Deep Dish Television

Deep Dish Television, launched in 1986 by the production collective Paper Tiger Television and headquartered in New York City, became the first public access television distribution network in the United States. The network focused on finding fresh, democratic ways to showcase video art and independent reporting. Its programming linked artists, independent video makers, programmers, and social activists, tackling political subjects like environmentalism, U.S. healthcare, and the Iraq War.

The network grew out of Paper Tiger Television, with DeeDee Halleck a founding member of both groups. From its Opening Series in 1986 through its final series, We Interrupt This Program in 2018, Deep Dish Television distributed curated series of work by independent video makers, filmmakers, and activists on a range of political issues. In 2005, it aired Shocking and Awful: A Grassroots Response to War and Occupation, which examined the effects of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

That series later appeared at the Whitney Museum’s 2006 Biennial and the Museum of Modern Art’s “Theater of Operations: Gulf Wars 1991-2011” exhibition (2019–2020). Deep Dish TV became known for its criticism of the Iraq War and later produced extensive coverage of the World Tribunal on Iraq, the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity of the Bush Administration, and the Winter Soldier Eyewitness Accounts of the Iraq and Afghanistan Occupations.

Beyond television, Deep Dish Television regularly organized and took part in film festivals, conferences, screenings, panel discussions, exhibitions, and speaking tours across the United States. It also advocated for public access media and worked with other independent media groups, including Democracy Now!, Free Speech TV, Indymedia, and DIVA TV.

The network’s archives are held at Fales Library, and many of its productions are available on YouTube and Vimeo. Its hundreds of programs were packaged into series such as The Opening Series (1986), Deep Dish Cooks Up a Second Series (1988), Fearless TV for the 90s (1990), Public Access: Spigot for Bigots or Channels for Change? (1990), DIVA TV: Collections from this Activist Collective (1990), …Will be Televised: Video Documents from Asia (1990), News You Can Use (1990), Green Screen: Grassroots Views of the Environmental Crisis (1990), The Gulf Crisis Project (1990–1991), The Lannan Foundation Presents: Writers Uncensored (1991), Ideas and Power (1991), Behind Censorship: The Assault on Civil Liberties (1991), Celebrating 20 Years of Public Access Television (1991), ROAR! A Paper Tiger TV Mini Retrospective (1991), Unheard Voices (1992), Beyond the Browning of America (1992), Siempre Trabajando: Latinos and Labor (1992), Rock the Boat (1992), Visions of Ourselves (1993), L.A. Freewaves: Experimental Video from Southern California (1993), News You Can Use (1993), Democracy in Communications (1993), Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired (1994), News You Can Use (1994), Emergency Programming: Mumia Abu-Jamal (1995), Breaking Conventions (1996), America Behind Bars (1997), Showdown in Seattle (1999), Breaking the Bank (2000), Crashing the Party (2000), Inauguration (2001), Shocking and Awful: A Grassroots Response to War and Occupation (2005), The World Tribunal in Iraq (2006), Waves of Change: The Many Voices of the Global Village (2007), Nothing is Safe: Israel’s 2006 War on Lebanon (2008), Winter Soldier (2008), DIY Media: Movement Perspectives on Critical Moments (2008), Rent-to-Own: Poverty Project (2009), Uprooted: A Grassroots Examination of the Politics of Migration (2011), An American Nightmare: Black Labor and Liberation (2015), and We Interrupt This Program (2018).