video is on it.

. . . and its name is Denver Open Media.  Geoff Daily at App-rising.com wrote an excellent article recently about activities in Denver, CO to "develop a model for PEG access (public/educational/government) access centers that introduces new efficiencies through automation and open source software, and that redefines what it means to have a community channel".  It applies opportunities used by the public to upload their videos to YouTube and other online locations to the arena of PEG access television.   Denver's access TV programming schedule is determined by its viewers, who are invited to vote on the shows they enjoy.  This feedback determines the programming schedule on the TV channel.   This voting procedure has had its challenges in Denver, but its staff is working to make it fair and efficient.

Recently, New York radio station WYNC posed the question: “In the era of YouTube and other citizen media like blogs, online social networks, and wikis, is public access television still relevant?”   What's your opinion?

An article by Josh Goodman at Governing.com reports, “one could argue that public access TV has outlived its usefulness. In the era of Internet video, anyone with a digital camera or cell phone can broadcast his musings around the globe with minimal effort.”  In a Concord Monitor article, Georgia Tech professor Hans Klein says, “I'm a sympathizer. But it hasn't worked. It's hard to find someone whose life is not touched by Internet-based community media.”

Others continue to find tremendous relevance today in public access TV. Cliff Jacobs of Queens (NY) Public Television writes, “The Borough of Queens is the most ethnically diverse community in the United States. Mainstream television can not cater to the needs of such a diverse community. QPTV's independent producers create programs for our multi-cultural community. Without these multilingual programs, many of our viewers would be devoid of a lifeline to their community.”

Several years ago, Public Access of Indianapolis published an online profile of media activist George Stoney in which Mr. Stoney argues that the Internet has not replaced public access TV. “It's getting the attention of a lot of people, but it doesn't replace the need for group action,” he said. “So much of the Internet is individual stuff.” He adds, “So many people have their own cameras, but even if they have editing software on their computers at home, they lack the kind of group discussions and leadership that makes their stuff look competent and carry a full message.”

Lauren Glen-Davitian, Executive Director of Cambridge Community TV commented last year (after winning the George Stoney Award for Humanistic Communication), “Free speech is more than just shouting out into the wilderness . . . Just because you can post something on YouTube doesn’t mean you have free speech.”  Her interview appeared in an article by Ken Picard for Seven Days--Vermont's Independent Voice.

Our own organization Kenosha Community Media, Inc. has only recently stuck its toe into Internet-waters with development of a Web site, an e-newsletter, YouTube videos, and this blog, but these features—while they certainly can be improved upon and added to—do not replace, but instead enhance, KCM's purpose to provide a community conversation among citizens of Kenosha, Pleasant Prairie, and Somers, WI on ideas, issues, services, events and activities that are important to them and our community.