Northeast U. S.

Alliance for Community Media Northeast Conference 2023: Free Speech, Hate Speech, Misinformation and YOU! 11/16/2023

Moderator: Bobby Lussier, Development Director – Center for Media and Democracy

Panelists:
Rob Perry, Executive Director – Mad River Valley Television
Jessica Smyser, Executive Director – Cambridge Community Television, Cambridge, MA
Anthony Riddle, Senior Vice President of Community Media – BRIC

For more information visit: https://www.acm-ne.org/2023-conference-and-trade-show/

Alliance for Community Media Northeast Conference 2023: Community Media Partnering for Transparent and Active Local Democracy 11/16/2023

Welcome: Scot Barker – Chief Innovation Officer, City of Burlington, VT

Conversation Moderators:
Olga Peters – The Commons
Sarah Copeland Hanzas – Vermont Secretary of State

Community meeting coverage is a hallmark of government access television. Over the years, as technology and community expectations have changed, this has morphed from recordings televised on cable television to live streams, support of hybrid technology, and helping the public to make sense of what they are watching with titles, agendas, transcripts, captioning, and outreach to connect the public with the decision-making process. With the decline in cable revenues and increase in costs to produce alongside demands for more coverage and service, our government access operations are expanding their partnerships and revenue sources to meet the needs of local communities and municipal partners. We will hear from some of those community partners and how we are working together to support continued community coverage of government meetings, events, elections, and local democracy decision-makers.

For more information visit: https://www.acm-ne.org/2023-conference-and-trade-show/

NAAG Conference - The Surveillance Economy: Privacy in the Information Age - Legislative and Policy Approaches 10/08/2021

The passage of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2016, followed by California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in 2018, ushered in a new age of privacy rights for individuals’ personal information. Recently, other states have adopted similar legislation, with more states soon to follow. This panel discusses new and innovative legislative and policy approaches to enhancing privacy in the digital age and the prospects of a comprehensive federal privacy bill becoming law.

Moderator
Letitia James, New York Attorney General

Panelists
Pam Dixon, Executive Director, World Privacy Forum
Tom Galvin, Executive Director, Digital Citizens Alliance
Tim Sparapani, Founder, Strategic Government Relations Consultancy and Privacy Expert, SPQR Strategies
Jennifer Ubran, Professor, University of California, Berkley and Chair, California Privacy Protection Agency

NAAG Conference - The Surveillance Economy: Peter Welch Keynote 10/08/2021

Throughout his career in public service, Rep. Peter Welch has served the people of Vermont with distinction, both in the Vermont Senate and, since 2006, in the U.S. House of Representatives. He serves on the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology and has offered bold ideas, such as creating a new regulatory agency to oversee Big Tech. Rep. Welch offers his views on key technology issues and ways Congress can strike an appropriate balance between regulation and innovation.

Representative Peter Welch, House Committee on Energy and Commerce

NAAG Conference - The Surveillance Economy: Fireside Chat 10/07/2021

Join New York Times Tech Reporter Kashmir Hill and District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine as they discuss the profound and often unforeseen ways new and emerging technologies are changing our concepts of privacy and impacting our lives.

Opening Remarks by TJ Donovan, VT Attorney General and NAAG Eastern Region Chair

Karl A. Racine, District of Columbia Attorney General and NAAG President
Kashmir Hill, The New York Times, Technology Reporter

NAAG Conference - The Surveillance Economy: The Surveillance Economy 10/07/2021

Using Prof. Shoshanna Zuboff’s landmark economic concept - surveillance capitalism – as the foundation for this discussion, experts analyze the ways in which this emergent economic reality claims “human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data” and impacts our daily lives. Panelists address ways regulators and enforcers can use their authorities to protect individual privacy and autonomy.

Moderator
William Tong, Connecticut Attorney General

Panelists
Shawn Davis, Director of Digital Forensics, Edelson PC
Clare Garvie, Senior Associate, Center on Privacy & Technology, Georgetown Law
Maureen Mahoney, Senior Policy Analyst, Consumer Reports

NAAG Conference - The Surveillance Economy: The Supreme Court and Evolving Legal Principles of Privacy, AI, and Racial Disparities 10/07/2021

New technologies offer the promise of enhancing social welfare but can also exacerbate existing social inequalities and biases. They complicate our understanding of the very idea of privacy. Meanwhile state attorneys general have to navigate how states use technology and how to ensure the public they serve is not oppressed by it. Georgetown Law School Professor Heidi Li Feldman and former Federal District Court Judge Katherine Forrest examine some specific new technologies with an emphasis on how they affect our thinking about justice, welfare, and privacy more generally. This session helps those who work in state attorneys general offices begin to grapple with the challenges posed when potentially controversial legal ideals and powerful technologies collide.

Moderated by Maura Healey, Massachusets Attorney General

Heidi Li Feldman, Professor of Law, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University Law Center
Katherine Forrest, Partner, Litigation, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP

New England Mayors & Local Leaders Urge Federal Climate Action 08/18/2021

Join Mayors and City Councilors from around New England for a panel discussion about the impacts of climate change, opportunities for action at the local level, and the need for aggressive action from the federal government. These local leaders are seeing the impacts of climate change firsthand in their communities. Hear about the climate actions they’re taking locally, and why they are calling for significant federal investments in climate, clean energy, justice, and jobs.

Who:
Elizabeth Turnbull Henry, Environmental League of Massachusetts
Mayor Anne Watson, Montpelier, Vermont
City Councilor / Former Mayor Sarah Nichols, Bangor, Maine
City Councilor Jesse Lederman, Springfield, Massachusetts
Mayor Joyce Craig, Manchester, New Hampshire

Northeast Council on State Government: Public Access in Peril 08/17/2021

Many Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) centers across the Northeast are experiencing significant budget shortfalls with no relief in sight. Their services are critical for airing local government proceedings, town hall meetings, etc., yet cable companies are eschewing any efforts to pay for continuing free-to-air access for this kind of programming.

A panel of industry experts and state officials discuss how states in the Eastern Region are working to ensure the continuity of public access to state and local news.

MODERATOR: Lonnie Reed, Chair, Connecticut Green Bank

SPEAKERS: Lauren-Glenn Davitian, Executive Director, CCTV Center for Media & Democracy, Vermont; Walter Mann, Co-Chair of CT Community Media Association, Connecticut; Mike Rispoli, News Voices Director, Free Press and board member, the Civic Information Consortium, New Jersey; and David Gauthier, Executive Director, Winchester Community Access & Media, Massachusetts.

See more: csg-erc.org/welcome-to-the-60th-annual-meeting-and-regional-policy-forum

Standing Trees Vermont: Grassroots Resistance to Industrial Logging on Public Lands 05/13/2021

Standing Trees Vermont hosts a presentation and discussion with Danna Smith, executive director of Dogwood Alliance, coauthor of “The Great American Stand," and one of our nation's leading forest advocates. At Dogwood Alliance, Danna has worked successfully across the southern United States to build grassroots resistance to the wood pellet industry and industrial logging in a region rich in biodiversity but long targeted for extraction. Learn about the history of southern forests, strategies and tactics for resistance we can adapt to the Northeast, and opportunities for the future.

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Applications Now Open for the Spring 2025 Cohort of the Neighborhood Community Media Internship Program

Town Meeting TV is excited to announce that applications are now open for the Spring 2025 cohort of the Neighborhood Community Media Internship program. Join up to 8 other youth to engage in interesting media making projects! This paid media internship opportunity is designed for youth aged 16-20 who are eager to gain professional experience in the audio-visual field and develop a deeper understanding of their local community. The group will meet under the leadership of Town Meeting TV's Travis Washington from the end of January 2025 to the beginning of June 2025, on a schedule agreed upon by the whole cohort. Click here to apply!