D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
May 2008
Community Access TV
Page: 2"Half of our mission is to accurately and uneditedly record governmental meetings," says Paula Geisler, a longtime CATS board member who is currently serving as acting president following Marsden's recent resignation from the post. "People have the right to see their government in action, and we take that half of our mission very seriously."
CATS personnel, contractors and volunteers record county commission meetings and work sessions, town council meetings and, by request, the open meetings of virtually any other governmental agency or committee. In addition to making the meetings available for viewing on channel 19, CATS personnel make sure "a board copy of every meeting is produced, and that becomes the official record of that meeting, and, in most cases, the minutes of the meeting," Waters explains. "We also produce a back-up tape which is immediately available in case of emergency. Copies of that tape sometimes go to news media unable to attend that particular meeting. We've gone way beyond the minimum requirements for providing coverage of government meetings to the community."
Waters has been taping government meetings from the earliest days of CATS. "I think the substance and nature of public meetings has changed substantially in the last 10 years," he says. "They are more congenial, more business-like, more formal. It's not that people necessarily do watch the meetings [on channel 19]; it's just that they could watch them. It tends to make the business of government very public, which is exactly what most of us think it should be. And there's more public input. People seem to understand that when they address the board, they are addressing the whole community."
Despite his other responsibilities as general manager, Waters is still involved in the filming of most government meetings. "John Waters is amazing," says Geisler. "He does so many things I think he must have secretly cloned himself."
The other half of the mission of CATS is to both air and facilitate the production of local programming. To this end, cameras, tripods, microphones and other types of equipment have been purchased and are available to the public at CATS, and CATS editor and technician Joe Kellerman is available to teach people how to use them. Several different editing programs are installed in CATS computers, and Kellerman is ready, willing and able to train people in their use, as well.
CATS actually provided Kellerman with his first introduction to television work. He arrived in Silver City about three years ago with a degree in visual communication and 10 years experience as a commercial artist for a large corporation. Much of that experience involved computers, and his skills fit the needs of CATS perfectly. The opportunity to work in television suited Kellerman perfectly. "It became my new favorite thing to do," he says.
Since joining CATS, Kellerman has formed his own independent company called "JFK Productions" (his own initials) and currently produces the "Late Night Fright" program, which airs at midnight on channel 17 and at 10:30 p.m. on KOOT channel 8. He'll soon be bringing "High Noon Western Theatre" to those stations, as well. In doing so, Kellerman follows the path blazed by a wide variety of local residents through the years of CATS' existence.
It took a while after the station was established, but "we finally convinced people they could produce programs and we'd put them on," Martin recalls. The programs produced by local folks air on CATS channel 17, with some now also being picked up by KOOT-TV channel 8.
The early programs ranged from "The Risque Cafe," a talk show Paula Geisler produced in her living room, to "Gene Booth home-made low-budget singing cowboy type movies, complete with aliens and kidnappings as well as cowboys, and best come upon at 2 in the morning after you come home from the bar," Martin laughingly remembers.
Martin says one mother, Angie Seal, started borrowing CATS equipment and taping the high-school sports events her son was involved in. "That was the year the Silver City football team went all the way to the state finals. She got the guys from a local radio station to do the color, just by sitting next to them and filming the action on the field from there. The camera microphone picked up their commentary quite well."
"About the same time, the high school was having its first video production classes. We had the most amazing creativity pouring out of the area teenagers. And we had some really interesting programming coming in," Berry reminisces, adding, "I'm no longer amazed at the quality of talent in this area. A lot of strange and amazing talent is tucked away down here."
"The Morning Show" arrived on CATS channel 17 about a year and a half ago through its own kind of serendipity. Co-hosts Lori Ford and Gwyn Jones had been comfortably ensconced in a morning show on KNFT radio, carrying on a 30-year tradition started by Dianne Hamilton, now a state representative, when their world was shaken by the sale of the station. Their program became a casualty of a format change, and the two found themselves out of work.
"We kind of had our own following, and people wanted us to somehow revive 'The Morning Show,'" Jones explains. They decided to produce their own television show with the assistance of CATS. That decision not only led to the creation of their own production company (Broad Mind Media Inc.) and the development of a popular television version of their "Morning Show," but also catapulted them into the world of the Internet. Their program appears on their own "channel" at YouTube.com/themorningshowlive and at myspace.com/themorningshowlive as well as on their own Web site, www.themorningshowlive.com, where all their shows are archived.
"We're getting out there worldwide," Ford says. "California is our biggest state viewership."
"Then New Mexico," Jones chimes in.
Ford continues, "Lots of Washington, DC, viewership. We don't know whether that's good or bad."
"Oh it's all good," Jones responds. "We get fan mail from Buenos Aires, from Iran, Pakistan, Sweden, Dubai. And it all grew out of CATS."
That's something that gives great satisfaction to Gwyn Jones' husband, Quinn Martin, one of the people whose vision and determination brought CATS into being.
Waters, too, is delighted with the success of "The Morning Show." It reminds him of a program at the local cable station he was involved in during the 1980s, in the same area of Oregon where cable television first started back in 1949. The content of the Oregon program, he says, was similar to that of "The Morning Show," which Jones describes as "alternative media" and Ford calls "upstream media, where things are clearer" — as opposed to mainstream media where, she says, "things are murkier."
CATS takes neither credit nor responsibility for the content of "The Morning Show" or any other program produced by community members. "We don't try to control the content," Waters says. "We don't try to micro-manage. Our job is facilitation — whatever we can do to make it possible for you to produce your program."
Anyone living in the Silver City area who is interested in exploring the possibility of producing a television show for CATS can contact John Waters at 534-0130 for more information.
Peggy Platonos is a freelance writer and former newspaper editor who lives in the Mimbres Valley and is currently developing a cooking program for CATS, "Food Lore & Favorite Recipes." A new show will start each week on Friday and will be repeated every afternoon at 3:30 on CATS channel 17 and every morning at 10:30 on KOOT channel 8.