This past Sunday, February 13, was World Radio Day. I’m a few days late in recognizing it, but still have something good to share. Like last year, the BBC tapped radio journalist David Goren to produce a documentary highlighting community radio around the globe. “World Wide Waves ’22” profiles four stations: Koori Radio is the […]
Tag Archives | guatemala
Guatemala almost buries Beethoven again; saves classical radio station
Faro Radio, Guatemala’s classical radio station (104.5 FM), recently faced going dark, so the signal resorted to a desperate gambit. It announced that it would bury the composer Ludwig von Beethoven yet again (he last died in March of 1827). The Adland Commercial Archive blog explains: “In Guatemala, when a person passes away, you express […]
Indigenous Mayans in Guatemala rely on pirate radio
Costa Rica’s Tico Times recently published a profile of unlicensed Guatemala radio station Radio Ixchel, as part of an examination of the radio scene in that country. Guatemala has as many as 800 pirate stations, where most radio licenses are auctioned for as much as $100,000. While there are license categories for public stations, there […]
How the CIA used radio in the 1954 Guatemala coup
I am reading Tim Weiner’s disturbing history of the CIA, Legacy of Ashes. The tome portrays the agency as a dysfunctional outfit which often failed to achieve its goals. When the CIA did get something done in its formative years, it was usually a dastardly deed, accomplished by a combination of brute force, bribery, and […]