Regardless of NJN’s fate, Montclair State president vows to take up broadcasting

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Montclair State University President Susan Cole said the university’s broadcasting program will move forward with plans to create and disseminate New Jersey-centric public affairs and cultural programming — perhaps via the Internet — regardless of how New Jersey Network’s fate is decided in Trenton.Montclair State University President Susan Cole said the university’s broadcasting program will move forward with plans to create and disseminate New Jersey-centric public affairs and cultural programming — perhaps via the Internet — regardless of how New Jersey Network’s fate is decided in Trenton.

Montclair’s bid to take over the state’s television station was one of two finalists for NJN, but was turned down by the state Treasurer’s office in favor of a competing proposal from New York-based WNET/Channel 13, which proposed creating a New Jersey-based nonprofit to operate the station. Last week, the state Assembly rejected the WNET bid; the state Senate is scheduled to take up the issue later today.

Cole said Monday that “the decision rests with the governor and the Legislature, and they will do what they think is best for the state.” She said Montclair still wants to operate NJN, should Trenton reopen the process; she said Montclair’s “was absolutely a viable proposal, and we were absolutely prepared to do it.”

Treasury has said if the transfer to WNET is rejected by the Legislature, the state will do what is required to maintain the FCC license until NJN’s future is decided.

“Our interest in this hasn’t declined,” Cole said. “We are going to continue to build our capacity in media and communications, even if we do it without a television license. We’ll just move directly to a multimedia platform, to the Internet, and skip a step.”

Cole said New Jersey needs, “more news and more statewide news.” She said NJN did a good job covering Trenton, “but there is a complex state out there, and I think the people of New Jersey need a better sense of how Trenton news impacts their communities, and also how what is happening politically and in the public realm in their communities impacts statewide issues.”

She said New Jersey “has extraordinary cultural institutions, and they are to a great extent largely invisible to the people of New Jersey. I think that we could use the public media to make a much larger population in the state aware of all of these cultural resources and then hopefully build greater support for them.” The result might be “bigger audiences and more support, so that we actually sustain and enhance those cultural institutions.”

She said Montclair also wants to provide educational outreach to the state’s elementary and high schools. “There is a lot more that needs to be done to provide educational resources to the classroom … and there has been no effective portal for educational programming in this state,” she said.

And she said Montclair also wants to focus on health issues: “As the pharmaceutical capital, as a state that has some significant health institutions, we could be doing a much better job, in terms of using the public media to bring relevant and important health issues to a larger proportion of people.”