In different hands, it could be state propaganda.
For a year now, the county government's cable television channel has aired a slick daily news program funded entirely through local cable fees -- the only program of its kind in the Baltimore area.
It's hardly CNN. Each day's 7 1/2 -minute production is filmed in the morning, edited in the afternoon and aired every hour on the hour from 7 p.m. that night until 6 p.m. the next day.
But as part of the Cable 15 operation, with 10 employees and an annual budget of $431,390, the daily news show would seem the perfect tool for politicians seeking friendly exposure.
That's not going to happen, says news anchor Pia Jordan.
"You're working for the government information office, so you're going to include stories that tell the government side," she says. "But I am still a journalist at heart. I don't like a lot of interference."
That sense of journalistic independence is echoed by her colleagues at Cable 15 -- and quickly becomes apparent to public officials.
Take, for example, a recent encounter between Councilwoman-elect Mary C. Lorsung and reporter Tara Gary, who was taping an interview with the new lawmaker.
"You mean I don't get to write my own questions?" asked Ms. Lorsung, who had recently appeared in public service spots with Comcast, Howard County's largest cable company. "That's what Comcast did."
Such deferential treatment is taboo on Cable 15, says station manager Serena Mann, who doubles as the daily news program's executive producer.
"We may air more information than news," she says, "but we have the same journalistic integrity as anybody else."
Journalistic objectivity was not always so prized on Cable 15, where programming also includes public service programs and gavel-to-gavel coverage of County Council meetings.
In 1985, toward the end of his term, County Executive J. Hugh Nichols used Cable 15 as the vehicle for revealing his switch to the Republican Party. Next, Democrat Angela Beltram used the channel for a political rally announcing her run for County Council.
That was too much for the sitting council members. They quickly passed a law banning political announcements from the channel.
From then on, politicking had to be more subtle. It was permissible for council members, when voting, to explain their votes in a room empty except for themselves and television cameras. It was not permissible to engage in brazen electioneering.
In those days, the Cable 15 staff consisted of Ms. Gary and Cable 15's first station manager, Andrew Rodgers, operating out of a closet next to the County Council office.
"We started out with [locally produced] programs like 'How To Conduct A Job Interview' and 'How To Protect Yourself From Assault,' " Ms. Gary recalls.
The staff grew in 1986 as coverage of the council expanded to include virtually all meetings except work sessions and Liquor Board sessions.
With the larger staff came more programming, including a monthly news magazine that often featured the county executive. County Executive Charles I. Ecker eschews such treatment; his predecessor, Elizabeth Bobo, was in the news quite a bit when she was county executive, Ms. Gary says.
These days, elected officials have to do more than show up at ribbon-cuttings to get on Cable 15's nightly news.
"We get the best story we can," Ms. Gary says. "Whoever says the most interesting thing -- it could be an elected official or someone in the crowd -- is the one who gets on camera."
And some nights, county government isn't even mentioned. Last week, for example, the show carried stories about where to turn to resolve family conflicts, how to use the food bank, the meaning and history of Hanukkah, and shoppers' rights when using checks and credit cards.
"We look to provide community service," says Ms. Mann. The goal is more than "highlighting little known efforts of county government. . . . It is putting people in touch with their communities."
But when there is government news to report, it usually leads the newscast.
Friday, for example, the top story was a report from Tipton Airfield at Fort Meade about an agreement between Howard and Anne Arundel county officials to seek acquisition of the airfield, which would become a private airport for small planes.
True to Cable 15's independent philosophy, the person interviewed for the story was the airport manager, not an elected official.
"We may not be taken as seriously as commercial television reporters, but we do a quality production," says Ms. Jordan. She and others on the staff came to Cable 15 from a background in commercial broadcasting or college journalism.
Ms. Mann sees Cable 15's news operation as a natural progression of the work that was being done five years ago when she began overseeing all Cable 15 productions. At that time, there was a news show twice a month. Ms. Mann wanted to do more.
After looking at government cable television operations in Montgomery County, Carroll County and Washington, she decided a daily news operation supplemented by talk shows was "the best way to make government more accessible to the citizens."
The show premiered Nov. 15, 1993, and has been on the air ever since. "I have the same staff that I started with" a year ago, Ms. Mann says. "We've stayed on the air by working harder and getting better."
Station officials believe they are beginning to attract more viewers -- although no one knows how many, because the county has never done a survey. Ms. Mann cites as anecdotal evidence an increasing number of calls and letters from viewers.
The station also is making plans to expand the news operation to include children's shows, programming for seniors, more talk shows and "more in-depth discussion of issues and presentation of personalities," says Ms. Mann.
Already, Cable 15 supplements its news show with longer talk shows. Ms. Gary has won national awards from her government broadcasting peers for her work on such medical subjects as Alzheimer's disease.
And Christy Cave, who came to Cable 15 a year ago after working part-time as an editor and occasional reporter for an all-news radio station in Washington, has drawn attention for her work on a show she devised called "The Volunteer Machine," which profiles volunteer groups.
For fans of bureaucracy, the station still offers coverage of council meetings, Zoning Board sessions and most of the county executive's news conferences.
That mix has enabled the station to satisfy elected officials hungry for television exposure without making them the focus of the news operation.
Ms. Mann expects that balancing act to continue.
"Our whole purpose is to be seen," she says.