From the Director:

Greetings!

We are treasuring our October memories, from the extraordinary filmmaker visits during our Human Rights Film Series (watch for our Pull Focus interviews with them!) to the astonishing experience of watching a “SuperPat” animation in Women in Film and Video's tribute video. In November, if you’re going to the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam, please look for me. And if you’re in the D.C. area, please join us for several events, including Public Media Camp. And I almost forgot--mark your calendars for Media That Matters, our February 10-11 conference, now held in conjunction with our friends Arts Engine and still in the Katzen Arts Center at American University.

See you soon!

Pat Aufderheide

Future of Public Media
Momentum Builds for Reforming Public Media Policy
Calls to rethink the policies that undergird public media are on the rise, matched by an increase in the pace of innovation by traditional public broadcasters.  CSM has been working with the New America Foundation to examine reform proposals and imagine how public media might better serve democracy. More...

KCET Changes the Landscape in Local Programming

Los Angeles public broadcasting station KCET recently announced that it would no longer pay PBS dues to run national programming. What might this mean for public media? CSM Research Director Jessica Clark and Research Fellow Ellen Goodman weigh in at the Los Angeles Daily News. More...

Mobile Media "Hackathon" Shows New Way to Prototype News Tools
Journalists and programmers converged in Chicago to create prototypes of six mobile applications as part of the Independent Media Mobile Hackathon on Oct 9-10. Over the two-day convening, sponsored by The Media Consortium and Hacks/Hackers more than 50 participants broke into teams to develop competing smart phone applications aimed at bridging user engagement, journalism and fun. More...

Out in the Silence Serves as Rallying Point for Rural LGBT Advocates
The bullying that many gay youth face has been much in the news recently, as commentators and activists respond to the suicide of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi. LGBT residents of small towns across the country can face such bias their entire lives.  The documentary film Out in the Silence, released last September, explores such issues faced by LGBT residents of Oil City, Pennsylvania.  Here we examine the filmmakers’ effective engagement strategies. More...

Public Media Showcase
In this month’s Public Media Showcase, we continue our research into local public broadcasting news experiments. Katie Donnelly takes a look at a new, cross-platform engagement project in St. Louis with “KETC Works With Community on ‘Homeland’ Immigration Project” and explores the varying growth of Local Journalism Centers (LJCs) in “CPB-Funded Local Journalism Centers Grow in Fits and Starts.” Additionally, Christopher Ali examines WHYY’s NewsWorks Program (which will launch officially on November 15) with “The Evolution of WHYY’s NewsWorks Website.” More...

NCME Hosts “Gaming for Greater Good” Webinar

On October 13, the National Center for Media Engagement (NCME) hosted a webinar exploring new games addressing financial literacy and science education. The discussion was just one in a series of NCME webinars examining the intersection of public media and engagement. More...

Fair Use and Copyright Open Video Conference: Geeks, Wonks, Buzz                               The second Open Video Conference, held October 1-2 in New York's Fashion Institute of Technology (directions included “turn left at the Knitting Lab”), pulled together almost 1,000 people passionately invested in accessible, open online video. More... Fair Use Question of the Month This month’s question comes from a woman wanting to transform the lyrics of a popular song to fit the message of a PSA.  In our answer, we address how to grapple with fair use questions outside the codes of best practices. More...