MMMM # 155 Conventions Past & Future

     Way back in 2000, Alabama Public Television used a grant to go cover the two political conventions and use the then-nascent Internet to file reports. I wasn't on the trips, but I remember rather jerky video arriving back in Montgomery from The Democratic Convention in L.A. and the Republican gathering in Philadelphia. It was groundbreaking reportage back then and the teams were justifiably proud of their handiwork.*

     Over the years, the amount of time the networks spend covering the conventions has become smaller and smaller. Once there was virtually gavel-to-gavel coverage. Now only the 24-hour cable folks provide extended coverage.

    

 Now there's a brand new convention being called that will be entirely online, but it's for neither the Democrats nor the GOP  Americans Elect isn't a third party either, but an effort to go around the bogged- down nomination process, to skirt the two major parties and let Americans directly nominate a President/Vice President candidate team of their own choice. Talk about groundbreaking! And because if is all "New" Media, it may get more attention.

        My main concern would be that the process will be hijacked by some political entity, a political party or special interest group.

       The irony of this week's MMMM is that the doors to the APT facility in Montgomery will be locked and the employees will be on the street seeking work on Friday. The once groundbreaking state network is abandoning The State Capitol.

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog.]

*Here's the recollection about the APT convention coverage of former APT employee Chis Roquemore, now with AIDT. He says it was one of the proudest moments of his then early career:

     8 boxes of equipment that could now fit in a backpack. In 1998 we decided we were going to use the Internet to crudely cover the gubernatorial election. We did and it was one of the first examples in the state of up to the minute election results being provided that way. This was back in the time of dial up and America Online. There really wasn't a lot of video online either. So we did so well with that that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting gave us a grant two years later to cover the political conventions in Philadelphia and Los Angeles and send our reports back packaged and ready to go on the air via the Internet.

     This was 11 years ago. It was my idea. I had no idea it would work. In theory it would but no real-world test was available. Philadelphia was an experiment that didn't work. Everything worked fine except for the Internet. We stayed in a rather crappy hotel (the official hotel for the state republicans by the way) and the Internet service was awful. If not for the fine staff at WHYY in Philadelphia we might not have made it on the air.

     LA was much better. We stayed at the Universal City Hilton and they couldn't have been more accommodating We had dedicated T1 access to our room which happened to be a 25000 square foot ball room that we had 3 folding tables in. The best part about LA was that everything worked and since Alabama was two hours behind us, we were done working for the day at 2pm. Of course we were up and moving around 5am. But we still had plenty of time to check out LA.

     One other thing we did during both of these trips was select 2 republicans and 2 democrats and give the, each a video camera to document the convention through their eyes. Our two republicans were Cam Ward and Beth Chapman. Our democrats were Janet May and David White.

     It was really cool to see these things with virtual unknowns. Now one (Chapman) is Alabama Secretary of State and the other (Ward) is a State Representative.

     There was always a sense of yes this is Alabama Public Television but we're storytellers regardless of what our position was in the newsroom. And everyone who wanted to was given a chance to tell their stories There was and still is for me such a sense of family there. My first day at APT was June 5th 1990. The day of the gubernatorial race between Paul Hubbard and Guy Hunt. I was 17, still in high school and a volunteer to soak up as much about this industry as possible. Now 21 years later I teach in this industry, I created and produce a show still airing on Alabama Public Television and I'm assistant manager of communications for Alabama's workforce development agency. I owe my career to APT and the people that worked their today and in the past that helped shape me into the person I am today.

     I'm very proud of the work that I did at Alabama Public Television. I'm also very proud of the work that we all did as a team in Montgomery To produce the quality work that we did. APT in Montgomery was a training ground for so many people because they were given opportunities to try things to experiment to do things outside the box And that ultimately is what made it special and truly educational television.