Massachusetts woman's cable-access show must go on

By The Associated Press

03.06.02

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BOSTON — Patricia Demarest was an old-fashioned gadfly, accusing Athol city officials of conflicts of interest and even camping outside their homes for her public-access cable show "Think Tank 2000."

But when she met one official on the street and later broadcast the grilling she gave him, the cable company, whose board is appointed by the city, suspended her and changed its rules to prevent controversial programming.

Last week, Demarest got her revenge, when a federal judge ruled such shows constitute a "public forum" and are subject to First Amendment protection.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Demarest, called the ruling the first to give such citizen news gatherers the same rights as professional journalists.

"It's a landmark decision," said Demarest, who co-produced her program with her roommate, Vicki Dunn. "It will open so many more doors for common citizens to use public access as a public forum and a place to speak their minds.

"It's not just a fight for me and Vicki," she said. "It's a fight for any common citizen to bring forth ideas and generate healthy communities."

Cable access provides the same opportunity to share ideas as printed leaflets and soap boxes did in years past, Bill Newman, director of the western Massachusetts chapter of the ACLU, said yesterday.

"Citizen producers of shows are entitled to the same First Amendment protections as producers of shows for large media outlets," Newman said.

After several controversial broadcasts during the summer of 2000, Athol/Orange Community Television in central Massachusetts changed its rules to require broadcasters to get written consent from anyone they portrayed, claiming that otherwise citizens could be publicly and unfairly abused.

The ACLU argued that would prevent coverage of any public official.

Judge Michael Ponsor, in a ruling issued Feb. 28 in Springfield, essentially agreed, writing the requirement put a "suffocatingly impracticable burden upon electronic news gathering by requiring a release from every recorded person."

The rules, he wrote, "made news makers news editors. By refusing to sign a release form, Athol's news makers could ensure that their images did not appear on AOTV."

Ponsor also struck down a provision of AOTV's rules that prohibits broadcasters from showing illegal acts. Such a requirement, he said, would have prevented the broadcast of "some of the most important moments in American history," including footage of the Bloody Sunday attack on civil rights marchers in Selma, Ala.

Peter Epstein, the lawyer for AOTV, said he had not read the verdict and later did not return a phone message seeking comment.

Ponsor declined to strike down a provision against "potentially offensive" content, saying there were reasonable circumstances in which such a ban could be allowed.

Demarest said she did not know when she and Dunn might return to the station but that she would like to return.

"I don't think a million dollars would have given us more happiness," she said of the decision.

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