AFI ENTERS THE VIDEO AGE
I wrote AFI Enters the Video Age: Remembering the National Video Festival for a work-in-progress memoir. Jean Firstenberg and James Hindman asked me to adapt it for a history of the American Film Institute, Becoming AFI: 50 Years Inside the American Film Institute.
I was AFI’s first director for television and video from 1980 to 1982, where I produced the first two festivals. In the photo, I’m introducing keynote speaker, Erik Barnouw, and welcoming an audience of 500 in The Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater.


Reinventing public service campaigns for the digital age
Benton, BlogIt started with a cold call from the Advertising Council to the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF). In 1996, the Ad Council, with more than $2 billion a year in donated media for public service advertising, decided to make a ten-year commitment to campaigns on behalf of children as the centerpiece of its work. To launch the initiative, the Ad Council was looking for a partner who could deliver a grassroots network and reinvent fulfillment for the digital age, replacing 800 numbers and brochures with websites to provide information and resources for action. CDF said, That’s not what we do, but you should talk to the Coalition for America’s Children and Larry Kirkman at the Benton Foundation.