PROGRAM PARTNERSHIP PROPOSAL
By The We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming Coalition (WIYRSPC)

March 23. 2003



Program Description 

We propose a partnership with WTTW to create twice-monthly, live, prime time public forum 
programs with a one hour documentary lead-in and one hour of panel and audience discussion 
following. Program topics are to range among issues of vital concern to Chicago working 
families, but special forums on the topic of "No More Wars!" are needed immediately. Each 
program is to be fully interactive with audience comments, e-mails, faxes and phone-ins. The 
forums are to be held at studio or community sites. The guest speaker panels are to consist of a 
blend of articulate but nearly invisible national and local spokespersons representing working 
class organizations. 

WTTW has been producing live public forum programming for years. What is different here is 
that we propose to partner with WTTW in "filling in the blanks" of host, topic, film lead-in, and 
guest panelists.


Negotiable Items:

Additional advance promotion; additional showings; partnership on film, panelists and hosts; our 
co-producers/liaisons advise the producers and director; we receive group and individual 
production credits; setting design; screens and graphics; budgeting for expenses; compensation 
for certain workers' time.


Program Ideas Include:

Depleted uranium; Afghan prisoner of war massacre; Iran; North Korea; Israel/Palestine; 
Colombia; international arms trade; the UN and international law; star wars; more tax breaks 
for the rich; media ownership; assaults on civil liberties; immigration issues; labor issues including 
workplace health and safety and the right to organize; the economy; public education in Illinois; 
equal pay/women's rights; health care, other.



Program Title:
To be determined. (possible working title: "Bughouse Film Forum")


Citizenship, Diversity and Excellence

This programming partnership proposal conforms to the central missions, governing laws and 
guiding principles of public broadcasting in Chicago, especially public broadcasting's foremost 
doctrines of citizenship, diversity, and excellence. 

A democracy cannot exist without the active engagement of all its citizens - not just those 
persons and concerns wealthy enough to gain access to the centers of power through political 
influence and the mass media. The Public Broadcasting Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 
1967, calls for a service that will "address the needs of the unserved and underserved 
audiences". The 1967 Report of the Carnegie Commission, which led to that Act, specifically 
calls for a service that will provide "a forum for debate and controversy" (emphasis not in 
original) and, again, "a voice for groups in the community that may otherwise be 
unheard"- a service that will "enhance citizenship and public service". The CPB also seeks 
to "enhance the citizenship of all Americans", while PBS requests a service that will 
"encourage the active involvement of citizens to act collectively to address social 
challenges". PBS also seeks "audience participation" and programming that will "treat 
complex social issues completely (and) provide forums for deliberation" (emphasis not in 
original). Lastly, WTTW seeks an "agent for change".

In these times of robust misinformation, division and fear, our film and discussion forums 
partnership proposal represents a sorely needed tool that can help WTTW fulfill public 
broadcasting's various obligations to enhance citizenship. Together, we can help to bring back 
those democratic American values that we cherish and hold dearly but have been lost and 
stolen.

Public broadcasting and Congress are again quite clear when it comes to the priceless value of 
diversity. The 1967 Act demands that we create an "alternative" that will "express 
diversity" and "help us to see America whole, in all its diversity". Carnegie (reiterated by 
the CPB) asks for a system that "addresses the needs of unserved and underserved 
audiences, particularly children and minorities". PBS asks for  "diverse points of view" 
through a service that will "provide multiple viewpoints". WTTW's statement speaks of  
"many audiences". By actively seeking and presenting diverse and articulate spokespersons 
and quality issue documentaries representing the paramount concerns of working people, and 
by hearing their concerns directly, we can begin to see the whole picture. Not just the view of 
the select few. Marginalization can thus be supplanted by inclusion and democracy can mend 
and grow. 

Excellence, through innovation and risk-taking, is a precept of public broadcasting that will 
distinguish it from mainstream broadcasting. The 1967 Act requires an "alternative" that will 
"express…excellence" and involve "creative risks". Carnegie states, "We seek for the 
citizens the freedom to view, to see programs that the present system, by its 
incompleteness, denies". CPB wants to "encourage creative risks". PBS values "risk-
taking" and programs that are "innovative in format, structure, and approach" and 
"educational". Realizing the needs other broadcasters will not or cannot address, WTTW asks 
for programming that will "better serve our community". A documentary film and discussion 
forum as described herein substantially meets or exceeds all of public broadcasting's criteria 
related to excellence.


Conclusion

Together, through our shared values of citizenship, diversity and excellence, WTTW and our 
organization can and will encourage and enhance active and deeper civic engagement and 
democratic participation. Our mutual passion must be to collectively address social challenges 
as an agent of change to better serve our community. The creative risk inherent in this innovative 
working people's community film and forum proposal has to be taken. We must try to know 
what it is to be many in one as a just and peaceful global community. Our dire social 
predicament and the principles of public broadcasting demand it. We can't afford not to. 

?

Human rights activist Kathy Kelly has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and is 
the founder of the Chicago-based group Voices in the Wilderness, which works in support of 
the people of Iraq. Writing from Baghdad, she concludes her letter, published March 19th, with 
the following lines from the song "Anthem", written by Leonard Cohen:


	                                "Ring the bell that still can ring.
                                          Forget your perfect offering.
                                        There is a crack in everything.
                                          That's how the light gets in.
                                          That's how the light gets in."

















Sources:

U.S. Congress: Public Broadcasting Act of 1967

Carnegie Commission: "Public Television: A Program for Action"(1967)

CPB Mission Statement, adopted July 13, 1999 by the CPB Board of Directors
http://www.cpb.org/about/corp/mission.html

PBS Mission - Pat Mitchell, President and CEO PBS http://www.pbs.org/producers/mission/

WTTW Mission Statement http://www.networkchicago.com/about.htm; 
about WTTW http://www.networkchicago.com/aboutwttw.htm