How Public Access TV controls public speech

The original mission of Public Access TV was to provide "first-come nondiscriminatory (FCND) access to the medium of television". This was the mission because it was believed that FCND would guarantee uncensored free speech which the pioneers of public access television believed was essential for the wide dissemination of a diversity of ideas throughout society. This widespread diversity of ideas, it was also believed, was essential for a viable democracy.

That pipedream of course was before corruption and mission creep subverted public access into a tool of the government to control public speech through a more subtle form of structural discrimination to prevent the widespread diversity of ideas.

Sure anyone can go down to their local public access station (mine is Ho`ike on the island of Kauai Hawaii) and "put something on TV and say anything you want." After this bold declaration and some other pompous blather about "promoting free speech" the institutionalized structural discrimination kicks in.

One soon learns onerous "operating procedures" have been put in place. For starters one learns about the two week delay between the time a program is submitted and the time it will be broadcast. Say goodbye to anything that needs to be said in a timely manner.

Next you learn that the program will be broadcast no more than four times in one year. This falls short of the well known advertising truism that a message must be received at least six times before it sticks. The public access gatekeepers can of course make exceptions or what they call "an executive decision on a case-by-case basis', i.e. standard less discretion, i.e. discrimination. If the gatekeepers like you or your message they will play the program until the cows come home. If they don't like you or your message expect to see a two week delay, four plays a year, and the door.

That in a nutshell is a sample of a just a few of the many institutionalized tools of discrimination used by public access at the behest of government to control what ideas are (and are not) spread diversely throughout the community.

To compare and highlight the inequitable treatment the public receives it is worth noting that government access gets their programs (county council meetings for instance) captioned for the hard of hearing, broadcast within 24 hours and repeated seven times in a week. These Kauai County Council meeting programs typically run four to six hours long.

The bottom line is that this public access structural discrimination and special facilitation of government entities robs the public speaker of resources, drowns the public voice, and limits the diversity of ideas to those ideas the government and their public access gatekeepers find acceptable.