Newsday (Nassau Edition) from Hempstead, New York • 47

B7 OTHER VOICES LI Karl Grossman Does Long Island Need WLIW? 3 Consolidation can only be good for Channel 21 a big if but if worked out the way we think it would there will just be more resources for WLIW to operate We would be able to put more resources into serving Long Island We would be able to consolidate the things we do Until six to seven years ago 70 percent of our budget came from the state federal and county governments Today only 15 percent comes from other sources So the rest of it we have to raise and $11 million If thia agreement is worked out properly it will put less pressure on that Merging Channel 21 with its city counterpart should be of deep concern she is concerned this will get even worse with the proposed merger Local news and public affairs programing and Cableviuona News 12 has shown what popular TV fere this can be on Long Island has been greatly reduced as Gnannal 21 shifted its gaze west for more viewers and more dollars There 'is another most worrisome reason for WLIW veering away from Long Island news and public affairs shows Such programs says a former WLIW insider were deemed by management as too many The tangle of controversy sometimes caused by some local programing was irksome to these CmtavrfWUWn Idantlty crisis: Critics says ttia stafloa has dsllbarataly movsd away tram Ha Long Island roots ONO ISLANDERS should be deeply con-I earned about the discussions now going on that could lead to a of New York City's WNET13 and Long own WLIW 21 Plainview-based Channel 21 is the only public television station we have but its focus for more than a ha been shifting toward New York City and other parts of the New York metropolitan area even though Long Island with its estimated 27 million is more popu-i than 21 states WLIW once stressed a Long Island identity In the 1970s and 1980s it was full of local programing: There was a nightly Long Island news show along with specials documentaries and interviews with a local bent This writer in the mid-1970s hosted WLIWa then-weekly talk show Island Now little Long TlnH programing on WLIW Indeed its station identification now features an voice booming New York" and the logo appearing on screen Later a second graphic comes up and this time under the large letters New the words "Garden City" appear in small print and go unspoken Only a quarter of Channel viewers now are Long Islanders according to WLIW President Terrel Cass A decade ago when he arrived at the station Long Islanders made up for half the viewers WLIW has been able to pick up large numbers of new viewers by being earned on cable systems in New York City northern New York counties New Jersey and Connecticut In fact the station declares on its Web site that it "has grown to become the fourth moat-watched public television station in the United States with a waekly FiiTnulgtiv audianoa V- eraging 19 million households throughout the New York tri-state area including 29 counties in New York New Jersey and WLIW has opened an office in Manhattan at which 15 of its 65-person staff work It has become a rival to Manhattan-based WNET13 Is this why Channel 18 wants to with our station to phase it out as a separate as one report had it? Absolutely untrue insist Cass and WNET13 president William Baker a matter of efficiency and Terrel Cass president of WLIW21 The mqjor stations that cover New York City do a bit for Long Island but no large station Locally and originally produced programing is needed here the role WLIW could filL To lose even this limited resource is very disappointing There are opportunities for an outlet to serve a community If it for public information there would no educated electorate how public policy is formed through public dialogue Abby Kenigsberg executive director of the Long Island Coalition for Fair Broadcasting a local media watchdog group Gosh yes For our global studies Regents a new Regents which students need to take a two-year course to prepare for Channel 21 had this program that was all about what you need to know to take the exam It told you about all the sections and how to prepare for it I don't have much time far TV but I want to watch Channel 21 more I used to watch Channel 13 with my grandfather when I was younger and it targets more serious topics It would be good to pects of both and combine them-They wouldtarget everyone but mostly the younger crowd and the older crowd and not as much the teens It would be 1 to add programing where a teenager would sit a half-hour and watch it and not be distracted by other things Stuff that has to do with music and something educational but also fun got to be some learning involved but not boring learning Nicole Cagiioti junior at Babylon Junior-Senior High School As far as African Americans are concerned Channel 21 has been of no consequence It doesn't service the local community I also don't think see a large movement on Long Island to save the station because it basically duplicates the programing on Channel 13 It never lived up to being public broadcasting on Long Island Over the years always found it difficult to relate to the grass-roots community If not in the in-crowd affiliated with a college or a school or an organization that donates money you're realty not going to have a say in programing Any deal to make them stay should malm them have real public broadcasting because right now not public broadcasting corporate breadcasting Andreaus Guilty executive director of the African American Media Network and public-access producer based in Roosevelt Definitely because of the diverse programming and public awareness programs The station has put on a lot of ethnic programs that relate to the community Some is about the can-American community and not just during Black History Month The station has also done the outreach program Beading Funday every year for the past four years at Roosevelt Field and elsewhere stole Barnett Uniondale financial consultant and committee member of 100 Black Women of Long Island who belongs to the WLIW Advisory Board Ken Rosenblum who anchored the nightly Long on WLIW in the mid-1980s says management was insisting back then that the station "rant Long Island coverage They were eyeing New York City for more viewers and more dollars told them Tf you did more programming for Nassau and Suffolk you would raise more says Rosenblum now dean of students at Touro Law School He describes Channel 21 as a "great missed opportunity It could be the C-Span of Long Island present at the Nassau and Suffolk legislatures at town and village boards exploring Island But of any promise by Channel 21 to do more post-merger local programing post-merger this needs to be more than just a promise It should be a solid pledge in writing Moat importantly the consolidation is part of a broader national situation "This is not an isolated issue there is a movement across the United States to do away with secondary public television stations which compete with larger says Ralph Engleman acting chair of the Journalism Department at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University and author of Radio and Television in America: A Political Says Engleman: The trend of this pattern of consolidation in public television mirrors the patterns ef consolidation in commercial media and inevitably it seems to me the viewer will be the In feet "the older bigger primary stations have for many yean been urging PBS to shrink the says Jerold Starr executive director of the Washington DC-based Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting Still "there are serious questions here and we nave a real he thinks A operating between Channels 13 and 21 be a way far WLIW to do more local programing or it could be a slippery slope to its disappearing Starr author of the just-published "Aar Wars: The Fight to Reclaim Public says "What happens depends on the will of the parties to the deal and the public pressure they get? Can WLIW return to its Long Island roots? Renewed support by Long Island governments and greater backing fay its Long Island viewers would greatly help So would the visionary proposal far a "Public Broadcasting being advanced by Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting The trust would provide annual program half to go for programing on local public stations Public television in the United States was supposed to be according to the 1967 Carnegie Commission report which served as its blueprint "a forum for controversy and and "a voice for groups that may otherwise be The way things have been going on increasingly corporate-funded public television controversy and debate have become limited And the way things have been going at Long only public television station a nig group needing to be heard more from on WLIW21 are the people of Long Island money they say firmly Both stations says would retain "a distinctive A sharp reduction in government support is what caused Channel 21 to change says Cass So the station began to "concentrate on things to create adds Cass and "went into the national production developing shows for the PBS system the reason he asserts for Channel office in Manhattan Cass says this in response to critics of the consolidation like Abby Kemgsberg executive director of Island Coalition for Fair Broadcasting She notes that Channel 21 has been providing Long Island programing (Aside from special programing focused solely on Long Island and an instructional television service for Nassau and Suffolk schools a roundtable show whose co-hosts are from Long Island and a talk show covering the tri-state area that sometimes features local topics) She says Karl Grossman it professor of journalism at the Stats University of New York at Old Westbury and an associate of the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting or FAIR -si sry ifiif-.