A couple of weeks ago I was listening to Fresh Air broadcast Maureen Corrigan’s decidedly negative review of Kyung-sook Shin’s hot new novel Please Look After Mom. The commentary finished by recommending that readers check out Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids instead. “Smith will get your book club on its feet and pumping its collective […]
Archive | Public Radio
FCC Approves Request by USF/CPRN to Move KUSF Transmitter
On Tuesday, April 12 the FCC approved University of San Francisco’s revised request to move the transmitter for KUSF out of San Francisco to Sausalito and issued a Construction Permit (PDF). This “minor change in licensed facilities” request, made on behalf of Classical Public Radio Network (which is awaiting FCC approval on its application to […]
Would conservatives lose the most if NPR was defunded?
The latest round of the ongoing battle over public broadcasting has concluded, and lo and behold, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting lives. The new budget preserves funding for the CPB at $445 million for 2013, albeit with drastic cuts to smaller public media funds, and the complete elimination of the Department of Commerce’s Public Telecommunications […]
FCC Approves Sale of KTRU to University of Houston
There was sad news today for fans of Rice University’s college radio station KTRU. In the battle for the future of their station that’s been raging since August 2010, it appears the KTRU may have lost and that their station’s frequency may soon be sold to University of Houston for use by their public radio […]
This American Life: advice needed on podcasts
Ira Glass of This American Life says he’s going to give his nephew’s high school class a seminar on podcasting. But he could use some advice, Glass writes: Specifically: what topics seemed to work the best to energize the kids and to get nice stories? Should we go for personal stories? Stuff going on with […]
Friends of KUSF Respond to CPRN and USF in Latest Phase of FCC Battle
Lawyers and wordsmiths on both sides of the fight over KUSF 90.3 FM have put pen to paper, filing lengthy documents supporting their positions to either defend the purchase of KUSF by Classical Public Radio Network (CPRN), or to cast doubt on the propriety of a formerly commercial service being broadcast over a non-commercial educational […]
Students Hold Wake for KUSF
As the battle over the future of college radio station KUSF continues, students at University of San Francisco (USF) expressed their displeasure over the proposed station sale by holding a wake on the lawn outside of a USF Board of Trustees meeting at noon today. Mourning students dressed in black held forth in front of […]
Spring Hill College to Sell WHIL to University of Alabama
In a familiar-sounding tale, University of Alabama is in talks to purchase public radio station WHIL from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama for $1.1 million. WHIL currently airs a public radio format, mainly comprised of classical music programming and syndicated NPR shows like “Weekend Edition” and “All Things Considered.” It is expected that the […]
Suze Rotolo, Bob Dylan, and the Woman Question: The Virtues of Thinking Twice
Susie Rotolo, Bob Dylan’s lover in the early sixties, died last month, and NPR recently played an excerpt from a 2008 interview with her. I was very moved by the interview, and felt that it gave me a startling and fresh perspective on an important part of Dylan’s early work—his love (and hate) songs, and […]
Radio Guide to SXSW 2011
As I’m watching various friends’ Facebook updates and check-ins from Austin, I’m getting a serious case of SXSW-envy. Although I can’t be there at the famed music/interactive/film festival this year, there are tons of radio-related events that I wish I could be a fly on the wall at (especially the How to Save College Radio […]