Oahe TV: Pierre depends on it

While attending the 2009 South Dakota State Historical Society History Conference in Pierre last month, I noticed a young man videotaping the various speakers and struck up a conversation with him.

Patrick Callahan is a “one-man show” for Oahe TV, operated by the City of Pierre. It was a serendipitous meeting, since just the evening before – while sequestered in a room at the Kings Inn – I watched a Pierre City Commission meeting on Oahe TV, an “access” channel provided by the cable television franchisee.

What impressed me about the broadcast was its professionalism. This was not a one-camera, high school production (with apologies to high schools and C-SPAN, which can and do produce some outstanding material with a single camera). The City of Pierre contracts with Callahan to run Oahe TV and can be rightfully proud of this service, which provides a close-up view of city government and school board activity in the Pierre and Fort Pierre communities.

Think of it as a local C-SPAN-type service.

Callahan says the city uses part of the cable franchise fee paid by Midcontinent Communications to run Oahe TV. It’s about an $83,000 line item in the city budget, but Oahe TV also contracts out to folks like the State Historical Society convention and other events to help off-set costs.

That’s a small price to pay for the resources delivered by Oahe TV. Not only are their informational programs available on cable television, they’re archived and available on the worldwide web. Take a look at their website at www.oahetv.com. It includes a comprehensive local weather site, too.

From time-to-time, I’ve happened across a “Government Channel” on Knology Cable in Spearfish. I’ve never seen anything but Rapid City meetings televised, and many of those have been poorly produced – bad audio or video, or both. Pierre does it well, and Mayor Laurie Gill says "the community has come to depend on it."

Spearfish Ward 2 councilman Paul Young tells me there's been some discussion about such a service in Spearfish over the years, but nothing has ever come of it. It seems to me it would be a valuable tool in helping make city government more transparent and accessible.

The City of Spearfish is already pretty progressive. It has developed a great City Park, and numerous neighborhood parks provide most neighborhoods with a delightful place to picnic and let the kids play. We’re particularly fond of the five-mile bike/walking path that abuts Spearfish Creek. Perhaps the greatest testament to the wisdom of city fathers in building the path: it is used extensively.

Making city government more accessible and transparent through a service modeled after Oahe TV in Pierre would be another valuable asset for Spearfish. Like the bicycle path, it, too, would be used extensively, and we’d be a better community for it.

The public wins with C-SPAN

I have been a fan of C-SPAN for many years, and I’ve always appreciated their even-handedness in programming. For nearly 30 years, their coverage of Congress and other entities has been superb, offering the American public an opportunity to observe government in action, without editing or commentary. It’s a function that I long felt public broadcasting could and should have served – an unfettered purveyor of high quality public affairs programming focusing on government.

Perhaps such a role for public broadcasting was a bit optimistic, recognizing that a substantial amount of its funding comes from federal and state governments, allowing it to be a whipping boy when things go awry “at the Capitol.” Nonetheless, I wish I had pushed even harder for such a role for public broadcasting during my earlier years in public broadcasting. I proposed such a service several times to the Mississippi legislature -- probably not the ideal venue for such a state service.

C-SPAN was created in 1979 by the U.S. cable television industry and was, I believe, largely the brain-child of Brian Lamb. It was a stroke of genius at just the right time. In these days of heightened media bias – and it does exist – it’s refreshing to find a broadcast service that strives for objectivity and fairness. And their nearly 300 employees usually get it right. According to their website, about 30 million viewers tune in to C-SPAN every week.

When Karen and I retired and took to the road a few years ago, the availability of C-SPAN Radio was a key factor in our subscribing to XM satellite radio, and it was a good investment.

C-SPAN isn’t for everyone, but I find myself mesmerized by the gavel-to-gavel coverage of much floor and committee action in both the U.S. House of Representative and the U.S. Senate. It’s a wonderful insight into the public machinations of our government, albeit sometimes a bit unnerving.

Will Rogers would likely say it’s a pretty good way to keep an eye on the hired help.