City council meetings in Daphne will soon be beamed into living rooms across Baldwin County’s largest city, thanks to a new partnership between the city and Daphne High School that will put students behind the camera.
The Daphne City Council approved spending $10,000 to acquire video and broadcast equipment that will be operated by Daphne High School students to record council meetings, with broadcasts expected to begin in the spring of 2016 via AT&T U-Verse.
Mayor Dane Haygood said the idea grew out of discussions last year while the city was working on its franchise agreement with AT&T U-Verse, which offers a Public, Education and Government access channel as part of its service. While Mediacom offers a similar channel, Haygood said the city had never taken advantage of it because it lacked the broadcasting equipment and couldn’t justify the cost on its own.
Through the U-Verse negotiations, Haygood said city officials learned about partnerships in other communities between municipalities and local schools that provide broadcasting capabilities while sharing costs. “We came up with the idea that we need to partner with Daphne High School and utilize our young people, who are probably more tech savvy than we are, to broadcast these meetings to each one of you,” Haygood told residents at Monday’s meeting. “So you can watch them on TV, record them if you’d like, watch them at your convenience and see what your council and mayor is doing for you or not doing for you.”
Daphne High School is introducing a broadcast journalism class this fall, and the city plans to work closely with the school to identify the equipment students will need for the project. Haygood said the city hopes to eventually offer live streaming capabilities, though early broadcasts will likely rely on a tape-delay format.
Once launched, Daphne will join the Baldwin County Commission and the Fairhope City Council among Eastern Shore governments that record their public meetings for residents unable to attend in person. Fairhope began livestreaming its council meetings on the city website in October 2013, while the county broadcasts its meetings live on its website and through the Baldwin County Governmental and Educational Access Channel.
Councilman Joe Davis III said he hopes the broadcasting program eventually grows into something resembling Germantown High School’s community television station in Tennessee, which he visited during a chamber of commerce trip. “Germantown High School has a phenomenal facility, and I’d like to see what we’re starting here to grow into something like that in the high school,” Davis said, noting that several of the Tennessee program’s graduates now work as television anchors around the country.