Shooting pain for PSU-TV

After nearly three years of existence, Portland State Television has managed to survive without any institutional support. However, unless the organization finds a department in which to house itself soon, it faces shutting down altogether. 

To qualify as a student group, Student Activities and Leadership Program—which oversees 178 student groups and services—must officially recognize it.

According to PSU-TV Manager Lucila Epple, the mission of the group is to provide original video segments that inform students on all things related to PSU that the campus community would find interesting. Notable examples include segments introducing Party in the Park, sustainable projects on campus and a video about the resignation of former PSU football coach Jerry Glanville.

SALP Director Aimee Shattuck said that the reason PSU-TV no longer qualifies as a student group is because it is more fitting to be managed by the Publications Board, which oversees groups such as KPSU, the Vanguard and the Portland Review. 

“The Publications Board is the body that establishes guidelines for all campus publications,” Shattuck said. “They provide publications with lots of expertise regarding libel laws and free speech, which [SALP] would not be able to.”

According to Shattuck, what PSU-TV currently does is very tantamount to other student publications in the sense that the group is involved in media production, with the intention of distributing the product to the wider student population.

Currently, the group utilizes both its website at www.psutv.groups.pdx.edu and its YouTube channel to distribute videos.

PSU-TV, under the management of Epple, applied to join the Publications Board in early 2010. However, the group was rejected.

“We are basically in a situation where the school doesn’t want anything to do with us,” Epple said. “We have been working for a year without any money and I just don’t know what we’re going to do now.”

According to Judson Randall, the adviser for all student publications at PSU and the executive secretary for the Publications Board, the reason PSU-TV did not qualify as a publication is that the group lacks ongoing production. In order to be considered, it must produce a certain number of videos per week.

“If you’re going to be a legitimate publication, you need to turn out content regularly,” he said.

Epple admitted that PSU-TV does not publish its content regularly. However, she said that is due to the unique nature of its line of work, which does not fall in the same vein as the campus’ other publications.

“Video production takes a lot of work and requires hours upon hours of editing,” Epple said. “We believe in quality over quantity and our main goal is to produce visually appealing, entertaining and informative pieces.”

According to Epple, the group does not consider itself to be a news organization.

“We think of ourselves as visual storytellers,” she said.

However, its 2010 mission statement, which states that PSU-TV seeks “to provide news and special interest stories relating to PSU,” suggests otherwise to administrators.

According to Shattuck, the group’s current mission statement is a departure from its 2007–08 statement, which emphasized the “service” aspect of the group to provide job skills to its members and video services to the campus community. With the shift in mission statement and purpose, Shattuck said it seems appropriate that they should look for a home under the Publication Board.

“Right now, they have to decide if they’re into providing news, marketing or service…[this] would determine whether they’ll get recognized or not,” Shattuck said.

Epple plans to re-appeal to the Publications Board at its meeting this month. For now, she is hopeful that it will get the recognition from the university.

“We’re just asking for guidance and support,” Epple said. “We believe in what we do, which is to provide film students a unique opportunity to gain skills without having to pay for a class.”  

Originally developed in 2004 as a project to document homelessness in Portland by several graduate students, the group transitioned into Viking Vision the following year, which followed a televised news program format.

Since then, it has undergone two more transformations; it became the Motion Picture Film Club in 2008 before officially becoming PSU-TV in 2009. ?