Jonah Tebbett's Web log, The Iconoclast, provides links to reports on John McCain's visit to Northwest Arkansas

The Iconoclast says "The local Republican Royalty gathered in Rogers last night to show support for their party's presidential nominee."
Please use link below to read all about it. I suspect that Fayetteville's Government Channel wasn't invited to record this meeting. Maybe a CAT producer who was interested recorded part of it for us.


The Iconoclast documents an iconoclastic view of John McCain's visit to Benton County

I suspect that Fayetteville's Government Channel wasn't invited to record this meeting. Maybe a CAT producer who was interested recorded part of it for us.

This is the kind of event that well-budgeted C-Span can record and share with the public without requiring that it be a "fair, multi-sided meeting." The balance comes on C-Span because opposing partisan meetings are also covered the same way.

The ongoing attempt of a subcommittee of Fayetteville's telecommunication board to revise Government Channel policy includes discussion of a proposed "fairness committee" that would be charged with seeing that such partisan events either are not shown on City 16 or that equal time is provided to all other groups with competing views, in this case all other parties' candidates for the presidency. If the government channel covered it, gavel-to-gavel or equivalent coverage would be expected with no editorializing by the cameraman or any person in position to edit the tape.

On the CAT channel, the public-access rules allow a producer to record all or part of the meeting and edit any way he chooses and insert comment, different opinion or supporting opinion. A person viewing CAT cannot expect "fairness." If he wants the other side's view or his own view of the meeting shown, he can become a producer or enlist a CAT producer to prepare his show on the subject and submit for showing on CAT 18.

CAT's job is to provide the public a medium through which to share OPINION, information and entertainment, including entertaining commentary on public officials and their decisions with no restriction allowed by CAT staff members or the CAT board.
Government Channel's job is to provide the public a medium through which its "right to know" is ensured and its right to participate is ensured and to document public participation in the governing process by people speaking at meetings of government entities subject to the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.

The balance between the Fayetteville City Administration with its ability to hire, fire and assign duties to city employees and the Fayetteville City Council with its ability to approve budget limits for the Government Channel is a major concern that has been little addressed in the Telecom Board subcommittee's discussion.

Some people have complained that the City Administration has used its power to make changes in Government Channel "procedures" and scheduling of taping and broadcasts that sometimes result in one-sided coverage of some issues.

This may suggest that the biggest change in thinking is the way the Cable Administrator, or whatever the next manager of the government channel is to be called, would be selected and hired by the city administration without regard for input from the city council or the telecom board.

The Government Channel must be able to cover ALL city meetings and record EVERYTHING said and done in those meetings and see that it is shared with the public on cable television and the Internet without the possibility of suppression of any parts of such meetings.

And all such recordings must be archived permanently for posterity.

How a Government channel administrator is selected and supervised is a matter for City Council determination, as is the final version of the policy document being created by the Telecom policy subcommittee.

The importance of the government channel's administrator and staff being free from inappropriate political influence is something of the most extreme importance in the process of fulfilling their mandate to fulfill the intent of the policy document and the needs of people subject to the decisions of Fayetteville city government and other governmental agencies in the area.

No one involved in city government today was involved in the hiring of the previous government channel administrator some 14 years ago.

The selection of the next such administrator is of such importance that a broad-based search must be done and the choice must be made independently of political influence.

That means participation of the City Council and the Telecommunications Board.

Please see

Schedule for this week's government channel
and watch one of this week's showings of the policy meeting if you want a chance to judge the soon-to-be public policy proposal for yourself.
The document is actually read aloud during the meeting with limited comment and discussion. That won't happen again, although a finished proposed version may appear online at the same address soon.
Please see previous post on this Web log for related discussion.