A new television show that will take a detailed look at the greater Pensacola community premieres March 5th on BLAB-TV, the local cable access channel found on channel 6 for Cox Cable customers in Escambia County, and on channel 38 for Mediacom customers in Santa Rosa County.
“Pensacola: A Proud Past, A Better Tomorrow,” will look first at the state of job development and wages in Escambia County. Among the guests will be Rick Harper, director of the Haas Center for Research and Economic Development at the University of West Florida, who will give an overview of jobs and wages. There will also be representatives of economic development agencies in Escambia, Santa Rosa, Mobile and Baldwin counties. Representatives of Pensacola Young Professionals will discuss the job market from the prospective of those entering the job market or working in an uncertain economy to establish their careers.
“What we are attempting to do with this first show is to paint a portrait of the job and wage situation in Pensacola and Escambia County, to see how we stack up regionally and nationally,” said Debbie Ritchie, host of the show. “What is the current job and wage picture? As we face an increasingly uncertain economic picture how competitive are we in terms of attracting jobs and growing the economy? With economists saying there has been no growth in actual wages nationwide since 2003, what can we expect and how can we ensure that workers in Escambia County are getting their fair slice of the pie?
“With the segment with the young professionals we want to touch on issues pertinent to them. What does Pensacola’s future look like to those entering the job market? Are there enough good jobs here to bring the best and brightest to our area to work?”
The show, which will be rebroadcast several times over a two-week period, is the first of seven shows by Pensacola: A Proud Past, A Better Tomorrow that will cover a wide range of economic and social issues effecting Escambia County citizens. Subsequent shows will originate every two weeks and will deal with education, the environment, housing, health, and economic development. Each show will also honor an individual or organization that is making a difference in community.
The first group to be denoted a “Difference Maker” will be Impact 100, a Pensacola-based philanthropic women’s organization that bestows significant grants in the areas of the arts and culture, the environment, recreation and preservation, family and health and wellness.
“Pensacola is a community that has always been generous and progressive,” Ritchie said. “While we want to ask the tough questions and to get at the sometimes difficult answers, we also want to help raise the profile of those individuals and organizations in the community who are working to make this a better place to live.”
The over-arching purpose of Pensacola: A Proud Past, A Better Tomorrow, the civic organization mounting the show on BLAB-TV, is to begin an ongoing community conversation about the opportunities and challenges Pensacola faces.
“Too often in Pensacola we identify problems and attack them but we don’t seem to stay focused and to measure the results,” said Ritchie. “What we want to do with Pensacola: A Proud Past, A Better Tomorrow, not just the show on BLAB but the ongoing community conversation we want to pursue, is to recruit the community into an effort to look at where we are, where we want to go and to determine if we are getting there. To make sure this community becomes what it has the potential to become, we have to ask the tough questions while realistically measuring our failures and successes.”