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SILENCED
City Cable 16 'edits out' testimony of Williams critic at public hearing
(Published April 5, 2004)

By KATHRYN SINZINGER
Staff Writer

City officials are acknowledging that they "edited out" testimony that was critical of Mayor Anthony A. Williams in the taped version of a public hearing that is being re-broadcast on one of the city’s cable television stations dedicated to providing public information.

The doctoring of the videotaped proceedings appears to violate regulations governing publicly funded cable Channels 13 and 16, which state: "All public meetings will be covered gavel-to-gavel. No editing of any sort shall be performed."

The editing was discovered by Jerome Brocks, chairman of the Washington Teachers Union’s Political Action Committee (PAC), who said his effort at home to videotape a Channel 16 re-broadcast revealed that his testimony had been omitted. Brocks testified Feb. 7 during the mayor’s hearing to solicit public views on funding for D.C. Public Schools. The hearing was required by D.C. law.

Subsequently, the teachers’ union PAC unanimously endorsed the recall campaign currently underway against the mayor.

Brocks said he did not use written testimony at the hearing but recalled that he "told the mayor that I hold him totally responsible for the problems in D.C. Public Schools." He said the mayor publicly pledged at the hearing to meet with teachers to discuss their demands that he repay thousands of dollars in union funds that jailed former union president Barbara Bullock used improperly to support the mayor’s election campaigns, pay for a "welcome party" for his chief of staff and to provide personal gifts for the mayor.

Donald Fishman, legal counsel for the mayor’s Office of Cable Television and Telecommunications (OCTT), said he watched the hearing videotape after Brocks called OCTT Executive Director James D. Brown Jr. to complain.

"He’s right – his testimony was edited out," he acknowledged.

Fishman said that "everything we air on Channel 16 is edited," and that editing of community meetings most often occurs for time or tape quality considerations. He said he did not know why Brocks’ hearing testimony was cut.

"He may have been edited out for content," Fishman said.

Mayoral spokesman Tony Bullock said the "official record of the hearing does exist in a video." He offered to provide a copy to The Common Denominator, but it was not immediately available at press time.

"As a general rule, the mayor would not want a public hearing to be edited. I think we’re going to straighten that out with OCTT," Bullock said. "I think they made a mistake, and I think they need to fix it."

Several members of the D.C. City Council told The Common Denominator they were concerned to learn that political considerations may be affecting the content of programming aired on Channel 16, which is controlled by OCTT. The office serves dually as the regulator of all cable television operations in the District and the programmer for the city government’s cable channels.

"If you’re showing a hearing, show the hearing. …You don’t want to deceive the public," said Councilman Harold Brazil, D-At Large, who chairs the committee that has oversight responsibility for cable TV.

Brazil said he is "interested in finding out why [the editing] was done. And has it been done in the past?" He also expressed concern that Channel 16’s rebroadcast apparently gives no indication that it has been edited. The hearing tape also may be viewed on the city government’s Web site, which does not mention that it has been edited.

Councilman Phil Mendelson, D-At Large, said he believes the council "ought to look into" the incident to ensure that the government cable channels are used properly.

"It’s an issue of full disclosure," he said. "It’s stupid to be editing a public hearing, because when it happens, somebody finds out about it and it comes back on you. It’s a violation of regulations, a black eye and, in the end, serves no useful purpose at all."

Councilman Adrian Fenty, D-Ward 4, said he is concerned about the apparent violation of the city’s cable TV regulations by the office that is responsible for enforcing them.

"I don’t think it’s asking too much of an agency to live within the regs, even if they drafted them," he said. "Ninety-nine percent of the stuff on Channel 16 makes the mayor look good, so if one person’s testimony makes the mayor look bad, what’s that?"

Councilman Jim Graham, D-Ward 1, said he is concerned "when we have a government station acting in an Orwellian manner."

"I think the point here is [that] this is not the mayor’s television channel and it ought not to act like the mayor’s television channel," Graham said. "The public needs to have a sense of confidence that what they’re seeing is not censored, is not doctored for their consumption."