08 Dec People Power: PhillyCAM Came Together to Celebrate National Community Media Day

BY ANDRE CHERRY

PhillyCAM celebrated the sixth annual Community Media Day on October 20 with a day’s worth of special programming. PhillyCAM is the non-profit designated by the City of Philadelphia to operate its public access television network (Xfinity 66/966 and Verizon Fios 29/30). Public access is a system on cable television that provides people with access to equipment and training to make and broadcast their own non-commercial programs without having to buy airtime. 

PhillyCAM’s People Power Media Fest is a month-long celebration that runs through October, featuring free in-person and virtual events, workshops, and television/radio broadcasts. Some of the activities included a Community Media Day, celebration of Indigienous Peoples’ Day, Free Speech Week, and Media Literacy Week. 

The cinéSPEAK Journal stopped by the PhillyCAM studio on Community Media Day to experience community power in action. Community Media Day is an event created by Brooklyn Free Speech (BRIC) as an annual celebration to bring awareness to the importance of free speech and accessible media so that all individuals can have their voices heard. It’s celebrated all throughout the world by anyone who wants to ensure that the media landscape remains inclusive for all artists, across all forms of media. 

Nasha Taylor, the Community Engagement Director at PhillyCAM, led the cinéSPEAK Journal on a special tour of the facility. “Community media brings people together across genres, diverse backgrounds, and with different interests to learn, create, and share stories through content that educates, entertains, and engages,” Taylor said. “We have resources and support for people of any skill-level to be involved in production across television and radio.” 

To celebrate Community Media Day, PhillyCAM gathered local producers to share stories of how the media center is a hub for hyper-local production and how grassroots media makers, activists, and organizers create collective impact through teamwork across cultures and media platforms. While on the tour, we walked past a production control room and witnessed a team of people working to produce a live television show. On another floor, we saw a group of PhillyCAM members waiting outside another TV studio, making small talk before their turn to go in front of the camera. It was self-evident that everyone plays a role at PhillyCAM.

Tony Riddle, Senior Vice President of Community Media at BRIC believes the real emphasis on this day should be on community. “We use the processes of production and the means of distribution to bring people together into a community,” Riddle said. “You have all these diverse interests and they don’t always get along in real life, but you can bring them all into the community media center and there’s an immediate appreciation of the value of the difference and the value of tolerance and being able to get along with each other. So it’s a real practice of creating the kind of community that we want the greater community to be.” This practice of community was evident during our tour of PhillyCAM as we witnessed people working together, in their various roles and functions, all throughout the studio. 

The afternoon of special programming began with a Member Recognition Tribute where PhillyCAM members shared their unique journeys to becoming television producers. One member, Toni J. Jones, shared her inspirational story of joining PhillyCAM almost reluctantly on behalf of a friend who paid for a class but was unable to join herself. Toni stepped in and produced the show, 7 Figure Hustle. The show helped Toni with financial literacy, and she in turn is able to help others improve their financial freedom. She credits the encouragement she receives from PhillyCAM as a motivating force in her life. “PhillyCAM was a platform that allowed me to do what I never ever ever imagined doing,” Jones said. 

Another member, Karen Walker, stumbled across PhillyCAM through her daughter’s internship with the organization. “Fast forward a number of years after her internship with PhillyCAM, I then became a member and decided to overcome my fear of public speaking and develop a production that I would host,” Walker said. Her show, Diamond In The Ruff, is a special series of interviews that focuses on a myriad of topics to educate, entertain, and engage viewers. Walker’s guests span across various industries, such as art, media, and communication.

After the Member Recognition Tribue, the focus turned to PhillyCAM’s radio station, WPPM 106.5 FM, for a discussion around how community radio plays a role in culture and social and political change. 

“Community media offers the virtual and in-person space to feel safe while learning, to feel supported as creators, and to feel connected from ideation to distribution,” Taylor said. “Community media is more than video and radio production–members help build relationships across neighborhoods and lived experiences.”

Each year, the PhillyCAM staff collaborates across all departments to plan special projects around their milestones. They consider various factors from the social landscape, to member feedback, to organizational goals. Community Media Day coincided with WPPM 106.5 FM’s sixth anniversary. To mark the occasion, PhillyCAM produced a simulcast fundraising marathon with a live band performance as a part of the show. “With this year’s theme being ‘Building Community Power,’ we wanted to set a fundraising goal to celebrate WPPM’s 6th Radio anniversary, create a dynamic production experience for members and interns to participate in, and have a casual way to bring members together with music and refreshments,” Taylor said.

The event culminated in a live three-hour TV/radio simulcast where every PhillyCam studio was used to help produce the show. Even the garage transformed, very impressively, into a sound studio for a pop-up sidewalk concert by the female-fronted band You Do You. 

All 24 hours worth of video content for People Power Media Fest is available, on-demand, on PhillyCAM’s website.  These programs are a result of a spectrum of engagement from member-produced content to staff-produced specials that feature members. 

PhillyCAM provides transformative opportunities for people and communities to express themselves, to learn from each other, and to produce and share media reflective of experiences of everyday people. “Our cable channel and radio station is where anyone in the Philadelphia broadcast area can tune in to get a sense of the perspectives and voices of people living throughout the city,” Taylor said.

PhillyCAM strives to serve all residents of the greater Philadelphia area who want to learn and make media in a collaborative environment. PhillyCAM provides transformative opportunities, and a safe space, for people to express themselves, to learn from each other, and to produce and share media reflective of experiences of everyday people. PhillyCAM plays an important role in the community in helping members create media which promotes civic engagement, and Community Media Day is an annual reflection of these values.  

*Featured Image: Image from People Power Media Fest 2022. Courtesy of PhillyCAM.

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Andre Cherry’s love of storytelling compels him to create art. He is a cinéSPEAK Fellow, background actor, and writer. His screenplays have placed within the Austin Film Festival and Stowe Story Labs. Andre, who originally hails from the Chicagoland area, quickly grew to love Philadelphia after moving to the area in 2014. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Illinois State University.