There is a story out there that the county is going to stop funding the Howard County Government TV to save money. Starting in July 1, 2008 the channel is planned to be merged with Howard County Community College.
How do I know this? Well, at the BlogTail Happy hour sponsored by Jessie Newburn at (Hometown Columbia), one of the bloggers asked if anyone else had received an email with this little fact. Although I had not seen it at he time, it turns out that I had received one sent at 3:41 PM with a not so clever yahoo email address. This same enterprising Verizon customer then proceeded to add a comments last night on multiple threads on this blog (most have since been marked as spam and removed.)
The story from the Baltimore Sun - 8 to lose jobs as Howard TV studio closes states that this will save $500,000 a year.
Is this post rewarding bad behavior? After first hearing about this and then seeing the article in the Sun, I would have probably chosen to write about it anyway. With the thread spamming – well that almost made me decide to not post this so as not to reward bad behavior.
Saving $500,000 is a good thing. Will the loss of H-GTV be the end of government transparency? I am a political junkie and regularly listen to CSPAN radio in my car when talk radio switches to sports or other programming. My IPod/ITunes are filled with Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, the Northern Alliance, Captain Ed and blog talk radio clips. And I’ve watched H-GTV maybe once. And that was only when I wanted to re-watch a candidates forum last election cycle that I had already attended!
I am afraid that H-GTV is one of those things that sound better in theory than in practice. (In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; In practice, there is – Chuck Reid) With the internet, I’d rather see transcripts posted in a timely manner than trying to figure out when a particular segment would air and then watch it.
The county is going to merge the channel with HCCC, so why not sponsor a TV/Reporting curriculum where students can get practical experience and course credit for recording and producing county hearings and events? The infrastructure is already in place and it should dramatically reduce costs to Howard County residents while still providing a visual recording of the events. Posting these events in YouTube fashion would enable residents to watch events on demand. Reduced cost, increased access and practical experience for students – the only down side is that a spammer may need to find a new job. Just a thought.
