By Sue Bolton
MELBOURNE — It is now three years since free-to-air community television Channel 31 hit the airwaves. Stephen Baras-Miller and Jeff Riley are involved in the weekly activist program, Access News, produced by Channel 31's Ska TV collective.
Baras-Miller joined Ska TV in 1994 to develop a news program focusing on social justice, environmental or trade union issues from the point of view of activists involved. Access News went to air on October 31 with coverage of the East Timor solidarity movement, the Gay Pride demonstration at Latrobe University that was "egged" by Christian fundamentalists, and Greenpeace actions.
The collective began the program with little publicity and very little equipment. Baras-Miller recalls producing Access News in an edit suite — just a room in someone's flat — above a nightclub. There was no plumbing and no electricity. Power cords trailed down a long hallway from a power point in the bathroom. A later landlord evicted Baras-Miller when he discovered all the Ska TV equipment set up in the spare bedroom.
When an opening came up for an environmental show, Jeff Riley and two activists from the Friends of the Earth Forest Network were given two weeks to produce Access News' first offshoot, Access News-Environmental. They did it, despite having no experience. The Access team also produced Access News-Trade Union.
At the beginning of 1997, the three Access News programs were merged because there was such an overlap between environmental, trade union and social justice issues that the Access team felt there was no point in maintaining the separation.
Baras-Miller says Access News is "making itself the voice of campaigns. We're biased towards people, campaigns, activists". Access News has a different approach to the other progressive collective on Channel 31, RMIT TV. "Access News deliberately doesn't have presenters or journalists talking to camera. We try to have the story told by the people at the demonstration or a representative of the campaign. We try to make journalists as unobtrusive as possible. In contrast, RMIT TV's news programs have a live-to-air news style which is like a commercial TV news format."
Riley told Green Left Weekly that the collective sees Access News' role as "opening up time to go into an issue. On mainstream TV, the average story length on a half-hour news program is one minute and 15 seconds. Access News would average seven to eight minutes a story. That gives you the time to explore the issue, whereas commercial news gives you an exciting bit of vision without saying why the action is happening."
Access News was included in the ratings surveys for the first time in 1995. Between then and November 1996, the number of weekly viewers grew from 25,000 to 72,000.
As with all alternative media, Access News has to do its own fundraising to maintain its voice. In 1996, they instituted the Activist Awards as an annual fundraising event. Baras-Miller explained that the Activist Awards have several other purposes. "They're an opportunity for people from different campaigns to come together and see what other campaigns have been doing. They're an excellent way of publicising campaigns, and they're also a celebration of activism." The event includes a footage broadcast by Access News of campaigns over the previous 12 months.
Responding to the criticism that the awards promote individualism, Baras-Miller pointed out that, "out of nine categories there are only two awards for individuals — best speech and best one-liner. All of the other awards are to a whole campaign."
The Activist Awards will be held on Thursday, October 9, 7pm, in Storey Hall, RMIT, Swanston Street, Melbourne. Tickets are $15/10 and are available from 3CR, Friends of the Earth, the Resistance Centre, New International Bookshop, RMIT Student Union and Save Albert Park. Telephone (03) 9663-6976 or 9662-9106.