This fall, Franklin County’s public access station, Northwest Access TV, was awarded three regional trophies. According to Paul Snyder, the Executive Director of Northwest Access, the awards were for the 2021 Nor’Easter Video Festival. One first-place trophy and two third-place honors were taken home as a result of this video festival. 

“Receiving recognition for our hard work through these awards means a lot to our producers and staff. It shows that we’re producing high-quality programs for and by our community,” Snyder said. 

The Nor’Easter Video Festival is an event that includes more than one hundred public access stations throughout New England and New York under the Alliance for Community Media – Northeast Region (ACM-NE). 

ACM-NE is a regional board of the National Alliance for Community Media that is dedicated to promoting and preserving the right to media training, distribution, production, education and civic engineering in support of diverse voices within the community. 

The Nor’Easter Video Festival judges evaluate the entries based on the theme, technical quality, format, production style, as well as overall impression. Additionally, the videos are encouraged to be creative, contain content with a rating no higher than “R” and be no more than three to four minutes long. 

The theme of the video festival was to see how well the Covid-19 quarantine theme could be incorporated into a video following the rest of the rules and guidelines set in place by ACM-NE, whether it is in a serious or funny way.

On Nov. 11, the ACM-NE Nor’Easter Awards took place. It was announced that the first place trophy was awarded to the “Recapping the Arts” show produced by NWA-TV and the Swanton Arts Council. This video has Katie Foster, current Northwest Access TV Editor, dressed as a hot dog and painting images with ketchup and mustard while the other two hosts never acknowledge Foster’s performance. 

Third place in the Issues and Political Process category went to NWA-TV’s “Election Coverage 2020” submission. 

Additionally, NWA-TV placed third in the Documentary category. This video, named “Care During Covid-19,” was done by Paul Snyder and Kate Laddison on the topic of Northwestern Medical Center. Specifically, the video features an uncut version of an interview with Stephanie Richer, a registered nurse at NMC. 

“To come out on top is such an accomplishment. I’m incredibly proud of our staff and producers,” Snyder said.