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.
U.S. PUBLIC MEDIA AT IDFA
I wrote a story for Current on the U.S. public television presence at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, IDFA, and its market for new films. I brought Current, the journal for public media, to American University as a project of the School of Communication from WNET-TV in 2010. Here I am at IDFA with Barbara Kopple who had two films at the festival. Barbara was the commencement speaker for the School of Communication in 2010 when I was dean. IDFA attracts more than 2,000 documentary professionals from around the world, and sells more than 250,000 tickets for some 300 films.
With Barbara Kopple at IDFA
IDFA veteran Klara Grunning, a commissioning editor at the Swedish Film Institute who worked for ITVS for 11 years, described IDFA as a mecca for international documentary: “It’s definitely one of the best places to launch a project in development or a newly completed film.”
STRATEGIC MEDIA MAKING AND IMPACT PRODUCING
I wrote “Strategic Media Making and Impact Producing” as a contribution to The New Storytellers: Documentary Filmmaking in the 21st Century, a chapter by American University film and media arts professors in The 21st Century Film & TV School, a book published by CILECT, the international association of film and television schools.
In my course on social documentary and as head of the graduate concentration in social impact, I helped students take on issues of critical public importance.
Whatever their purpose, to shift public dialogue, motivate behavior change, equip activists for advocacy and movement building, or change government or corporate policies, they learned to tell the stories, portray the characters and provide the evidence and testimony that drive public debate.
BRINGING NGO NEWS INTO THE MAINSTREAM
The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University asked me to contribute an article on One World for a series on NGOs and the News. I recruited Laurie Moy as co-author to tell the story of One World’s partnership with Yahoo and make the case for NGOs as a trusted source of news and information on critical social issues. I launched the U.S. Center for One World at the Benton Foundation in 2000 and served as chair of the board of the global network from 2002 to 2006.
In 2005, Pierre Omidyar, co-founder of eBay, explained to Business Week magazine why his foundation chose to get involved.
“We’ve done a little bottom-up media with OneWorld. I have a sense that the traditional media hasn’t been aggressive enough talking about important issues. The empowering nature of people reporting their own news, speaking out, and challenging governments and even traditional media sometimes is a very powerful thing.”
-Pierre Omidyar
Strategic Communications for Nonprofits
As executive director of the Benton Foundation, I published and co-edited a set of media guides, Strategic Communications for Nonprofits, with associate director, Karen Menichelli, in 1992. The guides covered media advocacy, electronic networking and production and distribution. As a package, the guides made a case for a comprehensive and integrated approach to communications and anticipated the emerging digital environment. Ford, MacArthur, Robert Wood Johnson, Carnegie and Kellogg foundations printed and distributed the guides for their grantees. The Communications Consortium Media Center, which wrote the guide on Strategic Media, took the title Strategic Communications for Nonprofits for a book in 2008 and asked me to write this Foreword, looking back on the mission and impact of the original guides and the need for the new edition.
