So how are you doing with the analog-to-digital TV transition? I’m feeling like I’ve been hearing and reading about it for many, many months now, and admittedly ready to move on whether we have until June 12 for full digital mode or not. Then today I came across this piece in an index of stories by Media Matters of Main Street Project - It’s Not About Ugly Betty: The DTV Transition and Why It Matters. (Main Street Project is a community-based nonprofit civic engagement organization. Its work in Willmar has involved connecting our community with rural Latino capacity building initiatives.)
Policy Advocate, Bandon Lacy Campos, Center for Media Justice, drew me in to the larger, basic issue. He writes:
The right to information is a fundamental human right. More than 80% of American households still receive the majority of their news about the issues that impact them through their local television broadcasts. Anything that threatens easy and bountiful access to timely and accurate news and information has very real impacts on the lives of American people….
….From the left and the right, people have exclaimed that “TV is not a right!” And they are absolutely correct. TV is not a right. This transition is not about ensuring that folks get their Ugly Betty fix. This is about the fundamental human right to information and the responsibility of the federal government to ensure that right is protected for the least as well as the privileged. And this right is directly tied to economic and racial justice.
Read Campos’ entire article. For additional information on the Center for Media Justice, visit Rural Media Justice.
Lois Schmidt, NRS, Willmar
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Want some first hand information on the DTV Transition?
Attend our Meeting on Thursday!
Who? People Escaping Poverty Project and residents of Fargo-Moorhead
What? DTV Informational Meeting
Where? Centro Cultural Building
1014 19th Street South
Moorhead, MN
When? Thursday February 26th, 2009, 7pm-8pm
For more information and interviews contact:
Duke Shempp (218) 236-5434
Still in the dark? Fargo-Moorhead community to host informational meeting on the DTV Transition
Moorhead, MN-The People Escaping Poverty Project (PEPP) will be hosting a DTV Informational meeting on Thursday February 26th from 7pm to 8pm at the Centro Cultural Building in Moorhead.
The meeting will provide local residents the opportunity to get informed on everything they’ll need to make the transition. A representative from a TV station will be on hand to answer technical questions and staff from PEPP will provide up to date information on the government coupon program as well as resources for antennas, and converter boxes. There will also be free food, converter box door prizes, free information and a chance to have a hands on demonstration on how to set up equipment to receive digital broadcasts.
The federal government recently pushed back the DTV Transition date to June 12th in an effort to allow people more time to prepare. Although the date was pushed back, every television station was allowed to decide whether or not they’d continue broadcasting in analog and digital signal. In the Fargo-Moorhead area all televisions stations with the exception of WDAY Channel 6 made the transition to broadcast exclusively in digital on February 17th.
As a result many families have been left in the dark with only one functioning channel. In Fargo-Moorhead and the rest of the country, the communities most unprepared have been the ones with the least amount of financial resources, in particular communities of color, people with disabilities and senior citizens.
“It’s important to continue involving people in this transition. There’s a lot more to it than just plugging in a converter box,” said Duke Schempp, executive director of PEPP. “At this point television stations have stopped doing outreach, but we have to continue the education process so that we can have a true transition to digital television, rather than just some date.”
The People Escaping Poverty Project’s mission is to strategically challenge the power dynamics of systems and institutions, by organizing powerful people and resources through intentional relationships.
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