[Peace] Need help! (Democracy Now! Petition)

[Randall Cotton]

Hi all,

I've been working on getting UPTV to broadcast Democracy Now! on
Champaign/Urbana's cable-TV system. This would be on channel 6, Urbana
Public Television (UPTV) and ideally, DN! would be broadcast live at 7AM
every weekday. I've been keeping AWARE folks up to date on my efforts and
they have endorsed this project at AWARE meetings and have also approved
funding (if necessary) for up to $350 (that would be the maximum cost needed
to implement this proposal for the first year).

But I need folks to help me with a petition (either by just signing it
yourself or by signing other folks up) to help get this going.

The petition reads:

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We, the undersigned residents of the Champaign/Urbana area, thank the Urbana
Public Television (UPTV) Commission for considering the acquisition of Free
Speech TV (FSTV) and regular broadcasts of "Democracy Now" from FSTV, and

We strongly encourage the commission to vote in favor of making FSTV
available for retransmission on UPTV and to broadcast the live feed for
"Democracy Now!" every weekday at 7AM.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

And I'm hoping to get at least 200 signatures by Monday, July 12th, when the
UPTV Commission has their next meeting.

You can sign the petition yourself at the AWARE table for Taste of
Champaign/Urbana (which starts 5PM today and runs through the weekend). I
also plan to have it available at the AWARE table at Boardman's Art Theater
during Fahrenheit 911's run (the film starts today, of course, and I'll be
there at the 7:30 show with petition in-hand). I'll also have it at AWARE
meetings and other gatherings.

And please reply to me if you're interested in signing folks up yourself
(that would help a lot and I'd really appreciate it) - I'll get you blank
copies of the petition.

If you're curious about all this, but want to know more, read on...

You may or may not know this, but Democracy Now! (democracynow.org on the
web) does indeed have accompanying video. While it was born as a strictly
audio program for radio, for some time now DN! has been broadcasting as a
full-blown video program. Usually, the video is just of Amy and any guests
she has in the studio, but increasingly there's also video footage of
newsmakers, speeches and documentaries.

Of course, that's not the only reason to get DN! available on UPTV. While
you can hear DN! on WEFT, 90.1 FM at 4PM on weekdays, the program is
actually produced at 7AM central time, so it's 9 hours old by the time it is
rebroadcast on WEFT. My proposal is to broadcast it LIVE as it happens on
cable channel 6, 7AM every weekday  morning. In addition, many people are
unable to listen to Democracy Now! on WEFT because it broadcasts during
working hours. Finally, having Democracy Now! available on cable-TV would
make it easy for people to record the program using a VCR or DVR (Digital
Video Recorder - e.g. Tivo) and more accessible for folks who don't often
listen to the radio. I believe many folks may discover DN! for the first
time by accident just by flipping through their cable channels and anything
that makes independent, alternative, non-profit news and analysis more
accessible to the general population can only accomplish good things.

There are already over 100 public-access cable-TV stations across the
country that broadcast DN!, so this isn't exactly a bold new precedent.
Check out:

http://democracynow.org/stations.pl?op=fullsearch&broadcast=tv

to see a complete list.

But I do need help. In particular, I feel I need to put together a petition
to influence the UPTV Commission (the body that governs/advises UPTV). I've
already made a proposal to the UPTV Commission at their most recent meeting
to acquire broadcasting rights for "Free Speech TV", which will, in turn
allow them to broadcast Democracy Now! (which is one of Free Speech TV's
programs). They'll be considering my proposal at their next meeting on July
12th. It's not a certainty that they'll vote to approve this proposal. I
hope to have 200 signatures by then (and more after that) to help influence
the commission.

Feel free to reply to this message (but please don't include the whole peace
list) if you'd like to know more. Or you can contact me by phone at
722-8470.

Thanks =8-)
R