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African-American Media Network Battles Politics

African-American Media Network Battles Politics
Jill Stone  |  by www.longislandpress.com. All rights reserved. 3.03 | 14:56

Andreaus 13, the man Media Network, inside his Roosevelt "Tech House."

The Tech House Project on East Clinton Ave. in Roosevelt is a not-quite-fully-converted two-family house that serves as the home for Nassau County public access Channel 18's African American Media Network (AAMN).

Inside the makeshift studio there's a statue of an Egyptian queen, Public Enemy posters on the walls, and keyboards and sequencers abound. But the Tech House is also one of the community's most valuable assets: a training ground for students—largely from underperforming school districts like Roosevelt's—to pick up valuable skills like building a website or recording a song with Pro Tools.
"Every kid who comes here finds something that grabs them," explains AAMN founder Andre Guilty, better known as Andreaus 13, during a break from editing.

"And we do all this for not even $100,000 a year."
In addition to TV, video and music production, the house possesses facilities for photography and animation and an Internet café. It's a one-stop shop for anyone curious about what a career in the media and telecommunications industries might be like, and a place for people like Andreaus and cameraman/audio-visual instructor Eric "EDQ" Harris to redirect kids from far-fetched dreams of rap stardom.


"They all want to be rappers, but we show them how to be a producer," says the suit-clad Andreaus, a candid man who pulls no punches when discussing his disdain for popular figures like 50 Cent and Russell Simmons, whom he sees as responsible for the misdirection of black youth.
A dreadlocked former rapper and stand-up comedian who still bears a striking resemblance to his former Roosevelt High schoolmate Eddie Murphy, Andreaus was in fact a Murphy impersonator, as well as a fringe member of Public Enemy, and the owner of a short-lived Roosevelt comedy club before unexpectedly falling into community activism in 1993.
"Chuck D.

and a community organization were staging a protest at an office building on Nassau Road that had never been completed, and they asked me to be the media person," Andreaus recalls. "Nobody showed up, so we thought the only way to get the news out was to film it ourselves. Chuck said, 'You are an electronic technician, why don't you film?

' We brought the tape to Cablevision, and that became our first show. We didn't even think about doing another until Cablevision came to us and said, 'When's the next one?'"
Starting out with the goal to provide a black perspective on local news coverage, the organization developed into a nonprofit and, with the support of entities like the Long Island Community Fund and State Senator Charles Fuschillo (R-Freeport), became the training ground it is today.


"I came on Andreaus' show and it seemed like a great after-school experience for these kids," says Fuschillo, who helped the AAMN purchase up-to-the-minute recording programs like Final Cut-Pro for its Bob Marley Music Room. "I thought it was valuable to have a program like this where they can learn a trade that could lead to jobs and productive lives."
Lately, though, the Tech House has been a lot colder and quieter.

With a crumbling ceiling and lack of functioning radiators, Guilty and Harris have had to put their internship program—in which local students receive a $500 or $1,000 stipend while acquiring skills in their chosen field and helping produce the network's programming—on hiatus.
"We are in the cold because of [Nassau County Executive] Tom Suozzi," Guilty states resolutely, explaining that he moved from AAMN's former warehouse headquarters to the East Clinton house on the premise that Nassau County would keep up a level of funding that would enable them to winterize it. But the AAMN ran afoul of Suozzi when Guilty had Minority Leader Peter Schmitt on as a guest, and allegedly steamed the executive with its coverage of the Garden City affordable-housing controversy.


"If a story affects our community, we will cover it," Andreaus explains. "We set out to be an alternative news source, so if you compromise what is the point?"
Despite the fact that the AAMN and the local minority community rallied to get Suozzi into power in 2001, the network had been receiving only a fraction of what it got under Republican former County Executive Thomas Gulotta.


"A lot of people who were fighting against the Republican regime got jobs and are no longer fighting for our community," Andreaus says. "I don't look at [funding] as a handout, I look at it as reparations. We helped get these people into office.

"
Suozzi's office did not return the Press' calls for comment, but Andreaus is sure that the executive will get his message.
"We are going to read through a list of the events Suozzi has for Black History Month, and rip them up," he says. "They don't support the real people who actually deserve the recognition anyway.

"
Back at the Tech House, Andreaus is currently negotiating with a professional sports team that wants kids from the program to create a theme song, a deal that could net the students as much as $25,000.
"They gave me experience that helped me realize this is what I want to do and gave me insight into how it will be," says Tiffany Durant, 17, a former AAMN intern now studying communications and media at Nassau Community College. "I came here because it felt like a second home.

Hopefully, I can come back and work with other kids who were like me.

Read more on by www.longislandpress.com. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Tech House, Media Network, Nassau County, American Media, African American, Public Enemy, East Clinton, American Media Network, African American Media
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