Q: What does Free Speech mean to you?
Answers from Community TV Volunteers on Martin Luther King Day 2017:
Ability to express who I am. Not a right, a need
Ability to speak your mind freely, openly, and honestly without fear of prejudice or mockery or punishment
Ability to voice your opinions
America!
A privilege
A fundamental human right
Community TV
Expressing opinions without fear of punishment
Feeling safe to be able to discuss topics possibly not otherwise
Feeling of others, also caring for everyone
Freedom to yell, “I’m Free.”
Free speech is being able to say what you want, zero f’cks given
Love
Love is all from sources
My opinion matters, no apologies
Our existence
Rock-n-Roll
Speaking your mind on what’s important to you, no matter how, what, or who you offend
Speaking your mind without fear
The right to express my opinions without fear of reprisal, either governmental or private
The right to have an opinion
To see from a different perspective
Truth!
Extending an invitation to friends of WPAA-TV that are committed to
Safety of persons, regardless of race, class, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
Diverse opinions, dissent, and argument are not only tolerated, but invited.
Active listening and courageous exchange are fundamental values.
Collective action, activism, and community engagement, both within and outside the walls of the theater, are cultivated, encouraged, and supported
On January 19, 2017 at 5:30 p.m. in each time zone across the country, members of the theater community will come together to launch the Ghostlight Project (previously The Sanctuary Project.) Gathering outside of theaters on the eve of the Presidential Inauguration, people will join in a collective, simultaneous action, together creating “light” for challenging times ahead. Inspired by the tradition of leaving a “ghost light” on in a darkened theater, these artists and communities will make a pledge to continued vigilance and increased advocacy with an ongoing commitment to work for social justice and equity in the coming years, serving these principles.
studioW within WPAA-TV will be ‘LIVE as TV ‘ for an hour of sharing by ‘ghost light’. Speaking poems, essays, prayers, monologues. Voice participants will be from Wallingford/Wallingford gatherings/groups. If you can not attend but have heartfelt words to share – we will find someone to represent you.
Note: Threats to 501 (c) 3 status have already happened. Per IRS for an organization to be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) it cannot “participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements) any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.” etc.
Community grows from knowing we are alive not for ourselves but for one another. The fruit of such knowing is a capacity to make the interests of others more important than one’s own.
The CommUnity Conversations initiative was built on this idea.Thanks to the informing Contributors:Chris Porter of Porter Financial Strategies with JP Venoit CEO Masonicare, Richard Towne VITA Volunteer, WLFD with Amy Girdzis VITA Volunteer,Cheshire, David Lyman Owner Blue Trail Range with Doug Odishoo Owner Delta Arsenal, Sarah Dolski Formerly of Wallingford Emergency Shelter with Ann Faust Middlesex County Coalition on Housing and Homelessness, Randi Redmond OsterCo-founder and President Help Me Health TM with Ken Lalime President HealthyCT.Org , Jenifer Daismont Chicken Wrangler with Jeannine Kremzar Egg Lady, Chris Bishop Xavier & Wallingford Little League with Sean Doherty CEO Wallingford Family YMCA, Melissa Zuppardi-Bozzi with Alecia DagerCoalition for Better Wallingford, Christine Mansfield and Bob Devaney Wallingford 350 Committee, Marcia Roman Women and Families Center (WFC) with Rosie Agudo Chrysalis, Abby Marks Beale Homeopathy Healings with Lisa Catherine Health Educator, Frank DiCristinaAllnex Site Manager with Charlie Cappannari Retired, 30 yr employee, Randi Redmond OsterCo-founder and President Help Me Health with Jill Wruble, OD Diagnostic Radiologist Yale School of Medicine and still in production but promising conversation between Cinthia Perez BSW with Daniel Aguiree, JD, MBA Produced by Monica M. Vargas of SCOW
You too can nurture commUnity by contributing in conversations in the public interest. In all CommUnity Outreach undertaken at WPAA-TV, volunteers and staff strive to put ‘unifying for the betterment of #W06492’ into practice.Join Us
How do you listen? What is in the media you select? Are you open to discovery, conversation, and engagement to be better informed, or have you set our own filters to tune into those you have decided to trust or causes which you decided to care about? Are you ignoring, distrusting, or growing more unaware? Are you being bombarded by the reinforcing of divisive messages?
The sheer prevalence of content requires us to consciously set filters. How can choosing our media filters be made a less perilous road to travel? Some guiding questions are:
Who or what can be my trusted sources?
What am I interested in knowing more about?
How can I expand my comfort zone?
How can I steer clear of becoming part of collective distrust, anger and hate?
This article by a Yale history professor provides a 20-point guide to defending democracy. Here is the link.
Prior to the Internet, Community Media emerged to expand access to tools as a means of distribution on Mass Media from a hyper-local perspective. The subsequent emergence of Internet speech suggests access to Mass Media is no longer the essential opportunity for the preservation of robust and egalitarian debate among diverse even antagonistic voices. Its evolution suggests that access to humanity’s overall potential across the globe relies on fair and equitable access to communication distribution systems be they solar panels and smartphones or 5G cell towers.
Democracy becomes eroded by the elephant in the room. The unprecedented communication power of the Internet and social media amplifies the equity challenges of leveling the playing field, transparency, and accountability for peer-to-peer communication, user-generated content, new media, and new infrastructures. Adding to the inequity is the matter of linguistic virility—as pieces of misinformation spreading quickly from person to person behaving like viral mechanisms—unfiltered in the last mile by eyes, ears, and mind of the receiver of content.
What is the community media role in supporting information and media literacy? Local, primary source stories remain vital to the discerning of truth in a world battered by viral misinformation. Should community media resolve to be #InformationLiteracy #MediaLiteracy #DigitalLiteracy training grounds?
As a nonprofit corporate entity, Wallingford Public Access Association, Inc. is dedicated to providing all manner of support for the creation and distribution of noncommercial community media. Noncommercial doesn’t mean there is a blackout on the use of ‘Community TV’ resources by for-profit businesses. The ‘no can do’ is literally no commercials: videos with calls to action for sales or free consultations, testimonials, or other vehicles to promote a business specifically to create sales.
Businesses have stories to share about their history, founders, champions among their employees, community collaborations, and mission, all of which are important stories to be shared with our community. Thriving local business is important to the health and well-being of our community overall.
For-profit companies can afford Media Services. Providing video services at no charge to businesses is not part of our mission. However, collaboration and distribution of stories that are not designed to sell products are within our mission. Businesses can participate in initiatives such as our annual Holiday Greetings Program and the show CommUnity Conversations.
Registered businesses may use resources with the same conditions as residents creating their own informational content. And nonprofit businesses can apply for our ‘Continuing the Mission’ initiative for which we dedicate our staff resources to develop video content for TV and social media. Any business with a footprint in Wallingford may request use of our tools & stage and volunteers to promote programs benefiting some segment of Wallingford.
When you stop in to complain … we first determine if you know anything about us. If you do not pass the quick assessment of knowing us, then you will be given some basic information but not much valuable, unpaid time of volunteers.
Why? Because we know you are not a regular viewer or follower of WPAA-TV. It is easy to determine if you accidentally came across the content that offended you. Our viewers are most often pull viewers. They tune in to see something in particular or think that we are a potentially informing, or maybe even an entertaining alternative, when nothing else is appealing on TV at the moment.
Another thing we know. You are assuming your local tax dollars are paying for what we do. Not so.
Adult Content can be Profane
Adult Content. Yes: After 10:00 PM and before 5:00 AM program content MAY USE adult language. It is legal. We are cable. We are free speech. Content is not censored. You just may not SELL stuff here.
For more information on what can be cablecast on a public access channel read this FCC documentation entitled Obscene, Indecent and Profane Broadcasts.
Citizen Media is not Public Affairs Programming, although it can be done in the interest of the public. Citizen Media can be raw or highly produced. It is often a blend of authentic and quirky. Within its content, you might notice opinions, ideas, and even aspirations. It can be coverage of an event, one or more people talking, commentary on, or presentation of, local news; the perspective of the producer will always influence what you see and hear. Under the Community Media umbrella, this is the Public Access component.
Public Access and Public Affairs are different. Public Affairs can also be coverage of events. Typically, it is recording a speaker or gavel-to-gavel meetings. It may also be conversation but the people involved are more likely to be following a script and be presenting the perspective of an agency as interpreted by current leadership rather than their own point of view. Within Community TV, this is traditionally Government Access and sometimes Education Access.
In Wallingford, the public library recently expanded its services and invited the media and the public to the opening of its #Collaboratory. Two community media videos were produced from this opening. Each production exemplifies how the same community experience can tell a similar but not identical story exemplifying the intrinsic differences between these two forms of community media.
Free Speech: Symbolic protest against injustice and name-calling of those that protest injustice. All lawful.
If you want to be heard or make-a-difference you choose your platform and symbols and take action with the courage because there will be haters that will try to take you down, obliterate your message and derail your purpose. Free Speech with purpose is no easy road. It is however easy to hurl insults, denigrate and be dismissive. Choose your voice. Because collectively all voices being heard are the promise of America.
Lawful Speech is Constitutionally protected in America
Take note of what is NOT protected by the constitution: Written or spoken words, pictures, signs, or other forms of communication
that tend to defame, discredit, criticize, impugn, embarrass, challenge or question ‘the government’, its policies, or its officials; speech that advocates the ‘overthrow of the government’ by force or violence or that incites people to change the government by unlawful means.
Whether the alleged use is a ‘political statement’ or not, whether it is a ‘parody’, or not: the decision for someone to express themselves—whether quoting a news article, an opponent or the lyrics of a Pokemon song, we must remember it is the speech of the person who chooses to make it AND considerations of free speech and the First Amendment need to be taken into account. This needs to happen any time someone proposes a legal restriction on speech, whether through the laws of defamation, obscenity, rights of publicity, trademark, or copyright.
Just because copyright law is relevant in a particular instance doesn’t mean that we disregard free speech. We can’t make the mistake of thinking that copyright law provides us with a First Amendment-free zone, or that the basic ideals underpinning our laws are conditional, pro forma, or mere buzzwords.
Very little is original, much of life is a remix: Creating and transforming in the speech space is a desirable outcome with challenges to discern originality, ownership and purpose. Do not let the challenges stop you. #PowerfulWildFree4Art
Does every idea need to be nurtured? Does every cause need brick & mortar? Does every suffering need a solution without regard for duration of effect? Can outcomes be made better even within compromise? Is engagement of diverse voices beneficial? How do you define diversity?
Individuals brought together to steward a cause or govern an organization must answer these questions often.
Every offered idea needs a listen. If offered, it is part of the bigger picture; however, ideas that are nurtured should be well connected to a vision and strategy. More importantly it must be embraced by those responsible for its execution and be viable within risks levels reviewed collectively. Here is where emotion meets reason.
Place: Big decisions like occupying or buying a space have substantial cost impacts and commitments of time. Here the benefits of ready access to a space must be counter weighted by the energy and resources the space itself requires. This goes beyond rent or mortgage payments and includes the mundane essentials like housekeeping, other essentials such as utilities and security and then the furnishings. Donors can rally around the visibility of B&M but leaping from an all hands on deck volunteer organization funded event by event to a month to month operation is big. Is the cause big enough? Is there community space that can be your home?
Reaching Horizon Goals: The decision about the place.
It is the goal of many great causes — to someday not be needed. If your cause should have a horizon then investing in the programs and processes to ensure your closing is optimal. Let reason guide your desire to become a legacy so that your legacy may live on.
The voices of many can be a cacophonous vacuum, a rallying cry for change or a community coming together where they can. You never find out what you share without letting the voices of others be shared.
It is our humanity and connection that shall govern the better in all compromise.
