Nan Rubin

Community Media Services



Selected Clients and Advisory Projects

I provide a wide range of support and services to public broadcast organizations and non-profit groups,and I am involved with or serve as an informal adviser to many grassroots and youth media groups as well as other progressive activist organizations.

 

AMARC - Association Mondiale des Radiodiffuseurs Communautaires

World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters

Asociaci�n Mundial de Radios Comunitarias

Based in Montreal, AMARC is a membership organization  of community radio stations and projects on every continent except Antarctica.  It brings together a network of more than 4,000 community radios, Federations and community media stakeholders in more than 115 countries. Since its creation in 1983, AMARC has supported the establishment of a world wide community radio sector that has democratized the media sector. AMARC advocates for the right to communicate at the international, national, local and neighborhood levels and defends and promotes the interests of the community radio movement.

 

Association of Independents in Radio

National membership organization of independent producers working in
public radio and other media. An active organization that offers training,
policy representation and a wide set of resources.

 

Beyond the Pale

A weekly radio program aired Sundays at noon on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York City, Beyond the Pale highlights progressive Jewish news and culture.  It is a project of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. I contribute program segments and am an occasional host.

 

The Brecht Forum

A unique New York City center for non-sectarian progressive political culture and education, the Brecht Forum organizes a year-round schedule of classes, performances, panels, speakers, art exhibits and special events focused on social history and political events.

 

Center for Media Justice

Based in Oakland, the Center for Media Justice coordinates local and national campaigns for political expression and media justice.

 

The Ford Foundation

One of the largest and most influential foundations in the U.S., Ford launched a Media Policy and Technology portfolio in 2002 which I assisted setting up.

 

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice

A New York City-based organization involved in bring active Jewish voices to issues of racial justice and economic equality.

 

Manhattan Neighborhood Network

MNN is the media access center of Manhattan, operating four full-time cable channels plus a Youth Channel.   MNN runs two production centers and provides on-going video production training and support to Manhattan residents and non-profit organizations.

 

Media Action Grassroots Network (MAGNet)

This is a national network of activist media organizations dedicated to media justice and led by people of color.

 

National Museum of the American Indian

The National Museum of the American Indian is the sixteenth museum of the Smithsonian Institution. It is the first national museum dedicated to the preservation, study, and exhibition of the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of Native Americans. The museum works in collaboration with the Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere to protect and foster their cultures by reaffirming traditions and beliefs, encouraging contemporary artistic expression, and empowering the Indian voice.

 

In addition to the  main Museum building on the Mall in Washington, D.C., NMAI operates the George Gustave Heye Center in lower Manhattan.  I am a Technology Advisor to the Film & Video Center located there, and among other projects, coordinated the major radio series Living Voices.

 

Native American Public Telecommunications

NAPT “Tells Native Stories to the World.”  It funds Native public television productions, distributes them nationally, and provides training and resources for Native film and video producers.

 

Pacifica Foundation

Pacifica operates the oldest network of community-based radio stations in the United States.  The flagship station, KPFA Radio in Berkeley, has been on the air since 1948 and is the place where ‘listener-sponsorship’ (direct on-air solicitation for donations from listeners) was born. Other stations in the network are WBAI Radio in New York; KPFK Radio in Los Angeles; KPFT Radio in Houston; and WPFW Radio in Washington DC. 

 

Pacifica has a long legacy of airing controversial programming advocating progressive and leftist political positions, and the organization maintains the Pacifica Radio Archives, which preserves decades of this programming in one of the largest collections of audio recordings dating from the mid-1950s.

 

Preserving Digital Public Television

From 2003 – 2010, I supervised team of 20 building a model preservation repository for digital public TVprograms.  It was the sole non-academic project funded by the Library of Congress through their Digital Preservation Program. 

 

Project partners were WNET-TV, WGBH-TV Boston, PBS, and New York University.  I coordinated all aspects of planning repository architecture and design; selection and appraisal; metadata standards; file formats and wrappers; copyrights and intellectual property issues; sustainability; and related issues; and represented the project at a wide range of events and venues. 

 

Our reports are being widely distributed and used. More background in Media Archives section.

 

Prometheus Radio Project

The Prometheus Radio Project builds participatory radio as a tool for social justice organizing and a voice for community expression. They demystify media policy and technology, advocate for a more just media system, and help grassroots organizations build communications infrastructure to strengthen their communities and movements.

 

Prometheus is the major advocate for Low Power Radio, and was instrumental in passing the Local Community Radio Act at the end of 2010, which will create 1000s of new low power stations around the country.

 

Radio Bilingüe

Radio Bilingüe is a nonprofit, community-based organization founded in 1976 by Latino artists and farm workers in California’s Central Valley. Radio Bilingüe began with KSJV, a full-power FM public radio station in Fresno.  Today, RB operates a public radio network with six full-power FM stations that cover the San Joaquin Valley, the Salinas Valley, the Imperial Valley, and Mendocino County in California and two satellite networks reaching stations across the country as well as Puerto Rico and Mexico. Combined with more than 100 affiliate stations, Radio Bilingüe currently reaches a Latino population of more than 1.4 million people and is recognized as “National Latino Public Radio.”

 

 WNET-TV - New  York

Between 1995 – 2010, I worked at New York’s public television station doing Special Projects in Technology Planning.  This included helping to plan, fund and implement the station's media asset management system; planning and overseeing creation of the WNET Tape Archives; successful grants for tape digitizing and preservation from Federal and private foundations; and being a member of the  Special Team that restored WNET digital and analog transmitters after destruction of World Trade Center.

 

WGBHBoston

WGBH-TV and FM are the principal public radios and television stations serving the greater Boston area.  I frequently assist them with technology and digital archive projects.

 

Youth Media Institute

The Youth Media Institute in Seattle was created to mitigate the apparent dearth of social services and programs available to middle school and high school aged youth in the White Center community, one of the most ethnically diverse in the state of Washington. In 5 years, it has trained more than 350 young people in media and story-telling skills, while indirectly touching thousands through youth-led radio and video pieces.