Community radio staff, volunteers, advocates and activists will gather this weekend in Portland, OR for the 2018 Grassroots Radio Conference. On Friday evening they’ll be treated to an opening keynote by former FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. She’s renowned for her public interest advocacy during her nearly nine years on the Commission, as a strong supporter of network neutrality, digital inclusion and community media.
Clyburn’s keynote happens at 5:30 PM on Friday, Oct. 5, and is open to the public. The venue is the Portland State University Native American Student & Community Center, 710 SW Jackson St., Portland, OR.
For registered GRC attendees, Clyburn will also be participating on a panel earlier on Friday, at 11:00 AM, titled, “Community Radio and Digital Inclusion Funding.” She’ll be joined by Sabrina Roach, a friend of Radio Survivor, who helped launch LPFM stations around the Puget Sound region of Washington State, and is a strong advocate of digital inclusion. Sabrina discussed the topic of digital equity and inclusion on episode #49 of our podcast.
On Saturday evening at 6:30 PM we’ll be presenting a live edition of the Radio Survivor radio show and podcast, featuring guests Ernesto Aguilar of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters and Vanessa Maria Graber of PhillyCAM. We’ll be dusting off our crystal ball to look into the future and discuss what community radio will be like in 2023, five years from today. If you won’t be making it to GRC, you’ll be able to hear the podcast next week.
Other keynotes include an address from award-winning journalist and “Alternative Radio” host David Barsamian, who will discuss “Community Radio in the Age of Deceit,” and ACORN founder Wade Rathke who will present a screening of the film “The Organizer,” which documents his life and work in social justice. The film screening is also open to the public for a sliding scale contribution, happening Sunday, Oct. 7 at 1:45 PM in room 110 of the NASCC.
Portland’s longstanding community station KBOO-FM is hosting and organizing this year’s conference, and it looks like it will be an absolute success. Full disclosure: I helped organize the Outreach Committee to spread the word about the conference. But most of the heavy lifting was done by staff and volunteers, including Becky Meiers, Betty McArdle, Zale Chadwick, Ani Haines, Delphine Criscenzo, Arthur Rizzotto, Tom Voorhees and Sabrina Roach.
This year’s GRC has way more to offer than we can possibly cover with just one blog post. The full schedule is online, or you can download a GRC2018-Printed_Schedule. If you’re a community and college radio person and will be in the Portland, OR area this weekend, you really owe it to yourself to attend. However, I recommend showing up first thing Friday morning, because I understand that the event is nearly sold out.
Jennifer Waits, Eric Klein and I will all be there. So if you see us (we should have name tags on) please say hello.
