• VCAM is proud to be a sponsor of  The Vermont International Film Festival, taking place at the Palace 9 Cinemas Oct. 23- Nov. 1. The festival released it’s schedule this week. Check it out! (Also, follow the festival on Twitter and Facebook.)
• A Wisconsin Representative introduced a bill in the US House this week aimed at preserving community access centers’ funding. Congratulations, Rep. Tammy Baldwin, (D-WI) you’re the community media heroine of the week! Read more about the bill on Congresswoman Baldwin’s website.
• Check out the Open in Vermont booth at the Vermont 3.0 Innovation Jam at the Sheraton on Monday October 26. It’s run by a bunch of Vermonters committed to the free and open source software movement. Stop by and learn more!
• There was a lot of buzz this week about tiny Vermont craft brewers, Rock Art Brewery, getting hounded with legal trademark letters from the lawyers at the corporate offices of Monster Energy drinks. The lawyers didn’t like Rock Art’s use of the word “Vermontster” on their recent 10% barley wine release. Green River Pictures (our neighbors!) made a little informational video about the situation featuring an interview with Rock Art owner, Matt Nadeau.
• This week the US House Energy and Finance Committee unanimously passed the Local Community Radio Act. Now the bill must go the floor of the House for a vote. Another small victory for LPFM and community media! Contact your representative today to say it’s time to pass the Local Community Radio Act, HR 1147 (VT Rep. Peter Welch is already on board — thank him!).

Freund described his vision for an online media venue that would enable him and others to “shine a light on the interesting people from the community, the people that were making a difference, the people that stand out,” Freund said.

As he described the project, Herman buried his face in his laptop and began typing. At first, Freund thought Herman was ignoring him. But soon enough, Herman spun around the screen and displayed what he had created.

“By the end of him describing it, I had made it,” Herman said

What he made was a live community channel on the streaming Internet television platform Livestream. The site is now up at www.shortstream.tv. Freund and Herman view it as the public access channel Portsmouth has been trying in vain to create for the last several years.

Portsmouth has a governmental access channel but public and educational channels have been languishing in start-up limbo for some time. This online venue was a quick, easy and inexpensive way to get things going.

The wirenh.com article doesn’t mention it, but while this is a great way to bypass the hurdles involved in franchise agreements and non-profit start-up paperwork and the expense of starting an actual public access center, it’s important to note that this is not an adequate replacement of such a place. Public access cable channels reach a much more specific and diverse segment of the community than websites can due to the ubiquity of cable TV relative to broadband internet in households. Even in households with both cable and broadband, the cable TV menu of available options is at best a few hundred channels, even with the most robust digital cable service. By comparison, finding locally relevant community media online is much harder, even when an outlet like shortstream.tv exists.

Perhaps more importantly, a community media center is a physical location in the community for citizens to meet and collaborate and learn. Training and equipment are available there, and a knowledgeable staff is invaluable in growing a culture of local media-makers.

It’s fantastic that these Portsmouth citizens took it upon themselves to get the ball rolling, but it would be a shame if an unintended consequence of their efforts was the actual public access channel getting delayed further because of a sense that the community’s public access needs were already being met with the website. They aren’t.