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Public Impact of Public Media! The Darryl Hunt Story

Social documentaries are a great example of media designed for public knowledge and action. The Trials of Darryl Hunt--watch for it on HBO on April 26 and also in theaters this spring--is the latest example of the difference they can make.
Our friend David Magdael, who is publicizing the film, tells the story:
"Darryl Hunt was a 19 year-old black teenager in 1984 when he was wrongfully accused of murdering and raping a white woman in racially divided Winston -Salem, North Carolina. Read more...

Insurer accepts Fair Use claims!

A major errors and omissions insurer, National Union, a member company of AIG, is accepting Fair Use claims based on the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use, when supported by an appropriate lawyer’s letter. This is an extraordinary demonstration of the power of this best-practices approach to making the fair-use option in copyright law useable again. "This is great news," said filmmaker Alex Gibney, who recently got insurance with such claims recognized.Read more...

Pubcasters and Social Networking

Last September, mega-station WGBH in Boston held a conference for public broadcasters about how to cope with the astonishing new world opening up in the land of Web 2.0. Now, reports and podcasts from that conference are available at http://opencontent.wgbh.org/index.html. Conferees listened to network pioneer Mitch Kapor talk about the peril of being an "incumbent" as a new media model arises--"you need to be 'fast followers,;" he advised. Read more...

DocAgora (it's spreading!)

DocAgora, which launched at the International Documentary Festival at Amsterdam (IDFA) in November, is becoming a feature at documentary festivals. The one-day event that features innovative and participatory strategies in documentary has just been accepted as one of the offerings at HotDocs (http://hotdocs.ca/) in late April. The Center for Social Media has joined as one of the cosponsors and organizers, along with an exciting team that includes Canadians Peter Wintonick and Amit Breuer. You can catch a glimpse of the inaugural event at NFB's Gerry Flahive's blog, at http://hotdocs.ca/.

Blogging "Making Your Documentary Matter"

The Center's conference on Jan. 31-Feb. 1 is creating echoes in the blogosphere. Check out Erica Ginsberg's blog of Robert Greenwald's keynote at http://docsinprogress.blogspot.com/ , which itself has already migrated to a few other blogs. And let us know where you're blogging about it!