BACKGROUND ON ACCESS NEWS
real news? what a concept....
The first access news show went to air in October 1994. A small group of volunteers started the show with very little production experience but a lot of enthusiasm and a do-it-yourself attitude. They saw community TV as a great opportunity to get their hands on video equipment and access to the airwaves; to be able to present real news, with grass-roots and local content, and fill the black-hole of news programs on commercial and government-owned networks.
The original impetus was also to promote radical ideas and social and environmental justice. Rather than just playing a thirty-second clip of a rally as other news services do - half of which contains opinion from the journalist and the other half a summary from the cops - access news talks to community activists and tries to capture the mood and the intention of a demonstration. "The act of broadcasting itself becomes an act of protest" said access news's Nitennis Davies.
Channel 31 is broadcast free-to-air, which means that anyone with a tv can tune in, with a potential audience of the whole of Melbourne. The first episode had three stories; a queer-pride event attacked by fundamentalist christians, East Timorese students and the struggle for independence, and a Greenpeace campaign update.
Since then, access news has kept its focus on direct action and movements for social change. Skills have been passed on to a turnover of new volunteers, training a wide group of people to use video as an effective tool for social change.
It's now the longest continuously-running program on channel 31, and has kept its timeslot of 8:00 every Monday night. It is the only program on channel 31 with a specific focus on issues of social and environmental justice and human rights.
In the medium term, access news is working to establish a national and regional network of video-activists and an archive of tapes documenting dissent and social change. There are close ties with Melbourne's community radio station 3CR, and video-activists from the UK (undercurrents) and Sydney (news unlimited). A database is under construction which contains years of australian protesting (more hands are needed to continue this work - contact us to get involved).
More recently, access news has been seeking out and screening important social documentaries otherwise ignored, or even censored, by mainstream media organizations. In 1999 access news presented ³McLibel: Two Worlds Collide², a compelling documentary following Helen Steel and Dave Morris as they struggle to defend themselves against the McDonalds Corporation through the longest trial in English legal history. Proposed transmissions on the BBC and Channel 4 in the UK were pulled for fear of a libel suit.