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Access SF is obligated by the SFCTC Grant Agreement with the City and Country of San Francisco to cablecast Public Service Announcements (PSA) for non-profits.
The old procedure was that a non-profit could fill out a form, or use the web-based form, and submit it. Sade Huron would approve the submission and prepare a SCALA-based PSA that would be cablecast during the Community Announcements timeslots (Monday through Friday, 10:00 - 10:30 a.m., and 3:30 - 4:00 p.m.) and periodically between scheduled programming. At first, Sade would also make the effort to train volunteers and interns to prepare SCALA screens so that Access SF could keep up with the PSA workload. After months of neglect, finally in February 2005, Sade relinquished control of the PSA processing.
Marc Smolowitz assumed the responsibility for PSAs. He quickly came up with a more burdensome PSA submittal process, where non-profits must submit their PSAs on-line, and only after filling out an on-line registration and survey for the non-profit. Marc had me develop a bilingual multi-screen cross-domain hand-off procedure for the Access SF web site. The Spanish-language version has never been publicly activated since Marc and Zane never signed off on the translation. The bottom-line was that Access SF would no longer accept PSA submissions unless the non-profit completed the registration process. There was nothing wrong with this.
I am a board member of Ohana, a non-profit running club that producers running events for other non-profits. We produce a half dozen events a year, where all the proceeds go to other non-profits. We've been doing this for nearly 25 years. Our recent benefactors include:
So why are our PSA announcements not being run? I've been submitting Ohana event PSAs since shortly after beginning my involvement with Access SF, and I've never seen any being cablecast. After I implemented the new PSA submission procedure, and it was approved for public use, I completed the registration procedure for Ohana, and submitted PSAs for events we had over the summer. None of them were processed. When I submitted PSAs for the fall and winter events, I also submitted artwork. I even got an email acknowledgment from Marc that he received the submissions and the artwork, but still the Ohana PSAs were never processed.
As a Ohana board member, I sent email to Marc and Zane and asked why our PSAs were not being processed. After a while, I got some lame replies about how busy everyone is and they slipped through the cracks. How could that be, when I was sending reminders, and asking Marc about our PSAs when I saw him in the office. I know that ours were not the only PSAs being ignored by Marc. I saw stacks of unprocessed PSA submissions on Marc's desk. How can he claim to not have time, when throughout the year, Marc has had an army of interns working on his special projects (The San Franciscans, League of Women Voters debates, marketing ads to "underwriters", marketing commercial use of Access SF facilities and personal resources, etc.). Marc has time for all of these special projects, and he allocates an army of interns for these special projects, but he can't find time to process non-profit PSAs as mandated by the city grant agreement allowing SFCTC to manage and operate Access SF for the city. What made this lame excuse so absurd, is that I knew that selective PSAs and "underwriter" ads were being processed.
As a board member of Ohana, I sent a more formal complaint to Zane Blaney. Zane had the nerve to tell me that I should have just processed my own PSA. What nerve. He knows, because he makes the rules, that staff is not allowed to use the facilities for personal use without his expressed permission. He knows, because he makes the rules, that any announcements make though Access SF must have proper approvals. He also knows that my work ethic which demands fair and equitable enforcement of the rules would demand that if I did my own PSA, I would need to do all other outstanding PSAs. Zane did not authorize me to work on anyone's PSAs.
Last year, I also submitted PSAs for the Chinese New Year's Treasure Hunt, benefiting the Hamilton House. That PSA never ran on Access SF. This year, the hunt benefits Circus Center and the San Francisco Food Bank.
I know that many public service announcements (PSA) submitted to Access SF by non-profits in the last year have not been processed. We all have a right to know when our PSAs are run, and if they aren't why not. We have a right to fair and equitable access to the Community Announcements, and we should not accept unfairly being ignored in favor of commercial acknowledgments, or in favor of larger non-profits that are in a position to show in-kind favoritism to SFCTC.
Registration is now open for the Chinese New Year's Treasure Hunt on February 11, 2006, benefiting Circus Center and the San Francisco Food Bank.
Registration is now open for Ohana's Ocean Beach 5K and 6 Mile run on April 02, 2006, benefiting Dolores Street Community Service.
As a result of posting this exposé, SFCTC posted a few outstanding PSAs (beginning February 2, 2006). This spurt of activity is welcome, but it doesn't make up for months of neglect. There were dozens of PSA that never made it on the air because they were already outdated. We should continue to consider this neglect a problem until all PSAs are processed in a regular and timely manner.
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