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from the Portland Free Press, Jan-Feb 1998


Community Radio at the Crossroads
by Per Fagereng

It's possible to run a radio station with just a small paid staff. A
few disc jockeys play recorded music, announcers give the station ID
during syndicated talk shows, engineers plug in commercials. It's even
possible to broadcast with no staff at all. Some stations what's
called "translators"  --  they relay signals that are broadcast from
outside the area. This is usually done with centralized programming,
which can be good or bad. The music can be quality; or trash; the talk
show can be corporate gasbag Rush Limbaugh or populist Jim Hightower.
Whatever it is, it's not what we think of as community radio.

Of course, the syndicated programs cost money. Commercial radio is
supported by its advertisers, public radio by listeners and grants. In
either case, control comes from outside the local community.

It is possible to run a station with very little money. Instead of
paid staff, volunteers broadcast their own programs.

The last few years have seen a big growth in low-power stations.
(Steve Dunifer of Free Radio Berkeley sells, for a low price, the
basic equipment need to start your own station.) In response, the
federal government, urging of the big-time broadcasters, has raided
low-power stations and confiscated their property. In Decatur,
Illinois, Black Liberation Radio has been harassed for several years
by police and state authorities. (Also see related ar-ticles, "Court
Rejects FCC's Constitu-tional Catch 22" and "Another Jack Boot
Dropped," in our November/December 1997 issue.)

Another liberating technology is the Internet, which allows the
A-lnfos Ra-dio Project to link community stations into something like
a broadcasting pot-luck. Instead of depending on a central source,
stations can contribute to and receive programs from their own
net-work. This technology also allows people to create their own
programs from many different sources.

CPB Calls the Tune

The big-time media has become more and more centralized, but must
alternative media do the same? Government regulations seem to be
pushing in that direction. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting
(CPB) has es-tablished new criteria for stations to get funding.
Stations now have to show a minimum number of listeners and financial
support.

Lynne Chadwick, formerly president of the National Federation of
Community Broadcasters and now director of operations for Pacifica
Radio, served on the task force that gave birth to these cri-teria.
She was quoted by the New York Times as saying, "The intent of this
redesign was not to kick stations out but to help them fo-cus on
getting listeners and listener support... It has helped some stations
move in a direction they needed to." One station, KZUM in Lincoln,
Nebraska, is reported to be planning a lawsuit.

Since the CPB standards do not at this time apply to
minority-controlled sta-tions, one can also envision lawsuits similar
to those against affirmative action guidelines. KZUM is not raising
this issue, but would another community station try it, especially if
its survival were at stake?

Chadwick spoke of stations moving  "in a direction they needed to, but
which direction is that? According to critics of Pacifica Radio, that
network is becoming a slightly more leftist ver-sion of National
Public Radio. They say Pacifica, like many people of the old
counterculture, is leaving behind a grassroots past and becoming more
middle-class, more "professional." Pacifica, of course, denies this
charac-terization.

Perhaps it would help to move out of the "left" corral. In my opinion
a lot ordinary Americans aren't particularly left or right, but they
are strongly concerned with issues of justice and the economy, damned
angry in fact. Michael Moore on the left and the more conservative
Kevin Phillips both have spoken in the same vein.

Is Pacifica speaking to these? Is community radio? At a conference
last October on the Politics of Public Radio, Lynne Chadwick said,
"the Gulf War was very, very good for community radio." For a while,
people across the political spectrum were upset at the turn of events
and searching for information. But then the war was quickly over, and
official triumphalism drowned out the dissent.

That was almost seven years ago. Issues that anger people today will
go not go away so quickly; and neither did Saddam Hussein, for that
matter.

Pacifica Chair Meets the People

Mary Frances Berry, professor and civil rights activist and now chair
of the Pacifica National Board, has been visiting the five Pacifica
stations. At Berkeley, she spoke to a meeting of about sixty people.
According Bill Mandrel, longtime radical activist, scholar and former
KPFA programmer, Berry made a good impression. A similar comment was
voiced by Lyn Gerry after Berry's visit Los Angeles.

Mary Frances Berry has a reputation to uphold. At the last National
Board meeting in Washington she said, "I would like believe that over
the years that I've been in public life my reputation . . is well
established. And that I do have a reputation for integrity, for
standing on principle, but for be practical and for trying to get
along with people and trying to work with what I have that's available
to me.

"I also do not, though, intend for this organization to destroy my
reputation If it ever appears to me that being associated with this
organization is about to destroy my reputation for credibility,
honesty, for responsibility and integrity, then I will resign. I'm
telling you that right now."

At the California meetings she listened to people who arc unhappy with
the network. Critics of Pacifica are hopeful, but as Mandrel remarked,
for Berry make changes she will need a majority of the board behind
her.

The next National Board meeting is scheduled for February in Los
Angeles. Perhaps then we may get a clearer idea of the direction in
which the new chair will take Pacifica.

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Bruce Girard Boa         Agencia Informativa Pulsar
bgirard@pulsar.org.ec    http://comunica.org/pulsar
Fono/Fax: +593-2-501180 Fax en Canada: +1-514-221-2009
Av. Atahualpa 333, Casilla 17-08-8489, Quito, Ecuador