wouldn't put this together the lot to talk about i was very encouraged by that meeting that you all had here and everything but there are antenna up we want to keep that mr reagan's they trust but verify the reality and so forth but we'll talk about that and is really glad put this together great to be with you today here always good to see you and welcome welcome very much to conversations a pleasure welcome to the program dan coplan dan conklin's the executive director here at manhattan neighborhood network and we're going to be talking with him about matters of communication particularly to relate to public access and the public's access to communication in terms of the current situation her little of the historical and particularly the future and then welcome really very much conversation always good to see great to see her share just a little bit of your own background your personal background you were involved in pacifica and that sort of thing and then we'll get into a discussion of the current status of public access cable television and the public's  here in new york and in the caribbean and work for a wire service called into press service rd world news agency is a nonprofit independent press organization that sought to provide independent into press service sought to challenge the gemini of the two large european and american wire services and from there i went to pacifica radio do you ever feel like daniel and  isn't that kind of a it was a very big thing because they were press began in the sixty's and the kind of rode the wave of the post colonial period right lot of new countries were coming year or actually in africa and asia colonial powers right the eyeshot regime that's right all that modern and so i mean it could be something as simple as a cup of coffee you know typically the a p might say bad news folks coffee is going to cost more money but i don't hear from global south of the world that's a huge issue in terms that with the world the status of the historically inherited institutions so favor those who are favored and there are so many within the world order that are not well served by the establish order and there is a dialectic there that really has to be addressed by people of conscience are concerned yeah i mean you have to you know lift yourself out of the box right and you have to you know look at the issues or events from a different perspective if you're live in africa or latin america or the caribbean you know your worldview is completely different and therefore the media institution which reflect that have to reflect that point of view and i think some of the huge issues facing the mass media to is that's not happening because the global information system is dominated by by a small handful of corporations and companies who don't share the math the vast majority point of view or day to day experiences and he and i both very skewed that point of view experience is not really adaptable to the business model right in many case and that's why i think that's where i public access is no right to exactly the same public access came out of in the seventies and cable the pacifist movement out of the bay area out of the c e o camps the conscientious objector campaign and world war two a lot of people a lot of pacifists oppose the war but also they wanted to give primacy to a diversity democratic society and particularly the emerging where we have more and more capacity for that it made it possible for there to be many many voices molls that led a one million voices or it could be we're going to let that one billion voices ring because the technology is moving so quickly now in terms of liberating to mock ising access and capability for people to communicate to previously have been through the locked out by the by the by the established system yes that's true but those distribution that one can are still open to the public because those open to anyone so anyone can come in and talk about things and enjoy it here at man i would just say to you i being unbiased in the way i think man at neighborhood network is one of the best institutions ever created in the history of the universe that we live in or that yeah and even to add the movement we are part of that the thing that had should be aware of it it's amazing i mean we are definitely part of a not only just a movement here in new york city but around the country and around the world  increasingly and manhattan neighborhood what network in particular you can just come by here on a saturday and was extraordinary have a ray of things happening of different groups from all across the city all across the world here using the facility  doing amazing programming on a variety show or camera training and the staff are fantastic in helping out the and it is a remarkable institute worked out really well here in some places there were part of a larger movement around the country i'm not sure how many of these public access to the ladies there are around the country a couple one thousand maybe not in two thousand a moment pop some of not and then those questions are relating and getting it back to resource to be able to build this alternative medium that is open to the public as it were yeah i think one of the keys to people rather than just the pros yeah that's one of the keys to public access and why it's so important i think another critical one is it's local character ok where you get a chance to to have local community groups local people access the media and that's so important especially in an age of consolidation we remember i mean this came out really clearly with the situation just a few years ago in my not no with the dakota where an ammonia train derailed and the local police went to the local radio station trying to alert people there the to the reality of the lonely train but you know the meadow that the localism i think is not just one essential character but there's another really important point about media which is that even with the local media the commercial nature of that media often prevents a diversity of views so you have money both local and noncommercial one example that is a great combination if it can work and it seems to have been able to work pretty well in this realm of public access cable television and public access the television i mean there's the blending of that with the internet and things that are going on here you very hopeful that many if you see it in rd way there's a great deal of democracy seen by the advance of communications that it's a hopeful air at the same time you want to keep an eye on the people that have you know different business models and so forth but it's a pretty hopeful time don't you think yeah i think that there's a  have had some effect amassing a nationwide campaign i think many viewers might know it more around the battle around net neutrality it was about taking away local accountability over the city streets and placing that accountability in washington so that big companies could not have to negotiate or not be accountable to local municipalities yet it seems to me that that course they do have  as we look ahead now they're going to be accountable even through our city council and that sort of thing in a local living and that's an important question in terms of about saving public access as it is that there's yeah and it's important for media i gave the example to my not nor the case of ammonia and from urgency reasons we can all understand that you have to have local access it's important for things like traffic you know how or whether but it's also really important for a city like new york motive we're a clear channel for time warner or a comcast or of horizon and they want to have a national one size fits all approach because it's easier then for them for profitability right right and and the local character is that wiped out and lost that really a fax local communities all across the country in so many different ways either it's my not north dakota or the one hundred and eighty nine languages here spoken here in new york city that richness and five percent of the what the people of the united states of america see hear and read that kind of thing and that is not right or that's not appropriate in terms of one favors a certain sense of democratic order where you know everybody at a that but yes so you get it and it's just so it's so much the same the same lowest common denominator that that comes out in that and what you lose in that process obviously specially if it's local and nonprofit characters and richness of diversity that you get with them and that you get with a lot of community radio or community television stations or even local newspaper which are also facing those same challenge and the independent media movement in general and then that's tied into a world independent media and so it's a really interesting thing what is made it possible for public access to be able to function the way they do they have a business model are things set up where they're able provide all of these facilities as they do to the citizens of manhattan and it is all free of charge which is a good price in any currency so that anyone who comes here does not have to be looking out to make the not in order to get the business and you know that sort of thing they can come here just to be what's made it possible that is that we have a relationship with the cable companies that there's some public service some public payback as it were negotiated through an agency that gives some three with income to make that possible as an intervening agency between the folks so they can produce it without being involved in the marketplace considerations that are pro as to be and that sort of maybe you could just talk to that in the importance of well it's actually not so much a telecommunications or media issue ironically it's an issue to do with land yeah ok land use it's like an oil wow or the central park or your concession on a city street a hotdog stand near what is happening is the time warner the telecommunications company the cable company is digging up the city streets now that's one laying their cable and because of that they have to negotiate with the local city and they have to pay for the use of the public property that property and all of the god there is that regulatory aspect to this right thank goodness there is that it's a critically critically important here in new york city where you have you might have a telecom box in the streets in their city ordinances that says if there's graffiti on a for more than twenty days  has to be clean interest you know all kinds of things you don't even think about are really important because the reason is because the accountability for the city streets relies with the city officials in our case the mare's off that's right do it rex writes if you have a problem with your city three there are you know you call the city where they can be held accountable for management of the of the of the highways the run public right of way so the issue of time warner or cable is really an issue over public land use ok and the cable companies and the telecommunications company obviously want to pay as little as possible and make as much money as possible and they do and they think it might be worth mentioning that there's also that fact that it's not only the inconvenience of tearing up the street it also isn't access to a very lucrative market in any place where the cable is able to go and that's something that may be worth taking some cognisance yeah exactly so you know and gas drilling and how the oil companies don paying their fair share of royalties to the public coffers for use that public land for private property same thing mining for three runs so many different parts of the use of the public lands in the united states and around the world is a situation of really of lack of fairness for local and he said the same thing is true here in new york city time warner cable is realized by the time warner company by having access to the new york city market the is that correct it's just it's much more than that actually but that's just for their video service that their video that's what they generate in revenue to you know service apart from their their telephone service and their internet there in the internet service and excluding those just from their video just from what you see on your cable so that that that that that cable into the home is  authorise tremendous revenue for the company and what we're talking about tearing up the streets that interesting as a public thing but that and access to markets is not only to the access to the raw materials that you are saying in some country it's access to the market which is really important in any company and we should ought to keep that in mind that they that that awfully large figure you're probably too young to remember the evan charlie show how to represent back in the fifty's it was the house of representatives and there was another money you know and that's the thing that's worth keeping in mind that that's a relationship that i think probably a lot of people would come would find interesting so they're able to negotiate a certain payment fee out of the from the cable provided about less than one half of one percent of that one billion two hundred million dollars went to public access about five and a half one million out of the one billion two hundred million dollars was provided to public access in the five boroughs of new york city and national average what happens in pocatello idaho what happens in portland oregon that going to being a massachusetts or anything yeah it depends on the municipality in in some cases some cities get very little but in many cases  interesting lee enough harold in some cities public access centers public educational government access centers are getting maybe two hundred and thirty three and a half or even up to four and a half percent in some municipality to think it would be good to bring up wouldn't it yes and in fact in the washington new legislation in washington which has since died on the baseline the minimum amount that was being required of cable companies to pay for public access was one percent of gross revenue that was the minim in new york city one half of one less than one half of one percent so we have some other people to call attention to when we come into that negotiating process it would seem to me absolutely and not only is it's not fair yeah it's happening in new york city i think compared to other cities yeah but new york city is so unique absolutely of its own character its own historic role in media in communiqu as in film and television and we know that really this is such an integral part of the city and the future of the city that there ought to be much more commitment by the city and certainly by the cable companies to supporting free speech and community media  certainly when you see the level of extraordinary a windfall profits that is being generated through public property through access to the public street riot right now it's just it's  big guys aren't playing pan their fair share they don't have a good up to the marketplace and that sort of thing and a lot of these things are not things that do it would serve in the marketplace it wouldn't serve a business model marketplace thing but it serves the public very well because it deals with what the people really want that's called democracy i think that's the word for that sort of thing a democratic order and it thing and there are a lot of people who just see that they would say well if you want to do it why don't you go out and you know they said go out and hire no go threats to this public access for one thing we should make it available to people understand that it is open to anybody in manhattan to come here and say i want to be a producer they have the equipment if i'm not mistaken that is very comparable to what is used within the network  somebody said the microphone that we use here is the same microphone that mr bush uses when he put the national address and i mean they've got editing systems that democratically are making available to them the same technology  that the fellows in the network of men and women in the network have so it's all made available to any citizen or group here in manhattan for free you've got a thing with that doesn't mean you don't have to get it you don't have to make  nut you know you don't have to beat your investment cost or something like that if you're in that that's a different kind of context for creating media than one where it's all done in a business model and so forth and if that is that's an important distinction in terms of the equipment but under the same conditions and yeah and it's a beautiful model and it seems in a certain sense of i made in the technological evolution of things it seems to be there are things going on because the equipment keeps get rude you remember the old days and you had to do  thing to carry it to make the program now it's down is getting smaller it's getting more and more and better the technology is evolving we've got these systems that are you can do editing on your it we've got you tube now we've got all kinds of things that are bringing capability in tech now g to a level we're getting down to the people that are real revolution and communication might be in the offing here as we sit and talk in november two thousand i think the word revolution is is absolutely appropriate ok reminiscent movable type created a whole world wide revolution you know i think in a similar way the you know what is happening with the new digital technologies whatever they're e m put this in and whatever their intent or motivation it's creating this tremendous opportunity i think for people all over the world to to communicate as never before and that's why public access can what can happen here now  create patterns the recognition between them their interest groups that can be seen out at a local global scale down can reach out with those local understanding so it's a communications thing going we've been in can be the access it's been a phenomena of cable it couldn't happen it seemed to be in the in the networks there where they were and there was a technological evolving cable is there had an increased channel capacity made that a vailable but we are maybe as we're talking about effort couple of minutes there because there have been within that cable realm public access cable television and there have been threats to the basis by which these cable access is the livy's around the country and as you say around europe and around the world now we're being we're being talent's by some of the big players and so forth who wanted to set a different thing what's the status of all that we've been doing a great deal of attention with the save a at the cope bill looking at the net neutrality you mentioned before that's a very important issue that getting up get into digital what's the status of that threat and what is the attitude we here ought to have and also the citizenry concern citizenry ought to have as far as the future development of the education policy in this country in the world well it's something that you have to be vigilant about banking that the regular the main you know the water corporations they're continuing to push they're continuing to concentrate ownership there and in a ruthless in a way search for ever expanding markets and higher profits down to about five or six now you know it always seems to be getting smaller all with you know very political agendas and but any rate they moved into washington d c recently with the telephone companies trying to pass this legislation to take away those companies are growing right rather in search of you know another outlet are going to state capitals all across the country and try to get more sympathetic legislation passed by the state local countability the local city council the local diversity or any responsibility to the local community that's right so that level of accountability they're trying to wipe out but of course those who believe in democracy yet in fairness  enormous profit with no payback with a community at all very little seemed like a bad deal for the folks in that case and the other and there's a large constituency and the thing i remember years ago michael powell was trying to favor or mergers and we have to keep an eye on right yeah because it's not just remember it just wasn't the free speech advocates run but it's also for instance civil rights organizations ok because the big phone companies and the big cable companies have wanted to red line neighborhood show  they do bad by gentrification right and just go for the rich neighborhood just provide services to the wealthy and not to even working class middle class neighborhoods you know want to do it so with local accountability you say no you have to serve everybody equally harlem is treated just like the upper east and so here in manhattan the whole cable network is built out to all neighborhood that's because the city  with community groups force that to happen so that level of equality exists for everybody no matter what ok the big telecommunications companies want to pick and choose want to cherry pick from and now they'll go to the state houses to try to cherry pick to try to not pay for public access or pay for the use of the public rights of way and that's going to be you know that will be a tough fight again seems to me that will be something that will be very politically interesting too because you've got people who are going to where that many headed hydra heads itself in the you know to albany or to you know that it's and there will be a lot of people because it's not just the civil right right right not just the media groups like us it's also consumer group because once you have the  to even up to and including president or congressional to get a very local municipality that i mean as they do in new york but i think i'm here today i think the city council of new york is very very favorable toward this idea of having something to serve the people don't you think the city council is good bless hasta yeah we've had great support the chair of the land use committee melinda katz only in good tony of our from queens not going fantastic the chair of the city council the speaker of the city council christ interesting point is that i think media access project a few years ago didn't that alice's of portland chicago and minneapolis local news coverage and in the month up to a local to an election and less than one percent of the election coverage of the news coverage in in the month went up to the election was on a local election  than one percent of the air so what is being killed here is the oxygen for democracy to survive thank you have you know when you have such concentration on a ship they don't cover city council no they only want to come they don't cover assembly and being killed that's what happens here because it's all mad huge global corporations who don't care about the local city council in new york city or in ames iowa as long as the suckers with their money that's right about all they care but i mean where everybody in the world is there are so many people that are in it's a war that sort of thing run of the problems is not enough time to talk about the many things we're talking about cable good let's keep an eye on them and there are people that will state level that sort of thing but it looks fairly good on that level you mentioned net neutrality and that begins to get over into the net and into the you know tread the transition that a lot of people see everything is moving toward the internet and that sort of thing does that look like that's been moving in the right direction or w yeah that that's for right now that you know the attempt by cable companies and big phone companies to essentially put poor blue rhino on the internet to charge for extra you know not just your regular thirty dollars or fifty dollars a month or ten or whatever it is that you can pay but on top of that charge you extra for a premium service of gold service a platinum service whatever might be and if you don't have that you can get it you know you're had to go again on the society you know where at least we have i mean you do have to pay to get on the internet but want to get on or you could go to a local library you don't have to pay for certain you know to get google or whatever it is so that is a very damaging proposition and those of us far that has been thousand and six there's reason for us an axis or in the democratic movement and so forth to be somewhat pleased with the direction and the emerging of things there's some things that we can celebrate as we keep an active those that are trying to get what's going on yes i think so because of this movement that exists in country a grassroots movement with a lot of different support from all kinds of different organizations so it's been very powerful big mobilization this year happy holidays and the but trust but verify anyway the thing is now we mention the net net neutrality everything is moving digital it would seem we're coming out of the analog back base and background for multimedia and so everything's moving toward the internet now the programs that him and then are not only aired on the cable system here but they're also streamed to the internet we have broad tutorials here and we have the best editing systems that are available to the people who come here and that sort of thing it's coming down to the desktop of people around the country the editing final cut that kind of thing that allows them to do it through the revolution going on and everything is moving to the internet and we also movie did it at the public access movement as it were and how does it what the relationship between what's come out of a traditional cable world that we've come out of some of the advantages of having a relationship to companies that give an alternative way of setting up the plan and think of all of that the can maybe avoid the less the less advantaged things of that business model that people have to do if they're in the cut you know cutthroat world of business competition is that what we have that intervening agency between the people in the technology and the capability of producing and distributing years and what the future outlook for communications is that takes into account that things are going to be moving into the internet yeah i think certainly for you you mentioned one aspect an analog facility like we're still largely analog digital revolution is going on which probably goes back to the design of integrated chips that alter the things that have certain impaired to what's going to be able to be allowed that hasn't been allowed coming out in history and and that's loosely refer to what we loosely ca multi platform approach ok where you're not only just thinking and it doesn't matter whether you're in princeton media you have the print media used to have the video media you know you have all these distinctions but now all of those are coming together because what's happening is you're you're broadcasting not just on a cable cat but you're on you're on your cell phone you're on your i pod you're on the internet you're on multiple platforms so i think the transition certainly for public access  community media center that is distributing content on to multiple different forms including that including connection back to those some people are going to be able to jump on the digital by way of an easier than others because they'll be would get their i dept and all that and the camera wherever you go now you see everybody's on to that yeah and it seems to me like the youth are picking up on that and that we're coming into like you were talking about the printing press and everything mcluhan talked about how the metaphor for western civilization was a phonetic alphabet of work moving now into where we're having multimedia we're in cable television we're in tech a multimedia is the removing into a multimedia world where the revolution in terms of the ability to have information that can be digitally manipulated and utilized is moving almost even beyond moore's law it's going and the things that we can see just over there rise and we seem to have a gusher niagra of capacity that busy is at the level of design of a basic computer design and the technology that's coming is like we're on the other side of the chessboard every time you do it you're doubling it now you're doubling every time you move from one thing to the so that it looks like bull that there's going to be more and more bandwidth and capability coming out of the design labs and that's the that's what study the template for what's going to be possible within the wider world and says that there's some pretty interesting things that are because yes we are bombarded every day with images and information and communications but so much of that is you know going back to our original discussion and sambit at selling something banning something that we have the commodities we as the viewers because you're just jamming and communicating within a context is not based upon upon the the market relationship between human beings that's an important dialectic that are critically important and the creative step that for the creative stuff really happens if you're interested in the how they're judged at the end of the day we're not judged by profitability i don't think media given the critical role that it plays in the society should be judged by profitability new possibilities are being allowed by the liberating possibilities for human association and they're not based on negotiating every aspect of everything a business mind will maybe a little networking yes right but even there if you were going together because they feel right and they want to get together and is not based upon hierarchy old matters of who's in charge and that kind of i don't know if you get it yet you know that implication to a revolutionary new way in which the planet might be organized to make sure everybody gets that oxygen they need is one aspect and that's always the battle that we have been in different in different forms is whether it's really about a housing situation where you want to have public land for public use on and for public benefit or whether you want to take that public in all different aspects of the society those who want to make it scarce and profitable and those who want to make it open and accessible right and it may be that we're evolving like history is a nightmare from which we're attempting to awaken james joyce and that we're getting more and more able to take care of the needs of the human society within an ecological there are new materials coming in every day over the transom new discoveries in every field we're coming to know something but the capability to provide program but we have a capability the systems weren't allowed to realize for benefiting the whole of the human society and that creates a great deal of banks because we're the time of transition particularly when the species has weapon systems that apparently mr kaka will develop can wipe out both species and they're holding on to our data so the new idea is the really important and the technological development of these because they're coming to carbon sixty it's go moving faster bionicle moore's law they're going to give a lot of capability for communicating new ideas within a non threatening context perhaps to the traditional one they can even get some of the people responsible for that into a place of starting about something new a consciousness raising or educational potential little come out of public access brazil it is in a way that won't be able to come out of the traditional business model board in terms of an educational pattern that may be emerging on a planetary scale i thi university or something because you see and i think a lot more people are talking about it than ever before you know of the debacle that exists today in the world the condition of the planet and what is happening around the world how did we get there well one of the ways being dictated all the time because that's what the king wants to hear or you know the white house wants to hear so again you know i think the that's where if you want to get out of the mess that humanity is facing  is partially exactly what you're talking i think that and yet i think that a certain critical time in the evolution of consciousness i mean this is not just your normal time this is a time a really important difference there's something going on that's really important we may have we have weapons that can destroy the species apparently that could be something that could be really understood made of it is that really the truth i mean with the you know that maybe and then there's a verse side of the understanding the context design we may be transcending scarcity as an ontological reality out of which all of ours is about its educational content and consciousness raising could be characteristic of the media and people are going to university anything to get careers so they can get a job within a corporation to have we need a new economic system we need new transformative capabilities to allow the liberation of the planet at the same time we arrive at a point when destroyed we can also see avenue how far how fast that car is going to the accident you know is also critical because i think increasingly everybody is becoming more and more aware well we don't have the luxury of time yeah and the more you're in this constant is deteriorating so quickly so rapidly well yes place where there can be discussion of these kind of things it seems to me public access multimedia public access internet based communication and a place where people can come where they don't have to be responsible for the use of because they have to be responsive make sure the lights go on as a lot of responsibility for the authority is it's like being tied to the old analog thing for communication you gotta keep tabs with the history but you've got to have a system that can allow for an alternative and i can't they were better place for that is raising education about what we call public access television and that's the way we're moving now in terms as we look at it also offers new channel capacity we should be think it talking about not talking about channels so much perhaps as megabytes  occurred we people in public access now increasingly are talking about megahertz rack or capacity not in the number of channels but what your capacity because for public access analog channels may in fact channels he said provide support support and capacity capacity more than child yeah right and to pass it because the issue is well you know what's bandwidth to hurt you know what what is that banner going to be and what's that set aside for public interest use it there's a lot of interesting question is a great time to be alive participant conscious don't you think it is pretty they have a video like that is really good you know you could you could start having it things put on hard drives and you can have servers the time great pleasure top always pleasure talking with you and great having you at the helm be at this time because there's a lot of opportunity and thanks for everything and that everybody is here and everything and you're a pleasure to vet is perception we invite you to would come back  tomorrow that's it for this particular program dan once again great talking to you thanks a lot back out of a holiday view of the other and to you happy holiday season upcoming and with the again tomorrow so that thing about that that's really interesting the things that are good that carbon sixty coming with the car carbon sixty is the thing that's going to be the basis of computing i don't know i don't know how far out three it's the basis of all nano technology right at the level of design the government elect heeler computer  resistance is very little too i guess i don't understand though it's sixty and it's been called buckminster fuller een named after buckminster fuller because it's geodesic and it's merit effective they're going to be doing molecular computing when they get past the silicon chip no silicon chip can be built by a human being it's all machines could a lot of interesting things going on but it's going to be moving faster than moore's law and you're on the other side of the chessboard so every time you double that thought they were saying moore's law wasn't true anymore because it actually was