(republished from the Somerville Journal)
Reporting news, not hype in Somerville
By Ken Brociner
Find out what's happening in Somervillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Posted May. 29, 2014 @ 11:59 am
SOMERVILLE
Find out what's happening in Somervillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
It’s outrageous, insulting, and indisputably true. "If it bleeds it leads" is the very essence of TV news in local television markets throughout the United States (and in much of the rest of the world). As anyone who watches the news on any of the commercial TV stations in Boston knows all too well, stories about violent crime and fires invariably lead local news broadcasts while crowding out stories that would serve to inform viewers about the most important issues that effect peoples’ day- to- day lives.
But not here in Somerville. Since last fall, the Somerville Neighborhood News (SNN) – which appears every other week on Somerville Community Access Television (SCATV) – has provided news on an extraordinarily wide variety of topics that pertain to life in our community.
Unlike regular local TV news programs, whose main purpose is simply to boost ratings in order to be able to charge more money to broadcast annoying and idiotic commercials, SNN’s mission is to serve the public interest here in Somerville.
Like all content at SCATV (which is subsidized by the city and by cable fees), SNN is produced without regard to generating high ratings (i.e. corporate profits). That is one many things that makes SNN so refreshingly straightforward and sincere. When you watch SNN, you can rest assured you won’t have to suffer through the spectacle of "glamorous" looking anchors mugging for the camera as they tell you about the latest tragedy in Boston or elsewhere.
Under the enthusiastic guidance of award-winning reporter/ producer Jane Regan SNN has aired stories on such topics as the availability of jobs at Assembly Row, the impact of gentrification on the fabric of our city, economic inequality, the lack of affordable housing and the plight of undocumented students, as well as reports on local film festivals and cultural fairs.
Regan brings an extremely impressive range of multi-media expertise and on- the-ground reporting experience to her position as the director of the SNN. After graduating from Harvard in the early 1980s, she went on to produce and report stories from all over Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, winning numerous professional awards in the process. But she is far from new to Somerville, having served as the executive director of SCATV back in 2000-01, and more recently, having taught journalism courses at Tufts (Disclosure: one of the Tufts courses was co-taught with Journal editor Dan Atkinson).
Besides her dedication to bringing stories to light that help to inform and inspire people to become more active participants in their local communities, Regan is also deeply committed to training the next generation of public interest journalists. Among her many endeavors along these lines was a news operation in Haiti she organized that was staffed by local volunteers and journalism students. On SNN, Regan has continued these efforts by recruiting a number of local high school and college students (one of whom is my son, Marcelo) to serve as reporters and news anchors.
In addition to recruiting local volunteers to work on the SNN, Regan is also encouraging anyone in the community who has an idea for a story to contact her to see if it might be made into a segment on an upcoming broadcast. Furthermore, true to her philosophy of community journalism and participatory democracy, she is encouraging anyone who is interested, to become involved in the actual reporting and/or production of stories that hold a special interest for them.
When SNN first came on the air, I was surprised by how much "added value" I got by actually seeing video images of various neighborhoods in Somerville – along with watching street interviews of people around the city (as compared to only reading about stories in any of the weekly papers in town).
For those who don’t already know, SCATV is available on Channel 3 to anyone with cable in the city, regardless of which company provides your service. If you don’t have cable, all of the shows can be seen on the station’s website.) SCATV itself has long been recognized as one of the best independently-run and -produced local cable stations in the country.
SNN airs its latest news program every week on Tuesdays at 7 p.m., with repeat airings throughout the following two weeks. All of the shows, as well as segments and text versions, can be accessed by going to
http://www.scatvsomerville.org/snn.
For TV listings of all of SCAT’s programs, check
To send in news ideas, or to find out how you can participate as a reporter or anchor, email:
news@scatvsomerville.org
