NOTICE:
This is a work in progress. Just saving it here so that Yahoo doesn't eat it before I hit send, which Yahoo tends to and can do!
This is a work in progress. Just saving it here so that Yahoo doesn't eat it before I hit send, which Yahoo tends to and can do!
Medford Transcript
75 Sylvan St., C105, Danvers, Mass., 01923
Hello Miranda and the Medford Transcript:
Thanks for keeping the public aware of their access TV station.
With public access experience spanning thirty nine years - since 1979 - the Transcript owes it to the public not to have Medford City Hall squelch the public's right to know (you will see me use Mark Rumley's choice of word - squelch - frequently as it comes back to bite the city lawyer every time you turn on your TV and don't get what you pay for in Medford)
Millions and millions of access TV dollars have been wasted in Medford. In fact, the President of Malden TV, George Manfra, has stated to me repeatedly "Medford was NEVER set up right. Medford will never have a functional access station." I am paraphrasing Mr. Manfra and including him in the e mail above. (And George, you've said this to me on more than three occasions over the past decade!) So it is interesting that someone from Malden TV has now stepped in and says this in your article:
“I don’t know about what was in the past. I do hear a lot of TV3 rumblings, but that doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “I’m here now, and there’s all this possibility.”
Well Patrick damn well better make TV 3 matter as:
There is still an ongoing investigation at the Office of the Attorney General where "law enforcement" could be impeded if the AG's office gives the public information on Arthur Alan Deluca and other board members of Medford Community Cablevision, Inc. Mr. Gordon's statement is about as accurate as Donald Trump saying the Russian investigation doesn't matter to him when Trump is obsessed with it.
Patrick is giving you the standard city hall malarkey that was published in your June 12 article in the Transcript:
Campbell, Sumney and Wilks are aware of the criticisms of the station and of the history of TV3.
“None of us were involved in TV3,” Campbell said. “Everyone keeps bringing it up, something none of us had anything to do with.”
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City Hall comes up with talking points that we see repeated, much like Donald Trump, despite these being Democrats in power!
The Access station is "moving forward" was the last cryptic message when Ben Brown, the former manager, left on a Friday the 13th in April. Not very good luck for cable subscribers forking over a small fortune, is it?
Please write an article on
a)how much money comes in per quarter from Verizon and Comcast via the franchise fee
b)how Mayor Stephanie Muccini-Burke designates where that money goes - how much for the government channel, how much for the high school, how much for public access.
c)When a Krissy Fraser says they need access "for the children," which she said to me (not to mention her job pays her a big salary,) yet city hall had a very weak media program for years, a poorly run high school channel and little or no taping of sports, it is hard to reconcile the many protests from the city lawyer that city hall isn't standing in the way of free speech when it is.
If city hall didn't squelch and stomp out the First Amendment every chance it got, we would have access. With a history of six under-performing (being VERY kind with that statement) station managers and Pat Gordon now having to address the TV3 situation (notice how he says in your article
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Patrick Gordon hopes to increase the accessibility of the new MCM station and its programming.
“Public access needs to be accessible for everyone.”
That’s one of the mantras of Patrick Gordon, the new station manager at Medford Community Media. Mayor Stephanie M. Burke appointed Gordon in late July – three months after the departure of former MCM station manager Ben Brown – to manage the city’s year-old media station at Medford Vocational Technical High School.
Joe Viglione
