Beyond Broadcast: If you missed it, see it and hear it now

American University’s Center for Social Media has posted video and audio from the recent Beyond Broadcast gathering.

I attended BB in 06 and 07 but couldn’t make it because of schedule conflicts this year. If you found yourself in a similar situation, then check out the very complete report here.

I’ve just started digging into this, but it looks like some of the deepest discussions came in the afternoon during the Mapping the Money panel, which included Ernest Wilson, Walter Annenberg Chair in Communication and dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California… and board member of the CPB. He chided public media for not keeping up with the pace of change. “If you don’t get this right pretty soon, the quality of democracy will decline and stagnate, and it will be our fault.” Strong stuff, leading to robust discussion.

I’ve always thought this conference was particularly provocative and invigorating; the other “public media” conferences belong exclusively to the wealthiest branch of public media, the radio and television stations that serve a well-educated and largely passive audience (in the case of television, a mostly diapered audience).

I’m happily a part of that elite public media segment and I like those other conferences (I’m a PRPD board member and we put on a pretty good conference ourselves), but as someone who is supposed to be making decisions about the future of public media, it doesn’t hurt to be reminded that public media is much bigger than Public Radio and Public Television; that there are smart ways that we can all work together, if we’re willing to experiment thoughtfully; and that we bear the special burden of preserving democracy in a country where it’s under attack on many fronts.