Posts Tagged ‘Office of Cable Television’
D.C. Council Asserts Control Over Channel 13
As LL first broke yesterday, the D.C. Council is embroiled in a dispute with Mayor Adrian M. Fenty over control of Channel 13---the District's public access channel devoted to airing council proceedings.
The dispute is rooted in last Thursday's 'open deposition' of Peaceoholics co-founder Ronald Moten---an unorthodox proceeding, to be sure. As a deposition, Councilmembers Mary Cheh and Phil Mendelson requested that the television recording not be aired on Channel 13.
Long story short, the proceeding has been aired repeatedly since. That led the D.C. Council today to take up emergency legislation saying that it has exclusive control over the content of Channel 13.
In brief comments prior to the vote, both Cheh and Mendelson said that the executive branch had exerted influence on the Office of Cable Television, and its director, Eric Richardson. Mendelson, in fact, said that Richardson "was specifically directed by the highest member of the executive branch to run this tape and run it again."
D.C. Council Riled Over TV Airing of Fire Truck Testimony
The fishy fire truck testimony delivered last Thursday by Peaceoholics co-founder Ronald Moten before the D.C. Council was plenty dramatic, but the drama apparently did not end with the pound of the gavel.
Since then, a classic council-executive scuffle has broken out over broadcasts of the proceeding on city cable, with allegations flying that Mayor Adrian M. Fenty himself has become personally involved.
Because Thursday's proceeding was considered a "public deposition" rather than a council hearing (it was supposed to be behind closed doors until Moten demanded otherwise), the councilmembers heading up the fire truck investigation---Mary Cheh and Phil Mendelson---determined that its contents should not be disseminated. That's in keeping with the usual council practice on depositions, which are kept under wraps, so other witnesses won't change their testimony to make their stories consistent (Never mind that LL and other reporters already did plenty of disseminating.)
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