April News From the Open Media Foundation

Launched in 1995, Free Speech TV is an independent, publicly-supported, non-profit TV multi-platform digital media pioneer. Using both television and the Internet, Free Speech TV inspires viewers to become civically engaged to build a more just, equitable, and sustainable society. Free Speech TV is a 501(c)3 non-profit, tax-exempt organization. Free Speech TV is based in Denver, CO.

What are the issues that you are trying to bring to a larger audience?
Free Speech TV is working to turn the corporate model of television on its head. Corporations use television to sell audiences to advertisers, they want to turn people into consumers, convince them to buy more stuff. Free Speech TV uses media to encourage people to become active not just as consumers, but as global citizens.

What are some of your primary goals for 2010?
Free Speech TV is working to bring our news programs like Democracy Now!, GRITtv with Laura Flanders, The Thom Hartmann Program, Gay USA, and our investigative documentaries to a wider audience on satellite, cable, the internet, and mobile devices. In this depressed economic environment, we are also, like most other non-profits, working very hard to not only keep our signal on the air, but to grow. Free Speech TV is independent because the majority of our support comes directly from our viewers, and we want to stay beholden to these interests, not to corporate foundations or government. So we have to find new ways to pay our bills.

What are some of the projects you have worked on with the Open Media Foundation?

Free Speech TV can boast a unique connection with the Open Media Foundation, giving a small start-up grant to the organization for editing equipment in the early 2000s. The Open Media Foundation took that modest level of support and grew it against near-impossible odds (to the credit of founder Tony Shawcross and his steadfast team) into a vibrant organization. Free Speech TV also partnered with the Open Media Foundation on the televised version of the Pan African Arts Society's "Cafe Nuba" series. Denver Open Media was also co-producer on Free Speech TV's "The Activist Studio," a series promoting Denver based community activism.

How has using television/video/web allowed your organization to reach a wider audience?
Progressive communities have long used media to spread the word, from "human media," sermons in churches growing power into a civil rights movement, to leaflets protesting the Vietnam War, or micro-radio calling attention to child labor in sweatshops. Free Speech TV is the first television network amplifying these progressive voices. We reach some 30 million U.S. homes on satellite and cable, and even more globally via the internet.

Why is community TV so important?
Even in the age of the internet and "Web 2.0" hype, television remains the most powerful communications medium of our day. For fairly obvious reasons, television in the U.S. has been monopolized by a small handful of conglomerate corporations. Community television can do what these companies can't, or won't, do. It can connect communities with similar interests, and help them identify and articulate their most pressing concerns without fear of censorship. It can serve as a public forum, where community concerns can be debated, and residents can build consensus around proposals for solutions. When consensus is built and plans actualized, community media can document promises made by those in power, so that they can be held accountable, or removed if they do not act in the best interest of the community. Communities need more than commerce from media, they need media that serve public interests. The Open Media Foundation is uniquely positioned, and has demonstrated that it can be effective, to serve this critical function in Denver.