LABOR BEAT NEEDS FUNDS... Please donate to keep Chicago's working class video and TV news services alive and kicking...
One of the many many Labor Beat photos from the Chicago Teachers Strike of 2012. The Labor Beat archives are one of the few places in the Chicago area where working peoples' histories can be found, while Labor Beat reporting updates these histories on a regular -- almost daily -- basis. Watch the video from the 2012 strike: https://youtu.be/AlG5R0zcOY4
Labor Beat photo.Six thousand dollars may be pocket change for Chicago's plutocrats, but for a working class reporting project that features stories about the struggles of working people, it's a lot of money. Labor Beat needs that money this holiday season. We are now 1/3 of our way to our goal of raising $6,000 to cover our expenses for 2016, and for that we thank those of you who have already made generous contributions. We now need to convince our viewers and supporters who haven't yet donated to do so soon.
We know that working people and unions watch and appreciate our shows. For statistics from our Cable TV outlets, because they are public access channels they don't have the budgets to purchase Nielsen-type ratings services. But let's combine our six cities which have a total of some 500,000 Cable TV households (multiplied by, say, four for total number of potential viewers), giving us about a 2 two million potential cable audience in the U.S. Even if we estimate a conservatively low percentage of that number (say 1%) who occasionally view or stop and watch while channel-surfing, we end up with 20,000 twice a month. Also, for our YouTube viewers, we have annually 22,000.
Donations can be made easily on line at:
DONATE: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=9789970
Our Cable TV venues are important and unique because this is where people who are not normally exposed to pro-labor news and features will get a chance to consider different points-of-view. Maybe they've never gone to a demo, and don't even know what a union is. They probably are not members of the 'choir'. They may not be specifically seeking alternative news, but, fed up with the commercials and corporate spin on network television, they decide to see what else is available. For this, we take as much pains as our resources permit to make what they may land on well edited and shot, and with quality audio. We think super-short, camera-phone YouTube and Twitter clips play an important role, but we also believe strongly that the working class appreciates production values and labor television with longer, in-depth reports.
In this last year, Labor Beat has produced edited, location-oriented tv journalism on: adjunct faculty rights at three different area colleges; Fast Track/TPP; mass CTU Loop rallies against phony CPS budget; standardized tests; Argentina charge d'affairs in Chicago; mayoral election and labor; Greece and the Troika; Steven Salaita's firing at Univ. of Ill.; IVAW; charter school unions; NABET union vote win at CAN TV; police accountability march; Railroad safety and environment; climate change; public school student resistance; single-payer healthcare; USW refinery strike; Chicago police black site; NATO / Ukraine war danger; and more.
?In Chicago, we can be seen on CAN TV 19, Thurs. at 9:30 pm and Fri. at 4:30 pm. And, of course, nearly 200 of our recent shows can be viewed on the playlist at our web site: www.laborbeat.org.
BACKGROUND
Vintage videos. We've selected sample Labor Beat videos covering battles reported on in the years 2007-2011. They still resonate today. With your help, we will continue to build our video archives. Here are nine of them. They may bring back memories: http://laborbeat.org/Vintage_Labor_Beat_Videos.html
Chicago's Labor TV History. Labor Beat's origins go back to the early 1980s. We made a 4-page history that describes the surprising roots of Chicago labor television (going back to the 1920s!) and which tells the story of how Labor Beat evolved in the last 30 years. View or download PDF at: http://laborbeat.org/ChiLaborTVhist.pdf
Can you name any other labor-tv series which regularly produce for the internet and cable-tv, even in one city, let alone six? If you can, let us know because we can't think of any (though we hope there are a few out there). Why is that? Why should we allow corporate media to continue to hog the ideology on the nation's living room tv sets?
?Labor Beat (Committee for Labor Access) is independent rank-and-file journalism. It is not produced by any particular union local, international, or political organization. We are affiliated as a non-profit production group with IBEW 1220 and are a CAN TV Community Partner. We do not depend on grants, but on the working class and its organizations for financial support. Contributions are tax-deductible, as we are a 501(c)(3) non-profit, IRS EIN 36-3368030. For 2016 we need to pay for office rent, equipment maintenance and purchases, office and postal expenses, new social media strategies, software updates, Internet and phone fees, and other expenses.
PLEASE MAKE YOUR DONATION NOW: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=9789970 We are of course grateful for donations of any amount.
If you can't contribute today, you can still help us by forwarding this fund appeal to activists you know who might support our work.
