The Media Access Office is a California state agency designed to help people with disabilities succeed in the entertainment world.
I’ve been getting their newsletter for many years and it has to be one of the dullest newsletters I’ve ever seen. I wish you could see it for yourself, but they do not make it accessible on the Internet – which is typical of the way they do business.
Finally I couldn’t take it any more, and when the latest issue arrived, I sent them an email to ask why the newsletter has to be so dull. My inquiry was met with a response that was largely defensive in tone. I’m sharing with you my original note, their response and my reply, which to date has been ignored.
The Media Access Office is a great idea, but the people currently running it have been there forever and seem devoid of any creativity or new ideas. If ever there was an agency that needs a major shakeup and a renewed focus on its purpose, it’s the Media Access Office.
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Hi .. I really wish you would upgrade your newsletter. It is so deathly dull. Just a list of names and what they’re doing and much of it is the same every month. Why can’t there ever be any feature articles and photos about these people or how-to-do-it kind of articles or inspirational pieces or something or anything that’s not just a list of people and what they’re doing. Your newsletter has been this way for years and years … how come it never gets any better?
Tom Willard
Rochester, NY
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We are sorry the newsletter does not meet with your approval – but the purpose of the newsletter is exactly what you state – a listing of MAO members’ activities and appearances, to let people know what our members are achieving, so that they can support their fellow actors’ work – as well as to give notice of MAO activities within the California area. It is NOT intended to be a national newsletter covering performers with disabilities, nor a features newsmagazine – for that we suggest you subscribe to the Kennedy Center’s ‘Opening Stages’, if you don’t already do so. As the MAO newsletter is prepared with NO budget and extremely limited staffing (and may very well be eliminated, along with the entire MAO operation in the very near future), it is what it is. We would be happy to delete you off our mailing list, if you so desire.
Dr. Douglas W. Gordy, Ph.D.
Program Director
Media Access Office North/EDD
4071 Port Chicago Highway, Suite 250
Concord, CA 94520-1157
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Hi Doug .. I want to follow up with a couple of questions as I’m still not clear on a few things. Who exactly decided that the newsletter should have such a limited scope? Is it written into your bylaws or something? What do you mean that the newsletter is prepared with no budget? I thought the MAO was funded by the State of California … isn’t the newsletter just part of your job? And what do you mean that the entire MAO operation could be eliminated in the very near future? Can you please expand on that?
From where I stand, if your agency’s survival is in jeopardy, it could be because you don’t use your newsletter and website to promote yourselves and explain why you are needed and what you’ve been doing lately. It’s just a static web page and a monthly list of words and names … zzzzzz. Which brings me back to the first question, who said the newsletter has to be this way? If you guys made the newsletter really good, is there someone who is going to say “Stop that! Make it bad again!”?
These are just some of the things I am wondering and they are not idle concerns because when my kids are grown in a few years I plan to move back to LA and try to get into the industry and I will be really ticked off if the MAO is no longer around.
And if I am not mistaken, your agency is funded by the taxpayers and you are accountable to the public as well as to the disabled community, and thus I don’t think your defensive tone is warranted. People in publicly funded positions should expect to be critiqued.
PS … Word to the wise … nobody uses Dr. and Ph.D. together, it looks silly and grandiose.
Tom
3 Comments
November 12, 2007 at 11:04 am
MAO is nothing but a showoff.
Richard
February 7, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Well said. Let us know when Dougie responds.
February 10, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Will do, Mary, but it’s been three months now … good thing I have not been holding my breath.