Public Media Corps: Now in BETA!

While home broadband adoption continues to rise, with an average of well over 60% of Americans having high-speed internet available in their homes, African Americans, Latinos and people in low-income communities continue to lag behind by double-digit margins. As both the Knight Commission Report, Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age and the National Broadband Plan clearly state, broadband technology can only make a valuable contribution to our civic dialogue if everyone has access to it. With a third of our population currently lacking the basic skills and tools to access this critical platform, aggressive and intentional strategies are need to intervene, including gathering real-world data and community input that informs and shapes these interventions.

To address this urgent need, we at the National Black Programming Consortium, an organization with a 30-year track record of increasing capacity in minority communities to create and use public media, are launching the Public Media Corps, using a service core model to encourage and support healthy, hyper-local twenty-first century community information ecosystems, using public media assets and tools as a driver of demand.

“We need to tackle the challenge of connecting 93 million Americans to our broadband future,” said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski at the release of the National Broadband Plan. “In the 21st century, a digital divide is an opportunity divide.”

The Fellows chosen, representing a range of professional skills from experienced veteran journalists and educators to recent college graduates with training in the latest media technologies, will work to close that opportunity divide by connecting schools, museums, libraries and other important hubs in underserved communities to public media tools and assets that include technology-rich teaching curricula and materials, relevant and timely public interest content and technology training to increase the capacity of local non-profits as well as to increase the digital skill set of the community at large.

On Friday, June 25th as part of the Silverdocs Film Festival, the official launch event, a panel moderated by Dr. Michael Eric Dyson and taped live to air on his public radio show, will introduce the class of 2010 and the thirteen partners in the beta phase of the project. The partners include three at-risk high schools, a community museum and neighborhood library, three community centers serving predominantly African American and Latino residents of DC, and five public broadcasting entities including WHUT Howard University Television, WETA, WEAA-FM and PBS.

And, now, introducing the 2010 inaugural class of the Public Media Corps:

Kibwe Chase-Marshall – video and digital producer and designer
T. Je’Nein Farrell – former adjunct professor, producer, videographer and director
Brennan Gerald – virtual brand and marketing consultant
Khalil Gill – illustrator, web designer and educator
Robin Hamilton – freelance writer and television reporter
Ivana Jackson – recent journalism graduate
Mike Janssen – writer and public media professional
Molly McDonnell – journalist and web designer
Gerardo I. Medrano, former researcher, curator and education specialist
Ashley Mosley – video producer and community organizer
Selina Musuta – radio producer and DJ
LaToya Peterson – blogger and new media entrepreneur
Olivia Rubagumya – journalist and human rights media programmer
Danielle Scruggs – photographer, writer and blogger
Ariel Valdez – journalist and musician with public radio experience

For more information on the project, the partners or the Fellows, please visit: www.publicmediacorps.org.

Jacquie Jones is Executive Director of the National Black Programming Consortium (NPBC) and a guest blogger for Knightcomm.org. She can be e-mailed at jacquie-AT-nbpc.tv