STATUS: Off-Leash Public Affairs

Take Your Leash Off !!
The videos often can be accessed by clicking on the Title text for access via Vimeo.
The embedded images for the vids have disappeared since 2012.
The older Google Video files also have disappeared, to be revived and posted eventually from the archive DVDs.
Use the email link on the right side here to contact David Pritchett.

Our show is in hiatus!
David and Cathy (especially Cathy) have been a bit busy since 2011 with the ultimate in local public affairs....
.....

20 January 2006

ideas for show episodes and topics

No particular order of priority, and certainly not a complete list:
  • Goleta Slough projects
  • the F-word: FEMINISM
  • Santa Ynez River issues, local water etc.
  • water supply and conservation
  • Vets for Peace, profiles and programs
  • elected officials and their pet projects
  • candidates for election
  • Walking With The Incumbents
  • Coastal Housing Partnership, March seminars
  • Special Districts, what and why
  • retail neighborhood law enforcement for shopping carts strewn about, how and why, who pays, sidewalk blockers, encroaching hedges, tagging, real estate signs, etc.
  • Sycamore Creek flooding per PUEBLO, CalTrans delayed
  • SRF conference presentations from late Feb.2006
  • LNG (liquid natural gas) proposals in Ventura County, Santa Barbara nexi
  • Ormond Beach project, nexi to South Coast
  • Santa Cruz Island management, TNC and friends
  • Ventura River history by Jenkin
  • Ventura River projects, Matilija Dam
  • Channels TV, what and why
  • neighborhood group profiles
  • traffic calming, roundabouts, and neighbor opinions
  • "alternative" transportation profiles
  • Citizens Police Academy
  • What to learn from Buenaventura City
  • what to learn from Ventura County
  • street sweeping zones, results, finances
  • dog park management
  • San Marcos Foothills
  • Heal The Ocean projects
  • ChannelKeeper projects (existing 5-min. vid on kelp)
  • local neighborhood group profiles
  • CAUSE vs. "Friends of the Boy Scouts", County policy issues late 2001
  • freeway funding and lane filling
  • guest pundits who are not candidates
  • Walk Santa Barbara, by Cheri Rae
  • steelhead component for Los Marineros program SBMNH
  • CEC watershed programs, project complexities
  • local schools funding and tiers
  • SB Museum of Art, migrant workers exhibit 22Apr.-06Aug.
  • CBER at UCSB, campus projects, seminars
  • Fossil Free by '33

16 January 2006

Journalism with a bit of a gonzo edge

Off-Leash Public Affairs will be (or is) non-commercial journalism with a bit of a gonzo edge. The tenets and responsibilities of journalism still apply, although OLPA may be considered New Media with its Internet blog and video downloads, and a show on community-access cable TV. Printed and "published" newspapers definitely are Old Media, although community-access TV might be considered Middle-Aged Media since it started only in the early 1970s (see http://www.geocities.com/iconostar/history-public-access-TV.html).

Addendum, 25June2007:
Interview in Salon (web magazine) with Josh Wolf, a video blog journalist (and one-time UCSB Daily Nexus writer) once imprisoned by The Government for 7.5 months through April 2007, because he did not give up, on demand, his unpublished video about a riot. This and many other stories about him explore the rapidly evolving definition about what is journalism and who is a journalist. Here is the Colbert Report interview from 13June2007.

Addendum, May 2007:
news article on California legal status to define journalists and a shield law

Original posting...
Some definitions of Journalism:
* a style of writing for presenting bare facts to describe news events www.iclasses.org/assets/literature/literary_glossary.cfm
* Journalism is a discipline of collecting, verifying, reporting, and analyzing information gathered regarding current events, including trends, issues and people. Those who practice journalism are known as journalists. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism
* also see: http://www.bloggercon.org/2004/04/06#a1063
and especially the traditional definitions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standards

In a shield law proposed in 2004, legislation attempted in Texas (!) defined a journalist as:
“a person, or an employee, independent contractor, or agent of that person, engaged in the business of gathering, compiling, writing, editing, photographing, recording, or processing information for dissemination by any news medium”;
and a news medium as:
"a person who in the ordinary course of business publishes, broadcasts, or otherwise disseminates news by print, television, radio, or other electronic means accessible to the public”.

Who is a Journalist definitely is evolving in modern culture, but what is Journalism should not be. Journalism is a craft and method, not necessarily just a profession paid by a certain organization http://medialit.med.sc.edu/bloggers_journalism.htm

Following a nationwide trend, California Highway Patrol has been challenged successfully many times, so CHP no longer serves as the statewide umbrella agency, or defacto gatekeeper, for defining who is or is not a journalist. But the CHP definition still includes employment status as part of its apparent policy.
See also this summary from November 2004: http://www.kqed.org/weblog/capitalnotes/2004/11/chp-no-more-press-passes.jsp

The CHP policy from their own Media Guide (http://www.chp.ca.gov/html/media.html):
"The CHP no longer issues press cards. Any existing cards are not valid and should be destroyed or returned to the CHP. CHP officers will recognize permanent employees of bona fide news gathering agencies if shown a business card or other item which identifies the individual in association with the news gathering organization."

The Producers of Off-Leash Public Affairs carry identification cards that indicate their status as journalists with this TV show. Whether OLPA is "bona fide" or not will be judged by history.