Kentucky Educational Television has a two-car coal train tonight. We've already reported on the 10 p.m. EST broadcast premiere of "Deep Down," on KET2, about community conflicts over a proposed mountaintop-removal mine, but we learned this afternoon that it will be preceded by the TV debut of "Coal in Kentucky," another hour-long documentary, which airs at 9 p.m. EST. (For other times click here.)
"Coal in Kentucky" was produced by the Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments in the College of Engineering at the University of Kentucky, with severance-tax money that the state legislature earmarked for the state Energy and Environment Cabinet to educate the public about the coal industry. The cabinet assembled an advisory committee that helped broaden and balance the project, and the producers used some members (including the writer of this item, the director of the UK-based Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues) as talking heads to frame some of the issues. As I told the committee at its first meeting, telling the story of Kentucky coal in 57 minutes was one of the more challenging journalistic enterprises in which I have ever been involved, but the VisCenter folks did very good work. Here's a trailer:
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