Once again, the city of Fayetteville has out-sourced television production – spending even more than the Coody administration did on a TV commercial for the city some years ago. Yes, the city and the good folks at the Chamber of Commerce will be able to use the segment that they are paying $19,800 (for five minutes of TV time) for further promotional purposes, but I guess that’s what happens when a city lacks their own television station.

Oh, wait . . .

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Granted, most of the city council members probably haven’t ambled down to 101 W. Rock lately and seen the facilities, and actually seen what the Government Channel is capable of – some of them may think all the FGC crowd does is man cameras at government meetings.

But the city employs an entire crew of incredibly talented individuals at FGC. Just to mention one by name – the inestimable Frou Gallagher – has won national awards for her productions, which are marveled at by those who have seen them.

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The others are equally as talented.

Then there is Community Access Television. If here was really almost $20,000 in loose change laying around, the folks at C.A.T. have an excellent track record wen it comes to contract productions.

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Just because something costs a lot of money, doesn’t mean you are getting a better job deal than you could get a stone’s throw away from the council chambers, dudes.

As for the city having “final approval” of the edited segment from the folks at Today in America, will anyone from the FGC be invited to take a look at it? Their phone number is in the book.

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******

Which Fayetteville mayor used the Government Channel best of all?

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Ironically, it was Fred Hanna, who actually had his own talk show on FGC, in which he interviewed aldermen and department heads about their jobs. Despite the fact that Hanna was a politically divisive figure, the show was very even-handed and informative.

*****

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Quote of the Day

I went to a conference where the title of one talk that jumped out at me was “Creating a disease.” A drug company executive got up on stage with a PowerPoint presentation and explained how his company had created a disease – overactive bladder. The company owned a pill for incontinence, but the market for incontinence is very low because mostly elderly people suffer from it, and doctors try to mange this in a non-pharmaceutical way. Even though this drug works on your bladder, it is very hard con your brain. It can cause severe memory problems. But the company wanted to expand the market so it created this disease called “overactive bladder” or “OAB.”which is defined as needing to go to the bathroom more than nine times a day. And now you see ads for this Detrol, for overactive bladders. It became a blockbuster. – Melody Petersen, In These Times. January 2010

rsdrake@cox.net

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