Like many of you in the U.S. and around the world, I’m still trying to make sense of the presidential election and its outcome. And, by “make sense,” I mean determine what actions I should and can take to help ensure the safety and security of people who have been targeted by the rhetoric of […]
Democracy Now! today ran audio of a largely forgotten speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., released and curated by the Pacifica Radio Archives. Just days before receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, King spoke in London, offering a detailed overview of the history of the civil rights movement in the United States and linking […]
Democracy Now ran a focus show this morning on the Federal Communications Commission’s release of new procedures and application forms for the upcoming Low Power FM window, scheduled to open on October 15. The show includes Jeff Rousset of the Prometheus Radio Project and Ramon Ramirez, President of PCUN (Pineros Y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste), […]
Chicago’s commerical “progressive talk” station WCPT is becoming a foster home of sorts for popular radio programs that have lost their homes on the non-commercial end of the dial. The daily independent news hour Democracy Now began airing on WCPT January 2. The program joins Smiley and West, which was exiled from Chicago Public Radio […]
This weekend Public Radio International’s Smiley and West program returned to the Chicago airwaves. Commercial progressive talk station WCPT starting airing the program Sunday, Nov. 4, and will continue airing it on Sundays at 3 PM. WVON, a commercial AM talk station focused on the African-American community, will carry the program on Saturdays at 11 […]
Chicago’s public radio station WBEZ quietly dropped the syndicated Smiley and West program from its Sunday line-up at the end of September. This stands in contrast to the station’s decision to drop Car Talk reruns from its Saturday line-up, which management communicated in an email to donor members explaining the decision and soliciting feedback (full […]
As the troubles facing Pacifica radio persist without apparent end, I sometimes wonder whether the five station listener supported radio network should voluntarily dismantle itself—that is, transfer its licenses to five local non-profit entities. I am not the first person to suggest this. Community radio pioneer Lorenzo Milam more or less laid the idea out […]
Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez’s radio/TV program Democracy Now! is, without question, the most successful media vehicle in the history of the United States Left. Launched at Pacifica station WBAI-FM in New York City in the mid-1990s, it is now an independent venture, subscribed to by over 800 radio, TV, and Internet stations around the […]
If we get into the wayback machine and set it for 1996 we’ll find that it was a time before MP3s, when online video was nearly an oxymoron and broadcast radio was, by-and-large, a healthy and profitable business. Online audio, including live streaming, was a new technology relying on high degrees of compression in order […]
Ten years ago this Friday, one of the most remarkable events in the annals of United States broadcasting took place. Looking back on it now, I can hardly believe that it happened, even though I was there and saw it myself. On a very sunny Saturday July 31, 1999, about ten thousand people gathered in […]
