Guest Opinion: The legacy of community media needs new life breathed into it to survive | News

On Aug. 26, Palo Alto Online published “Midpen Media Center changes leadership,” an article about recent challenges at the media center, including the departure of the executive director. Supporting information is needed. To read the piece, it is possible to imagine Midpen Media Center to be about 5 years old, notwithstanding the lead photo — dated 2015, before outgoing Executive Director Keri Stokstad arrived and well before interim Executive Director Chuck Alley joined the board.

Allow me to share some of Midpen’s history with you. Midpen Media began as MPAC (Mid-Peninsula Access Corp.) around 1990, with one cable channel, and grew to run six channels as Mid-peninsula Community Media Center and now Midpen Media. Its crews recorded and archived public meetings in East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City, Palo Alto and beyond, sending government activity into our living rooms via cable TV. By 2015, Midpen Media was a thriving community media center, with 50-odd staff members, hundreds of active volunteers and an amazing array of community producers, who made programming almost every night of the week.

From the beginning, its mission included an educational component, which is a basic element of public access in the US Midpen helped local schools set up video capabilities. Members of the public came to Midpen year after year to learn the nuts and bolts of creating a non-commercial television program — how to take an idea from vision to implementation in a professional studio (or in the field). Students operated the equipment, and quite a few became multiyear volunteers. Some of them became paid producers and crew, expanding Midpen’s Pro Services division. The diversity of programming was stunning. Most of it was intensely local, spanning topics from art to sports to music to politics. Collaborations were forged between Midpen and community organizations.

On one hand, Midpen was no match for commercial media’s deep pockets, and on the other, commercial media could not serve the community’s interests in the same intimate fashion. Midpen — a nonprofit 501(c)(3) — struggled to stay relevant and financially healthy. Media formats evolved, and individuals began to shoot video using cellphones. But a cellphone is not a replacement for hands-on teamwork opportunities for youth or disabled volunteers. A phone doesn’t cover local events like the mobile TV van was able to do. Midpen Media Center was fundamentally a face-to-face laboratory of community involvement. It attracted audiences to watch screenings, celebrate local heroes, participate in live studio productions, meet up with other media-makers to share ideas, and learn about their neighbors, political candidates and leaders. It was a hidden gem in our midst. I use the past tense, because while Midpen Media by 2015 had been voted “Best Media Center in the Nation” multiple times, it eventua lly lost that title and more.

Midpen lost its longest-serving Executive Director and co-founder, Annie Folger, to retirement in 2017. Deep structural change is not always evident. It took time for the overarching vision to lose focus. Sometimes it wasn’t clear why long-term goals eroded. Strategic planning stalled. Leadership seemed to be missing in action. Key programs disappeared, including the popular Zoom In Collaborative. While financial problems increased, an aura of mistrust and paranoia crept in.

Then another loss occurred. COVID-19 did not shut down the center, but the doors of the studio were closed. Pro Services, a vital revenue stream, stopped functioning. Online productions took over, but too slowly. Support for new strategies wasn’t t strong enough. Staff wondered why. Midpen told its core employees the Center had a year to turn financial problems around, but three months later, most of the full-time staff were terminated. Alternative cost-saving measures could have avoided the cuts, but were not chosen. Vital talent was simply forced out, and when they left, institutional memory abruptly died, important technical expertise disappeared and community ties dissolved. The removals targeted long-term employees, while more recently hired administrative personnel remained, presumably at their full salaries.

Alarm spread through the large community of volunteer producers and crew, who protested losing reliable people and procedures. Who would run Midpen now? Discontented staff members left in frustration, or were simply dropped with no explanation. Community producers retreated. One might ask whether the pandemic provided an excuse to quell dissent, or evade responsibility for failure.

This writer came to the organization in the late 1990s. The history you read here is from personal memory. Many locals may add their stories because Midpen Media was an active force in their lives. From election debates to storytelling events to dance parties, the community contributed to and was enriched by the Midpeninsula’s public access cable station, specifically its people.

A handful of staff and volunteers are what’s left of Midpen. It needs life breathed into it to survive and hopefully thrive again. I believe this can happen if community members donate their time and dollars, their ideas and moral support. People also can show support by speaking during the public comment period during the organization’s board meetings. (The next meeting is on Nov. 14. Zoom instructions should be announced three days prior, at midpenmedia.org.)

Here’s hoping you will get out of it what you put into it, as so many people have for the past 30-odd years.