Homer Baldwin

Homer Baldwin was a community media leader associated with Wadsworth Community Television in Wadsworth, Ohio, where his work connected local public access television to civic life in a small Ohio city. WCTV is the City of Wadsworth’s PEG access television station, operating public, educational, and government channels for local programming and civic coverage. In 2004, Homer received the ACM’s Dirk Koning–George Stoney Award for Humanistic Communication for his work with WCTV.

His recognition reflected the field’s understanding that humanistic communication happens at every scale. The work of keeping a small-city access station useful, open, and connected to community members was as much an expression of the field’s values as work done in larger urban centers.

The 2004 Dirk Koning–George Stoney Award was also awarded to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, a pairing that captured the breadth of what the field recognized as humanistic communication: from national independent journalism to small-city local access. Homer’s story belongs in Community Media Voices because he represents the deeply local roots of the field, where public access became a way for a community to document, remember, and speak to itself.