Public Service / Crime, Terror, and the Media

Two videos about community activism in Chicago. The first discusses protests and other actions supported by the Organization of the Northeast (O.N.E.) for housing rights. The second discusses crime against senior citizens and the portrayal of crime in the media.

00:03Copy video clip URL A sign reading “We Are Many, We Are One” dated Sunday, May 2, noon to 6:00Copy video clip URL pm. 

00:15Copy video clip URL Studs Terkel speaks at a lectern about the destructive effects of “experts” who pollute the land and dictate the lives of the people. We are actually the experts, he asserts. 

00:53Copy video clip URL Dale Tremper, pastor of the Covenant Community Church, introduces himself and the video, quoting Terkel. He will be hosting a conversation among members of the community about issues that are important to them. 

01:45Copy video clip URL People sit around Tremper’s kitchen table talking about building development in the area. Tremper speaks in voiceover about O.N.E., the Organization of the Northeast, which has been concerned about developers who come into their community without finding out what the community’s residents want or need. 

02:15Copy video clip URL In voiceover, Tremper discusses the building of the Pines of Edgewater, supported by a Housing Authority loan. He discusses the organization of the Comité Latino to get both authorities and developers to respond to community needs, efforts that were ignored. Footage of the organization’s protests and their participation in a board meeting 0f the Illinois Development Authority. 

05:00Copy video clip URL Tremper discusses the results of the meeting with the IDA, which led to no action or concrete promises. So the Comité Latino demonstrated at the home of Governor James Thompson, which resulted in firm commitments from IDA.

05:42Copy video clip URL At Tremper’s home, the conversation continues. Tremper discusses rising utility bills. Tremper discusses protests to the Illinois Commerce Commission and Commonwealth-Edison and the ongoing lawsuits to stop rate hikes. 

08:21Copy video clip URL Tremper discusses the disastrous effects of energy deregulation and community efforts to protest and counter the oil companies. 

10:51Copy video clip URL Discussions of local housing condition, focusing on arson. Terkel addresses the problem in the same speech excerpted at the beginning of the tape. Tremper discusses the city’s expensive solution – a computerized arson prevention program – that has been wholly ineffectual and the community’s protest response. 

13:02Copy video clip URL Tremper discusses the make-up of O.N.E. from more than 60 community groups and their concerns and actions. 

14:48Copy video clip URL Tremper thanks the attendees in his kitchen and announces the upcoming community convention at Senn High School. 

15:08Copy video clip URL A sign introducing the next program reading “Exercise, Think, Organize, Act.” People sitting around a table. A woman introduces a discussion about “Crime, Terror, and the Media.” The participants include a WTTW journalist, the director of the Illinois Department of Law Enforcement, Sun-Times reporter Bill Brader, and Special Agent in Charge of the United Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation Bill Beane. 

15:40Copy video clip URL An audience of elderly women (at a different event) are asked if they have been the victims of crimes and several raise their hands. 

16:24Copy video clip URL A discussion of crimes against the elderly, including the point that there are relatively few crimes against elderly persons but that they are covered more visibly by the media. A panelist makes the point that violence on television does not cause violence but, rather, causes viewers to see themselves as victims or potential victims. 

19:05Copy video clip URL Panelists offer suggestions for making one’s home and one’s self safer. 

19:53Copy video clip URL The elderly women at the other event discuss their vulnerabilities when in public. An authority figure at the meeting suggests that they each stop to question whether a trip is necessary before making it. 

21:14Copy video clip URL At the panel, the reporter points out that the concern of street crime directed against the elderly is not just the loss of money but that they are more likely to be injured in a mugging than the rest of the population is. The video continues to cut between the different meetings, with the host of the meeting of elderly women scolding an attendee for not taking the responsibility to make sure the police followed through on a crime that she had reported.

23:12Copy video clip URL A discussion among the panel of whether the public is more attracted to stories of crime and tragedy than they are to “so-called good news.”

24:3o A discussion of whether the media encourages violence. 

25:58Copy video clip URL At the meeting with elderly women, a discussion of law enforcement responses. 

27:41Copy video clip URL A discussion of the ways in which the media instills fear in viewers. 

29:20Copy video clip URL An interviewer asks one of the elderly women attendees about sensationalism on television. They discuss responses to violence on the part of senior citizens and the government.

31:03Copy video clip URL A sign for City Colleges of Chicago and Jewish Community Centers of Chicago, followed by another for Truman College. Credits.