Scope and arrangement
The Tony Batten Broadcast Journalism collection consists of fifty moving image recordings and thirty-three audio recordings. The video recordings reflect Batten's work in television and documentary, including episodes of ABC News Closeup, FYI: For Your Information, Interface, and 51st State. Also among the video recordings are interviews Batten conducted with New York State's Black and Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus. The audio recordings consist primarily of Batten's jazz programs on New York City radio stations and NPR.
The collection also includes recordings of cultural programs and other events related to public affairs, among them, proceedings from the 1984 Mega-Cities Conference; and the first International Interdisciplinary Conference on Langston Hughes, held at CCNY-CUNY in 1988.
Item dates reflect the earliest noted in relevant documentation. Square brackets indicate that names or spellings are unclear.
The Tony Batten Broadcast Journalism collection is arranged in four series:
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1973-1980s
Thirty recordings of television programs produced, hosted, written, and/or directed by Tony Batten. This series is organized alphabetically by program title, then chronologically.
The series includes several television programs, as well as outtakes and promos. Among the programs are ABC News Closeup, F.Y.I.: For Your Information, Interface, The State of Black America 1984, and 51st State.
F.Y.I.: For Your Information was a public affairs program broadcast on Washington, DC's WETA, largely focusing on stories about or related to people of color across the US. Four episodes, one episode's outtakes, and a recording of promos for the program, all created from 1978 to circa 1982, are included in this series. Throughout these recordings, the program is variously referred to as F.Y.I.: For Your Information, F.Y.I., and For Your Information. Unless otherwise noted, each episode is approximately one hour.
Interface was a public affairs program also broadcast on Washington, DC's WETA. This series has seventeen episodes and one episode's outtakes, created from 1973 to 1975. In addition to public affairs, Interface focused on arts and culture, with an emphasis on Black people and other people of color. The episodes in this series cover housing, labor, struggles around desegregation and immigration, aspects of policing and criminal justice, and musicians including Betty Carter, Max Roach, and Gil Scott-Heron. Also included is "A Profile of Paul Robeson," the 1975 special that won the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame Film of Distinction in 1976. Unless otherwise noted, episodes of this program are thirty minutes.
Also included in this series are Tony Batten's Emmy Award-winning documentary Ain't Gonna Eat My Mind!, as well as the episode of 51st State, broadcast on WNET, in which it aired. Two episodes of ABC News Closeup, and The State of Black America 1984 television special are in this series as well.
Lastly, the series provides some insight into Batten's efforts to continue and expand his work with music programming, with promos for a proposed Birdland Jam Sessions series, and proposed televised performances from the Detroit International Music Festival.
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1973-1984
Twenty-nine audio recordings of radio programs, organized alphabetically by title, then chronologically. This series consists primarily of jazz programs hosted by Tony Batten, including Birdland and Jazz Alive!, both of which were broadcast on National Public Radio (NPR) stations across the US, and Jazz and All That, broadcast on New York City's WRVR. In 1983, NPR introduced NPR Plus, a satellite service providing three feeds of additional programming for affiliate stations. Batten anchored the jazz feed, which initially consisted of previously recorded programs; these are titled NPR Plus: Jazz here, although some of the items titled Jazz may have also been broadcast as part of this service.
This series also includes one recording featuring some of Batten's radio journalism; a piece covering student protests at CCNY-CUNY, and a special report on AIDS, both broadcast on WHCR in 1984.
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1985 June-July
Nineteen video recordings comprising nine interviews that Tony Batten conducted with members of New York State's Black and Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus (BPRC) in the summer of 1985. These interviews are arranged alphabetically by interviewee's last name. At the time of the interviews, the caucus members were all Democrats, and largely New York State Assembly members representing districts in New York City. The items' scope and content notes indicate their positions at the time of the interview.
The interviewees are Assemblywoman Geraldine Daniels, 17th District (Harlem); Assemblywoman Gloria Davis, 78th District (South Bronx); Assemblyman Angelo Del Toro, 68th District (Harlem); former Assemblyman Lloyd E. Dickens, 11th District (Harlem); New York City Clerk David Dinkins; Assemblywoman Aurelia Green, 76th District (Bronx); former State Senator Basil Patterson; former Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton; and Assemblyman Albert Vann, 56th District (Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn).
Internal documentation indicates that at least some of Tony Batten's interviews with the BPRC were conducted on behalf of the Schomburg Center as part of a broader oral history project. In addition to the interviews in this series, Batten interviewed William Frank Boyland, Herman Denny Farrell Jr., Roger Green, Andrew Jenkins, Cynthia Jenkins, Helen Marshall, and Israel Ruiz. See the Related Materials note for additional information about these interviews.
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1983-1988
Four audio recordings and one film that were not produced by or do not feature Tony Batten, arranged chronologically. This series includes recordings of proceedings from the 1984 Mega-Cities Conference and the 1988 Langston Hughes Festival at CCNY, as well as other programs from Batten's home radio stations.