On the Air and in Mongolian

For an Hour a Week, Arlington's TV Operation Helps Immigrant Journalists Cover Their Community

In a small, brightly lighted studio, the anchor thumbs through her notes while the guest next to her is miked up. On a monitor behind them, Mongolian script displays on a bright blue monitor. The anchor counts down, begins her intro, then stops when a producer asks for a reset. Finally, the show gets underway with an interview about a new robot and vehicle that were created in Mongolia.

This studio is not in Ulan Bator, but at a Northern Virginia public-access television facility. It's a no-frills operation, a simple desk-and-chair setup. Here a small, committed team of volunteers creates weekly programming for a very specific audience: the estimated 2,000 Mongolian immigrants living in Arlington County. Sarantuya Tsedevsuren, who spent two decades as a reporter and anchor for Mongolian National Television, and her friend and former colleague Uranchimeg Bayarkhuu are among those putting out the programs.

Tsedevsuren, who moved to the United States eight years ago as a correspondent for MNTV, started the show seven months ago through Arlington Independent Media. AIM is a public-access channel funded by a partnership between Comcast and Arlington County. The focus of this show (and similar Vietnamese and Ethiopian shows on AIM) is community and interaction, not ratings.

"That's what we're very good at doing, allowing people to reach those kinds of markets," said Paul LeValley, AIM's executive director. "For people who are trying to reach a well-defined, targeted audience, we are an extremely effective means of doing that. We'll never be about producing mass audience."

For Tsedevsuren, just being on the air is a victory. "Since 2002, I dreamed of opening a TV show. But there was no group, no TV specialists," she said. "We talked for many, many years about starting a TV program." AIM trained her to use cameras and editing equipment, a requirement for anyone trying to start a production.

Tsedevsuren and Bayarkhuu were full-time journalists in Mongolia, but they've been unable to continue in that capacity in the United States. Journalism and television have remained their passion but not their profession. Both have other jobs, Tsedevsuren as a guide at the Newseum and Bayarkhuu as a hairstylist.

A journalist who first went on the air by winning a radio audition as a teenager and who later studied in Moscow, Tsedevsuren worked as a parking attendant at a mall with friends from Mongolia after her contract as a correspondent with MNTV ended. The AIM show provides an outlet to do the work she and Bayarkhuu love.

"Of course, this is a volunteer job, and it's hard to come here every time after work," Bayarkhuu said. "But I just like it. It's my hobby. I used to work in this profession in my country, and I kind of miss it."

Tsedevsuren, Bayarkhuu and a third friend who has since returned to Mongolia launched the show, but they have depended on AIM's pool of trained volunteers of all ethnic groups, most of whom don't understand a word of what is said on the air.

"Three of us started the show, but behind us are many volunteers, using the equipment, cameraman, sound producer, all of them from AIM," Tsedevsuren said. AIM provides the studio at no charge, but creating the content for the show takes up many hours of their time, from researching guests to filming packages outside of the studio.

Creating content for the show permeates every facet of their daily life. On a recent vacation to Walt Disney World, Bayarkhuu took a small camera and created a piece on what it was like, even interviewing two contortionists from Mongolia. Bayarkhuu said she enjoys doing pieces like this in the field and wanted to show viewers that there "are lots of nice places to see in America. Disney World is a very nice place, and it's not cold," she said with a smile, a reference to Mongolia's harsh winters.

For Tsedevsuren, who shares anchoring, editing and production duties with Bayarkhuu, reporting for the show is an outgrowth of her personal connections within a closely knit circle of Mongolian immigrants. Conversations with friends are a form of research, as daily interactions lead to ideas for what to cover. She said she always has her notebook with her, writing "where people live, all of the numbers, everything."

Her specialty and first love is politics; she interviewed Mongolia's ambassador to the United States, Khasbazaryn Bekhbat, on the show. She focuses, when possible, on political and economic topics, while Bayarkhuu often hosts segments on culture and the arts. But the duties are shared, in anchoring and technical production.

They cover their community in and around Arlington: recitals by Mongolian students, New Year's festivals, embassy events and visits by prominent Mongolians, such as poets or singers who can perform in the studio. They are also considering a show designed to teach Mongolian to children who were born in the United States and have not grown up speaking the language.

The show's connection to Mongolia is alive and well. Friends of Tsedevsuren in Mongolia send footage and reports; Arlington residents send taped greetings intended for friends and family in Mongolia. Although the show airs only in Arlington, it is available at http://www.mongoltv.us. "Everyone is missing their family," Tsedevsuren said. "A lot of them want to give their interview, and on the Internet their parents and relatives can watch in Mongolia."

Although viewer metrics such as ratings are unavailable, Tsedevsuren and Bayarkhuu are buoyed by the feedback of viewers. Viewers sometimes write in to ask for coverage of events, and many have learned about the weekly show by word-of-mouth. Tsedevsuren hopes to parlay this response into a bigger audience through new platforms of distribution, perhaps on television in Mongolia, she said.

The show is young and dependent on the labors of a committed few, but Tsedevsuren has set her sights on more. She said she hopes to one day make it a daily program, but "that's in the future. It's just a dream."