ELECTION 2014 - COUNCIL CANDIDATES DEBATE
ABOUT THE DEBATE VIDEO
Recently, a resident posted on our [Facebook page], hinting that we may be trying to "hide something" because we did not have footage of the debate posted online. Nothing could be further from reality.
Here is some background information on the public distribution of our public information night and the all-candidates debate.
We were contacted by TVCOGECO about the possibility of recording the all-candidates debate for broadcast on the local cable channel. We were advised that this would only be shown on cable television as Cogeco does not distribute its local programs online at this time. We accepted and asked about having our public information session recorded as well, however due to other commitments Cogeco was unavailable.
As it was our desire to have the info session recorded for our own archives, we contracted a local videographer to do this for us and it was through his own personal You Tube channel that it was made available online. A copy of the recording was also offered to Cogeco for broadcast on their local channel which they accepted. Unfortunately, the videographer was not available on the night of the debate.
We have spoken with the local manager for TVCOGECO and he advises that a couple of requests have been received from residents who missed the debate when it originally aired on Monday, October 20th, and repeat showing was scheduled for Thursday, October 24th. He did reiterate that none of the five debates covered by TVCOGECO in Leeds-Grenville would be distributed online.
Here is some background information on the public distribution of our public information night and the all-candidates debate.
We were contacted by TVCOGECO about the possibility of recording the all-candidates debate for broadcast on the local cable channel. We were advised that this would only be shown on cable television as Cogeco does not distribute its local programs online at this time. We accepted and asked about having our public information session recorded as well, however due to other commitments Cogeco was unavailable.
As it was our desire to have the info session recorded for our own archives, we contracted a local videographer to do this for us and it was through his own personal You Tube channel that it was made available online. A copy of the recording was also offered to Cogeco for broadcast on their local channel which they accepted. Unfortunately, the videographer was not available on the night of the debate.
We have spoken with the local manager for TVCOGECO and he advises that a couple of requests have been received from residents who missed the debate when it originally aired on Monday, October 20th, and repeat showing was scheduled for Thursday, October 24th. He did reiterate that none of the five debates covered by TVCOGECO in Leeds-Grenville would be distributed online.
FACEBOOK THREAD
Here is the original comment which was posted (publicly) on our [Facebook page] on the evening of October 21st, 2014 ...
Vicki Downey
How come we aren't able to view the council candidates debate? Are you hiding something? I can't seem to find it on your page.
And here is how we responded, a few hours later ...
Elizabethtown-Kitley Citizens for Open Government
Thank you for inquiring about footage of the Debate.
As you may know, from our website, Cogeco covered the Debate. We did make inquiries of Cogeco, to find out if they would be able to provide us with footage; I will quote from my email message to them (sent 13-Oct-2014):
"I have a question regarding the Debate ... will you be airing that live, or will you be recording it and airing it later (or both)? What I'm really getting at, is, will it be available online in some fashion or other? If you will be posting it as a program on your website, we will definitely link to it from our website. Otherwise, if it was not your intention to make it available (of your own accord) online, could we have permission to have [name removed due to privacy concerns] upload the footage (in a similar fashion to what he did for our Info Session), so that we will be able to link to it?"
Unfortunately, though sympathetic, the response we got was a no-go; Cogeco's policies do not allow that. I will reach out to my contact at Cogeco, to seek permission to quote the exact response which was sent to us, and will happily post it here if they agree.
We did try to video tape the debate ourselves (using an amateur camcorder), but unlike Cogeco, we could not plug directly into the venue's sound board – so the quality was not very good. I will happily provide you with the 10GB of raw files, if you know someone who can join the pieces together, remove the noise and enhance the audio, and post it online for us.
The Information Session was a different story - we were fortunate enough to avail ourselves of a full time professional videographer (at a cost, to us) to do the recording. He was already familiar with the venue, and was able to plug into the sound board (since it was not being used by Cogeco), so it worked out well. Unfortunately, he was simply not available for the Debate.
Brant
( the comment shows as Edited on the Facebook page - to correct a typographical error )