Early in its deployment, public, educational, and governmental access media was being planned and developed to empower local civic groups by improving meeting coverage. As a part of the larger social movement for cable access and free air time, the promise of increased civic engagement never came to fruitition. Economically, the technology was costly for civic groups to incorporate into their meetings and politically, officials had little incentive to make media available to civic groups over whom they didn’t have editorial control. 

In an effort to revitalize it, J.H. Snider, President of iSolon.org and Network Fellow of Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, prepared a report that lays out a plan for action to revitalize public, educational, and governmental access media.  

In it he suggests,

1. Meeting Media Automation. Community media equipment should be designed to operate on a completely automated basis to eliminate the need for expertise and expensive labor.


2. Open and Extensible Meeting Software. The software to control community media equipment should be open and extensible so that additional meeting functionality can easily be added by third parties.


3. Interactive Meeting Media. Community meeting media should include not only broadcast TV but also interactive media, including voting devices, Wi-Fi, and flat screen TVs connected to the Internet, with remote participants able to largely replicate the public meeting media experience via the Internet. 


4. Meeting-Friendly Public Spaces. Library meeting rooms, school auditoriums, and public access facilities should be designed to be meeting-friendly to civic groups. 


5. Building Codes for Public Meeting Rooms. For government facilities substantially or primarily used for public meetings (“public meeting anchor institutions”), meeting technology should be included in building codes just like requirements for smoke detectors, exit signs, and electrical outlets. 


6. Equity in Access to Meetings. To level the playing field between those with and without convenient physical access to public meetings, high quality remote access should be available.   


7. Equity in Access to Meeting Equipment. Civic groups should be able to borrow inexpensive mics and clickers using the same infrastructure that allows citizens to borrow books from libraries. 


8. Web-Centric Meeting Media.  Community meeting media should be web, not cable TV, centric.   


9. Civic Group Control of Meeting Media. Any government monopoly power on the use of public meeting media should be reduced as much as is feasible. 


10. Checks & Balances Institutions for Meeting Places & Media.Public community meeting places and media should be implemented by checks & balances institutions.    


11. Public Bodies Covered by State Open Meeting Laws. State open meeting laws should be revised to include in the definition of public bodies quasi-government bodies such as state mandated advisory groups, commissions, and ad hoc committees.


12. Federal Government Public Meetings. Although this essay focuses on local public media, the same principles apply to federal public media.