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Need a different solution for image paths in markdown body
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trevormunoz committed May 5, 2021
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6 changes: 3 additions & 3 deletions src/pages/exhibits/labor-and-the-naeb.md
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Expand Up @@ -112,13 +112,13 @@ Novik joined the NAEB in 1939. He served on the NAEB’s Board of Directors from

The previous year, the Federal Communications Commission had reserved 242 frequencies for noncommercial educational television. Subsequently the NAEB, along with a range of other national organizations, worked to assure the growth of educational television, by drumming up popular support for a noncommercial television sector, advocating for policies conducive to its continued development, and providing aid – technical, legal, tactical – to local stations. Novik’s position as the NAEB’s Management and Community Relations consultant, which was codified in 1954 a grant from the [Ford Foundation’s Fund for Adult Education](https://mith.umd.edu/airwaves/document/naeb-b067-f02/#218), was consistent with these practices.

![]("../../../static/images/naeb-b067-f02_0217-crop.png")
![](/images/naeb-b067-f02_0217-crop.png)

[Novik’s work would be coordinated](https://mith.umd.edu/airwaves/document/naeb-b067-f02/#80) through the NAEB Executive Director’s office; he would assist local stations in negotiating relationships with unions and work with other national organizations, especially the Educational Television and Radio Center (ETRC), to navigate rights for nationally circulating programming.

The issues around unions and the educational television sector were multiple and thorny. The sector in the 1950s encompassed a heterogeneous range of stations; some were controlled by universities or public-school systems, others by state commissions, and still others by community organizations. Some were located in right-to-work states, while others were in strong union cities. Some envisioned educational television as instructional television, others an instrument of adult education, cultural uplift, or counter-programming to commercial stations. Accordingly, not all stations employed represented workers – some, [like KCTS in Seattle](https://mith.umd.edu/airwaves/document/naeb-b067-f02/#129), were run by a public university and staffed by students and college personnel – and stations varied in their support of organized labor.

![]("../../../static/images/naeb-b067-f02_0128-crop.png")
![](/images/naeb-b067-f02_0128-crop.png)

Given this diversity, stations insisted that labor negotiations should be exclusively local, responsive to local conditions, and not applicable to the sector on whole. As [Skornia relayed to Novik](https://mith.umd.edu/airwaves/document/naeb-b067-f02/#25), station managers were “afraid that in many areas where there’s no trouble, a national agreement would be a disadvantage.” So much of Novik’s work was on a station-by-station basis and drew on his longstanding relationships with labor leaders.

Expand All @@ -128,7 +128,7 @@ Accordingly, a key service that Novik provided to stations [was educating union

This was a crucial facet of Novik’s work. On the one hand, he sought advantageous labor contracts for local stations, and on the other hand he [insisted that educational television](https://mith.umd.edu/airwaves/document/naeb-b067-f02/#204) respect the rights of organized labor and its import in local communities. [He encouraged](https://mith.umd.edu/airwaves/document/naeb-b067-f02/#235) newly licensed stations to build relationships with local unions, appoint union leaders to station boards of directors, and coordinate with unions to build community support for the station. Not only would such actions forestall future labor strife but, for Novik, they also would assure that the interests of workers were central to the mission of educational television.

![]("../../../static/images/naeb-b067-f02_0203.png")
![](/images/naeb-b067-f02_0203.png)

### Educational TV & Labor after the Taft-Hartley Act

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Expand Up @@ -95,7 +95,7 @@ In contrast to early commercial media industries, which were originally founded

The National Association for Educational Broadcasters (NAEB) was founded in 1925 as the Association of College and University Broadcasting Stations (ACUBS). The ACUBS’s primary purpose was to facilitate communication between public universities regarding the development of distance learning programs. As a clearing house for noncommercial institutions, the [ACUBS Constitution](https://mith.umd.edu/airwaves/document/naeb-b101-f02-45/) was consequently written in the tenor of speculative language around cultural goals, more than as a statement of best practices:

![]("../../static/images/naeb-b101-f02-45-crop.png" "The constitution of the NAEB, then
![](/images/naeb-b101-f02-45-crop.png "The constitution of the NAEB, then
called the Association of College and University Broadcasting Stations.")

The principal anchors of early education radio from the 1920s-1940s were the University of Wisconsin, Ohio State University, Iowa State University, University of Iowa, University of Illinois, and to a lesser extent the Universities of Minnesota and South Dakota. Their main concern was accumulation and maintenance of memberships so that the ACUBS ledger could [appropriately detail the state of the field](https://mith.umd.edu/airwaves/document/naeb-b101-f02-46/#7).\
Expand All @@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ In spite of support from the military, Office of Education, and philanthropic gr
\
Before legislators settled on a national policy, the ACUBS was offered reserved experimental frequencies in the 1500 and above band but turned the offer down. Unfortunately, members did not have a backup plan, and educational broadcasters were blindsided by rules of the Communications Act of 1934 that stipulated sweeping “public interest” standards for transmitters, broadcast schedules, and listenership, which [few universities could meet](https://mith.umd.edu/airwaves/document/naeb-b110-f04-27/#2).

![]("../../static/images/naeb-b110-f04-27-2-crop.png" "Excerpt from a May 1935 National
![](/images/naeb-b110-f04-27-2-crop.png "Excerpt from a May 1935 National
Association of Educational Broadcasters newsletter.")

Records give different accounts, but there were approximately 200 educational stations by 1934. By 1935 the educational radio landscape had been decimated; only 38 stations remained. The ACUBS was further down to only 20 membership stations by the time the policy was passed. It was at this time that the ACUBS changed their name to the NAEB.\
Expand All @@ -127,6 +127,6 @@ While the Communications Act represented a huge blow to early experiments, educa

By World War II noncommercial media defined itself as non-profit, while focused on following Communications Act regulations while maintaining an educational vision. The NAEB settled on programming genres derived from distance and adult learning coursework, and instituted a decentralized distribution structure. After WWII the NAEB moved to the University of Illinois, and members [built a program transcription library](https://mith.umd.edu/airwaves/document/naeb-b081-f06/#105) for distribution of quality noncommercial programs. In the early 1950s the auspice of a fourth network became centralized through NAEB activities, which synthesized the work of multiple universities, media research, and public policy advocacy into one institutional voice.

![]("../../static/images/naeb-b081-f06_0109-crop.png")
![](/images/naeb-b081-f06_0109-crop.png)

**[Josh Shepperd](https://www.colorado.edu/cmci/people/media-studies/josh-shepperd)** is an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and the Sound Fellow of the Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Board (NRPB). Josh is currently completing two manuscripts that interrogate the history of public media. _Shadow of the New Deal: The Victory of Public Broadcasting_ is under contract with the University of Illinois Press. He is also slated to co-author the official update of the _History of Public Broadcasting_ with Allison Perlman (UC-Irvine) for Current and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Josh sits on the Advisory Team of _Unlocking the Airwaves_.

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