Newspaper Clipping - Newspaper Clipping Scan - New Eagan TV Show features city officials Tom Hedges St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch - 11/23/1985Wednesday, Oct. 23, 1985 St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch
!b'
New Fagan TV show features
city officials, guests on cable
By Thomas B. Koettini
Staff Writer
There is a new qualii ication for
city officials in Eagan - look com-
fortable in front of the c tmera.
A new cable television program
began this week in Eagz n that pro-
ducer Bob Cooper hope: will serve
a high level of community news
and information without a side dish
of boredom.
"Eagan Report" was taped last
week and aired Mon day, with
Eagan City Manager Thomas
Hedges as host. The proi;ram's for-
mat starts with a quicl overview
of the latest Eagan -rel ited news,
followed by a reader question
mailbox, a guest secti in, a City
Council review and a s chedule of
upcoming city events.
The show will be tape d monthly,
but will be broadcast a t different
times throughout the month on
cable Channel 3, Hedge said. City
officials, including the lirector of
public works, the parks director
and the city planner, will be fea-
tured as guests on the show.
"I'm figuring we can go 18
months before we have to start
repeating guests from the city gov-
ernment," Cooper said. "At that
point, we'll sit back and see where
we want to go."
Hedges will host the show each
week, and will be joined on camera
by Pam Wold, who Cooper de-
scribed as "acting like Ed
McMahon to Hedges' Johnny Car-
son." Wold will read questions for
Hedges, help introduce guests and
be free to join in the conversation
throughout the half -hour show.
For Cooper, the production was
a chance to put his film expertise
to work on a volunteer basis for the
city he has lived in for 20 years. A
free -lance filmmaker, Cooper has
had 17 years of experience as a
sports cameraman and 15 years of
experience producing sales and
marketing films. He is a full -time
Univeristy of Minnesota police-
man.
"I think it's going to provide in-
formation that Eagan residents
couldn't get any other way," Coo-
per said. "I told the crew after the
first show was finished, `You know,
it's not perfect, but if it was, where
the hell would we go from here ?' "
Group W, the city's cable televi-
son company, provides the studio
and the equipment, as well as tech-
nical advice for the program. The
show has a crew of more than a
dozen volunteers, Cooper said.
Cooper said that some other sub-
urbs had tried informational shows
— and Burnsville is planning to
start one on the same Group W
cable system — but that he had
found them dull and uninspiring.
To avoid that, Cooper plans to use
multiple camera angles and on-
sight reporting of events.
"The difference, hopefully, will
be the smoothness of the produc-
tion," he said.