Collaboration and Inclusion: afternoon session

Belinda starts the session with the working question to which she responded here, and a call for introductions! (I missed several people in the following list.) Angie Yowell needs time to fully form Austin Media Revolution!. A journalism professor at UT wants grassroots media to reach out to graduate journalism students looking for volunteer work. John Kelly from We the People News in Corpus Christi can offer his experience in targeting a hyper-local news market, but needs help in technical journalism and expanding the scope of his website and coverage. Angelina Farlon can offer relationships with young people engaged in the arts, but they need partnerships with other Austin groups to help young people with media work. Matthew Gossage is an independent filmmaker who needs help with funding. Giovanni Galluci can help folks get their "15-minutes of fame" through his for-profit media work and analysis of social media. Donna Hoffman with the Sierra club needs grassroots media to pay attention to the hidden but vital work of environmental activists around the state. The founder of Secondstreetdreams.org needs advertisers and an audience. Celia Hughes, whose work is to make the arts accessible to disabled folks, can offer access to people with disabillities and workers in the area across the state. Carl Webb, with the local ACLU and Austin Freenet, can offer his network and would like help with his blog. Sue Ann, a public access producer, can offer help with videography and wants nobody banned from Public Access TV. The new Cooperative Access Network wants support for this new group as well as handling local access managers. Richard Smith with KAZI can offer training to radio broadcasting. Ramsey from Fort Worth, who works with a radical community center there, needs "people who know to do digital media." DeAnn with TEMP can offer successful strategies for media justice reforms in communities and across the country. Eric from Dallas iMedia is here to help document the session. A PACT show producer (didn't catch her name) needs help with sponsors, editing and media skills. A volunteer with a San Antonio public access TV needs help with sustaining the station.

How do we collaborate effectively? Folks mention a diversity of voices, trading advertisers, and better training for public access staffers. In Corpus Christi, says John Kelley, his community paper has been able to distribute and trade good content with mainstream and alternative media outlets. Donna from the Sierra Club feels like this summit has not addressed legislation on community media or how to influence it. Giovanni argues that this summit and session is failing to recognize the growth and ease of Internet media distribution and the concern for public access TV, which sort of provokes an outcry in the room. Several folks, including myself, speak out in defense of public access TV and how they help to fundamentally build community media. One session participant shares the story of a free Spanish-language community newspaper was the exclusive means of alerting immigrants and the Spanish-speaking population to the danger of starting home fires. Another participant suggests that the summit organizers include "what you want/need" in the directory itself. Concluding the session, several folks suggested that the Texas Community Media Summit facilitate this collaboration through its website by creating a forum and detailed directory.