Deep Dish TV

Deep Dish TV was the first grassroots satellite network in the United States, committed to exploring new and democratic ways of promoting video artwork and reporting. The network was launched in 1986 by Paper Tiger TV, a volunteer-based video collective that has produced public access programming since 1981. From 1986 to 2018, Deep Dish TV produced and distributed television series on a variety of cultural and political topics. Their programs linked the work of artists, independent videomakers, programmers, and social activists and reached millions of people through public access channels.

Deep Dish TV produced and distributed programs on a wide variety of issues. Starting with their Opening Series in 1986, their programs investigated labor and immigration (Beyond the Browning of America, Siempre Trabajando: Latinos and Labor), environmental justice (Green Screen: Grassroots Views of the Environmental Crisis), censorship (Writers Uncensored and Behind Censorship: The Assault on Civil Liberties), the prison industrial complex (Emergency Programming: Mumia Abu-Jamal, America Behind Bars, and Lock Down USA), the U.S. healthcare system (Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired), and the Gulf War (The Gulf Crisis TV Project). They also explored international video activism with …Will Be Televised: Video Documents from Asia, Unheard Voices, and Rock the Boat.

From 2003-2005, Deep Dish TV broadcasted the series Shocking and Awful: A Grassroots Response to War and Occupation investigating the impact of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The series was later featured at the Whitney Museum of American Art's 2006 Biennial Exhibition and the Museum of Modern Art's "Theater of Operations: Gulf Wars 1991-2011" exhibition from 2019-2020. Deep Dish TV became known for their criticism of the Iraq War, and later produced extensive coverage of the World Tribunal on Iraq (Istanbul, 2005), the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity of the Bush Administration (New York City, 2005-2006), and the Winter Soldier Eyewitness Accounts of the Iraq and Afghanistan Occupations (organized by the Iraq Veterans Against the War, 2008). They also criticized the Bush administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina and highlighted resistance in New Orleans with the series Trouble the Water (2006).

Throughout the 2000s, Deep Dish TV covered the Israeli occupations of Palestine ("Imperial Geography", c.2005) and Lebanon (Nothing is Safe, 2007). In the 2010s, they focused on social movements in the United States with DIY Media: Movement Perspectives on Critical Moments (2011), Uprooted: A Grassroots Examination of the Politics of Migration (2011), An American Nightmare: Black Labor and Liberation (2015), and We Interrupt This Program (2018). They also highlighted community media around the world in the interactive series Waves of Change: The Many Voices of a Global Village (2011).

In addition to their television programming, Deep Dish TV frequently organized and participated in film festivals, conferences, screenings, panel discussions, and exhibitions. They organized speaking tours across the United States to promote Not Channel Zero (1993-1995), "Iraqi Women Speak Out" (2006), and "Environmental Justice for All" (2006). They also organized a conference in 2010 titled "Re-Igniting the Network: Video and New Technology in the Service of Social Movements."

Deep Dish TV had a history of collaboration with other independent media organizations and advocacy for public access media. Deep Dish TV produced the first year of the television version of Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez; they played a large role in founding the Indymedia Center in Seattle, and have worked to expand that network in Africa, Asia, and Latin America; they had a close working relationship with Free Speech TV and LinkTV; and they collaborated with numerous independent media organizations within their television programming, including the series DIVA TV: Collections from this Activist Collective (broadcasted in the Spring of 1990), Black Planet Productions' Not Channel Zero (broadcasted in 1992), Seattle Independent Media Center's Showdown in Seattle (broadcasted in 1999), and Washington DC's Independent Media Center's Breaking the Bank (broadcasted in 1999). Deep Dish TV was also active in the Access for All coalition in the mid 1990s, composed of individuals and organizations working to educate and organize New Yorkers on the topic of universal, equitable, and affordable telecommunications systems. Fiscally sponsored by Media Network, the coalition conducted media literacy workshops throughout New York City. (Source)

Links

• Deep Dish TV archive, NYU Libraries
• Wikipedia