October 3, 2005
Midpeninsula Election
Programs Online and On Cable TV
Voters can review video clips on the Internet at their own convenience, from a
recent Palo Alto City Council Candidate Forum co-sponsored by the Midpeninsula
Media Center and the League of Women Voters Ð Palo Alto branch. In
addition to candidate forums the Media Center presents on its cable TV channels
in Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Atherton, this year the Media
Center will upload some of the forums onto its new server. The online
forums will be indexed by the questions asked so that Internet users can view
on-demand, whatever parts of the forums they are most interested in, comparing
all the candidatesÕ responses.
The Media Center produces either forums or candidate statements for nearly
every midpeninsula race including Palo Alto City Council and School Board, East
Palo Alto Sanitary District and tax measures, Menlo Park Fire District,
and the Foothill-De Anza College District. Programs covering the
state propositions will also be carried on the Media CenterÕs local cable channels.
A list of playback times can be found on the Media CenterÕs web site at: http://www.communitymediacenter.net/elections_2005.html.
The list includes links to the forums that have been uploaded to the
Internet and will be updated as election season progresses.
Last on the list is the Election Night show. The Media Center
traditionally hosts a live show on election night featuring interviews with
local winners as well as losers as the returns for Midpeninsula races roll in.
The Media Center unveiled its new video-on-demand services recently with
indexed archives of Menlo Park City Council meetings. Additionally, the Media
Center has begun to webcast two of its cable channels live on the Internet. The
new equipment and software for webcasts and video-on-demand was a result of a
grant from Cable Co-op, the former mid-peninsula cable television operator.
Over 30 community organizations received support from the Legacy Grant program
that distributed gains on the sale of the system to AT&T Broadband, now
Comcast. The Midpeninsula Community Media Center is one of the first
community media centers nationwide to webcast its channels on the internet,
joining cities like Manhattan, Brooklyn, Honolulu, Sacramento, and Cambridge,
MA.
Those who live or work in Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, or Menlo Park, can take
media workshops and then rent video cameras from the not-for-profit Media
Center to tape programs such as candidate forums or can reserve the
professional TV studio to produce televised forums and performances.
Channel 26 webcast: http://www.communitymediacenter.net/watch/videos/ch26_live.html
Channel 27 webcast: http://www.communitymediacenter.net/watch/videos/ch27_live.html
Palo Alto City Council Candidates Forum:
http://www.communitymediacenter.net/watch/Elections_05/PACC_forum/PACCforum_web_tmplt.1.html
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