MediaSource to Berry: We know better than you!

KHOU-11's Doug Miller checks in on a City Council committee meeting today, and finds that city leaders aren't impressed with Houston MediaSource's exercising its alleged First Amendment rights by airing full frontal nudity:

11 News and many city councilmembers got their first look Monday at a sexually explicit, jaw-dropping video that aired on Houston's public access channel creating a bitter fight between city leaders.

City leaders couldn't believe their eyes -- and you may not either -- after seeing some of the show that aired last week. We intentionally blurred the footage.

Some council members thought the video was so racy that they couldn't even air it in a public meeting. Instead, they went into a back room and took a closer look in semi-privacy.

Inexplicably, one of the members of the Houston MediaSource board thought it would be good to talk down to Councilmember Michael Berry:

"You were already in the mode of looking out for this stuff and it still slipped through," said Councilmember Michael Berry. "So what this says -- and you can't possibly say it doesn't -- is that you have no accountability of what appears on the air until after the fact."

"It's easy for Councilman Berry to make the comment that he did without considering the legal implications of this," argued Garth Jowett, Houston Mediasource board member. "And we are seriously examining the legal implications before we will commit ourselves to something that will get us into a lot of constitutional trouble."

Jowett, who is a communications professor at the University of Houston, might want to rethink the wisdom of calling out as unthinking a councilmember who doesn't seem inclined to vote to retain Houston MediaSource as the custodian of the public access channel. That's not exactly a form of communication likely to win friends for the professor's project! Be sure to watch the accompanying video for the full effect of Professor Jowett's comments.

Miller concludes his report by noting that Council has the option of replacing the Houston MediaSource board members or selecting a new custodian altogether. Given Professor Jowett's intransigence, it doesn't sound like the board members are receptive to input from the city's elected officials. So perhaps it is indeed time for City Council to find a more responsible and responsive custodian for the public access channel.

PREVIOUSLY: Wiseman wins converts on Houston MediaSource controversy, Wiseman perturbs the city boss.

UPDATE (07-12-2005): Matt Stiles spins a much happier tale of Houston MediaSource for the Chronicle.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/11/05 08:56 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Sphere | Comments (12)

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On July 3, the Chronicle ran a mean-spirited editorial criticizing Councilmember Wiseman's stance on Houston MediaSource's programming. The editorial advanced a bizarre theory of the First Amendment...

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The Chronicle's Matt Stiles reports that Mayor White is persisting in his effort to allow MediaSource to continue as controversial custodian of the public access channel: Mayor Bill White, whose...

Linked by blogHOUSTON on 11/14/05.

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