Accessing the Public
PAPER TIGER TELEVISION
WHEN A GROUP of scholars that included Herb Schiller and Dee Dee Halleck founded the Paper Tiger collective in 1981 as a way to monitor and analyze mainstream media, they were following in the footsteps of 70s groups like Videofreeks, Video Free America and Global Village, activist organizations driven to keep independent media in step with emerging technologies.
Twenty-three years later, Paper Tiger's members have changed, but the collective remains dedicated to the democratization of media. "[PTTV] videos are about issues that typically disenfranchised communities face and how they deal with them," says Denisse Andrade, part of the PTTV collective since 2002. "One commonality in all of our videos is the analysis of the role media plays in perpetuating the systems of oppression that originally lead to these communities' struggles." PTTV programs feature scholars, journalists, activists and critics digging into the cultural meanings of mainstream media, and the ideologies in which it's rooted.
According to Andrade, a key aspect of Paper Tiger is spreading the knowledge that the tools of media production are accessible, that people can tell their own stories instead of waiting for major media outlets to take interest. Independent media is a thriving phenomenon, from the dozens of global Independent Media Centers, other video activists like San Francisco's Whispered Media, Brooklyn-based Dyke TV, AK Kraak in Berlin, the Chiapas Media Project in Mexico, NYC's Big Noise Films, which just released the Fourth World War, Freespeech TV, Philadelphia's Termite TV, and on and on.
A non-profit, volunteer-run (except for two part-time staffers) organization, Paper Tiger broadcasts on public-access cable channels in every borough except Queens, and distributes segments to public-access stations around the country. Community groups, libraries, universities and colleges use the videos, which also make the rounds of the festival circuit; the lives of PTTV's more than 300 releases extend far beyond the studios of cable-access.
PTTV members bring ideas for segments to bimonthly production meetings. As long as everyone else likes an idea and agrees that the project is in keeping with Paper Tiger's mission, a production team forms and creates a 28- or 56-minute segment, the standard format for public-access tv.
"Collective members usually come to Paper Tiger with a set of interests and skills," says Andrade. "Most are self-defined activists, others artists, educators, who are interested in using video as a tool for their work. The evolution of Paper Tiger's work is a reflection of those involved in the production and organizational processes."
In the past few years, PTTV has been branching out to partner with grassroots groups, including the War Resisters League and West Village queer-youth group FIERCE, interested in using video as an organizing tool. Paper Tiger doesn't create videos for others; rather, they guide people through the process of making video, and then help them design a distribution strategy for the work.
Currently, four high school students and an art student from Cooper Union are interning at Paper Tiger. The internship program, which has hosted about 20 interns in its five years of existence, offers people-generally students-an opportunity to work within the collective and attain a range of skills. PTTV asks interns to focus on a particular area, whether that's distribution, outreach, fundraising or administrative work; at an internship's conclusion, a student might leave knowing how to write a grant, how to produce a video or both, depending on the time spent at PTTV. In addition to the internship program, PTTV shares its skills through various workshops and media-literacy trainings, where people learn about both the theoretical and technical aspects of making independent media.
PTTV, like many arts organizations, has faced a severe funds-shortage since 9/11, and may soon have to let the part-time staff members go. To offset the loss of grants and other sources of outside funding, Paper Tiger has been holding regular benefits and conducting tri-monthly, one-day Final Cut Pro classes.
On Saturday, December 11, Paper Tiger will throw a fundraising party at Alwan for the Arts, at 16 Beaver St., 4th fl. (betw. B'way & Broad St.). The group promises all manner of excitement, including ice sculpture, door prizes, food and film, but I'll be showing up for Amayo's Fu-Arkist-Ra-with core members of the inimitable Antibalas. The sliding-scale cover of $10 to $20 will help Paper Tiger continue 23 years of creative independent media. People can also support PTTV by purchasing videos for their schools and organizations.