Media & Policy Center
Projects Health Care Public Space / Public Health America's Children And Thou Shalt Honor Getting Around Public Affairs Being Creative in Philadelphia Edens Lost & Found Edens Town Hall Meetings Public Affairs America's Family Farmers If I Were President Bitter Tears Transportation Envy Education Education For Social Action Which Way American Education?

The Media & Policy Center has received a significant grant to begin work on America's Family Farmers. Production of the series will begin in the summer of 2008.

Harry Wiland's 1969 film production Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music will be broadcast as part of PBS's P.O.V. series on August 5, 2008. More on Harry's work with Johnny Cash can be found here.

Harry Wiland and Dale Bell have received California Greenworks' Environmental Leaders Award for their "...outstanding work in raising awareness for environmental sustainability through the PBS series Edens Lost & Found."

The first in a series of Edens Lost & Found Town Hall Meetings was held in Philadelphia early in 2008, and was broadcast by WHYY (Philadelphia PBS) in April. More details and excerpts from the broadcast are available here.

Harry Wiland and Dale Bell have been elected Ashoka Fellows and Purpose Prize Fellows.

Harry Wiland and Dale Bell win First and Third Prizes in NAAEE Environmental Film Festival.

Media & Policy Center: America's Children

In Development

Our future depends on the health and wellbeing of our children. More so than the state of our oil reserves, or the quality of our air and water, the state of our children foretells how, and under what conditions, our society can thrive. Unfortunately, anxiety about the physical, emotional, and mental condition of our children, and the heated debate about how we are raising our most precious resource, preys upon our nation's conscience.

America's Children is meant to act as a wake-up call. The proposed multi-hour PBS Series will devote itself to different subject areas affecting the quality of life of our children. The project will highlight best practice solutions from around the country. We will hear from the children themselves, acting as on location journalists or on-camera subjects. Program topics will include: the role and importance of family, school, and community; health care reform and access to medical care for all children; maintaining good health through proper diet, nutrition and exercise; the challenge of childhood obesity; legislative reform; re-inventing the built environment to promote healthier life-styles; and reaching out to the most needy: those suffering from the impact of poverty, racial discrimination, violence, abuse, unequal justice, and environmental injustice.

Our partner for the project is Irwin Redlener, M.D., president of the Children's Health Fund.  With Dr. Redlener as our on-camera guide and expert interviewer, we will craft a richly textured, visual framework that fleshes out the Children's Health Fund's well-documented findings.  The series will:

  • Feature real stories of 21st-century children on-location with Dr. Redlener
  • Capture their innate storytelling ability
  • Empower children and youth to share multifaceted dimensions of their lives
  • Provide them with the means to "shoot" their own stories, unencumbered but gently guided by our production staff.
  • Use children's commentary as a narrative thread to explore the issues
  • Use adult insight/expert commentary to introduce and frame the issues
  • Illustrate "best practice public health models," showing what is working for kids and why
  • Include guides to positive action and resolution for the challenges presented

We aim to give voice to the children, teens and families who can illuminate — through their personal struggles—abstract issues like: health care, poverty, violence, hunger, obesity, and substance abuse. Viewers will hear from youth aiming for college, or barely able to complete high school. Through these young pathfinders, viewers will get a nuanced, kid's eye view of childcare, foster care, home life, community and school. How it feels to grow up homeless, to be raised by gay parents, divorced parents, grandparents, or no parents or role models at all. We will try to discover what enables some children to be resilient and surmount the odds stacked against them.

As with And Thou Shalt Honor and Edens Lost & Found, America's Children will include educational and community-based outreach activities linked to local PBS affiliates; academic curricula meant for high schools (professional development), colleges, and medical schools; a PBS companion book; community action guides; interactive web site; a national publicity and promotion campaign; a multi-volume video resource library devoted to all aspects of children's health and well-being; and a series of regional and local televised town hall meetings to be aired as follow-up programs after the initial broadcast of the four-hour national PBS series.

Other resources for America's Children: