George Mitchell1
Member since Jul 22, 2010
Recent Comments
Re: “Fran Day Returns”
I find this story to be simply heartbreaking. While I have little doubt that Dr Day used poor judgment on more than one occasion, I simply cannot conceive that she would intentionally induce or even enable addiction. I only saw her as a patient a couple of times some years ago. She seemed very skilled and caring and she was very helpful in my own case. I understand why some people might be very upset with her, but we have a serious shortage of doctors, especially in the case of the kind of people Dr Day was caring for. Dumping on her only because she made the mistake of prescribing methadone instead of pot in a few cases sounds a bit harsh. Hopefully common sense will prevail in the end in a way that will be in the best interests of all of our residents.
Re: “Inside KEET”
Certainly it is not just a matter of KEET serving a smaller more rural coverage area. It is also a matter of a lack of innovative effort on the behalf of KEET management. It is simply a fact that times have changed and those changes are NOT favorable to entities like KEET.
On one hand, the digital age is taking its toll on both on air broadcasting and printed media. Who needs a newspaper anymore when nearly 90% of its content is provided for free online? And who needs a TV station when the same is true of broadcast media. A whole lot of it is available online in a much more convenient package (watch anything anytime anywhere on any device). This is the direction that media has to move. For premium or unique content there are always paywalls and people WILL pay for online content which has value and is unavailable anywhere else. In the case of public television, the best of it ends up on Netflix sooner or later and probably on other subscription services as well.
On the other hand the continual advance of corporate control of government is resulting in less and less support for public services like PBS that are deemed to be "inefficient" or "nonessential". That means less federal support and that situation is only likely to get worse as well.
So both technology and politics form a strong headwind for KEET that they are unlikely to be able to overcome. There are going to be a lot of losers and few winners in this transition, but if anyone wants an example of a winner, look no further than JPR. JPR has done in the public radio realm what KEET needs to do in the public television realm. KEET needs to strongly consider the following: Place an emphasis on DIGITAL. Expand, expand, expand and I mean geographically. I think an outright merger with KXIE is in order although that would be a bitter pill for both entities. If they don't they are VERY unlikely to be around ten years from now. Combined, they would gain the critical mass to better serve BOTH communities AND many more surrounding communities both on the coast and in the valley and beyond AND become a major regional online content provider. There is no way they can coast through this. They will either have to grow or die. And neither have the resources to survive on their own, let alone grow. Like JPR, they need to be "lean and mean". They could continue to maintain offices both here and in Redding, but there needs to be one parent company dealing with PBS upstream and with contract issues.
KEET is a huge asset to Humboldt county. KEET management has a huge responsibility. If they don't get this right and soon, they will not be around anymore. There will very likely be a new PBS outlet in our area, but it will almost certainly be controlled from outside like JPR is. The choice is KEETs. They can walk into the 21st century or the 21st century will walk over them.
We lost Humboldt Creamery because of management failure, we don't need to suffer another traumatic loss of another non-profit in our community for a similar reason. REMEMBER, Humboldt Creamery is still here, but it is controlled by outsiders. Do we really want this to happen to KEET? With a combination of KEET and KIXE, it wouldn't have to. That combination would guarantee sufficient local support for PBS guidelines AND at the same time guarantee continued local control, albeit in a regional context. But that is far better than outright control by some distant entity. like JPR. The colaboration effort is a good start, but KEET management really needs to think seriously about taking this further. Much further. In short, they need to have a REALISTIC vision for the future.