WORT News - Nathan's weekly dig

WORT 89.9 FM Community Radio is looking for a person to host A Public Affair every first and third Thursday of the month. The volunteer position requires one hour of on-air time every first and third Thursday from 12 to 1 PM, as well as 4+ hours of off-air prep time per show setting up guests, gaining background knowledge, and honing interview skills, etc.

"A Public Affair" aims to engage listeners in a conversation on issues of international, national, & local importance with some novelty shows thrown in. The guests range from local activists and scholars to notable national & international figures. The hosts alternate throughout the week as do the focuses and topics. "A Public Affair" is a call-in show that airs Monday through Friday from 12:05 to 1 PM.

To ensure consideration, applications must be received by Friday, April 14, 2006 no later than 5 PM. If you are interested please pick up an application and volunteer job description from the station (118 S. Bedford St.). Alternately, email Nathan Moore for a PDF version of the application.

Please contact Nathan with any other questions you may have. Applicants are advised to familiarize themselves with "A Public Affair" by listening on different days to hear rotating hosts.

In community,

Nathan Moore
News and Public Affairs Facilitator
WORT 89.9 FM

As per the headline, WORT will be hosting the Grassroots Radio Conference here in Madison on the weekend of July 28-30, 2006.

The GRC is an *excellent* conference, and I'm very excited that so many Madison radiophiles will have the chance to attend this year! In addition to skills workshops and discussion of media issues, it's also a great chance to talk with people from other stations around the country kinda like WORT. Lots of workshops and discussion for both music and news programmers, plus the fundraisers and outreach folks.

Info about registration, workshops, etc. will be posted to the web in April and May. Check the WORT website and the Grassroots Radio site in the coming weeks and months. Also, we'll be looking for housing volunteers to put up conference attendees for a couple nights.

We'll also be looking for local folks to volunteer with various conference-related tasks. You'll get a discount registration to the conference for your help. More info later.

Many more details to follow.

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The Grassroots Radio Coalition was born in 1996, as a reaction against increasing commercialization of public radio and lack of support for volunteer-based stations. A loose coalition of community media activists, the GRC has a listserv and holds a conference every year, but has no dues, no hierarchy and no bylaws, only a mission statement:

"More than audio outlets, volunteer-based community radio stations are cultural institutions in their communities, reflecting the unique concerns and passions of the people who live there. With a system of governance based on openness and collaboration, and diverse programming produced by volunteers and funded by listeners, these stations are cornerstones of participatory democracy, offering ordinary citizens the chance to exercise First Amendment rights in a mass medium and audiences the opportunity to directly support the programming that is of importance to them."

You can also check out the Grassroots Radio Coalition wikipedia entry.

Alright, if you live in Madison, you surely remember the name Audrey Seiler. The UW student who kidnapped herself and drew national attention to the swampy fields south of Madison. Broom Street Theater ran a parody of her called "Audrey Seiler, Where Are You?"

Of course, if you ever tune in to any cable news station, you know that Audrey is far from the only pretty, young, white woman who has attracted a media blitz. Seems like every few weeks, there's another one. Hell, Nancy Grace has made an entire career out of it. It was enough to elicit a terrific parody, originally posted at thepoorman.net. The parody was widely redistrubted, and you can read a transcript at On the Media's website. Here's a snippet:

"In a surprise move expected to send shock waves through the world of TV journalism, CNN, the original cable news network, and NBC, which owns cable channels MSNBC and CNBC, announced a deal to consolidate their news divisions into a single giant network. The new network, to be called Where the White Women At or WWWA, is set to debut this week.

"The new network will include WWWA Headline News which will deliver key missing white women developments every half hour. Most of the network's time will be devoted to covering current missing white women, but there will also be talk shows where groups of white men get together to discuss the significance of past missing white women, imperiled white women and white women in persistent vegetative states."

Of course, first comes parody, then the insiders start to recognize the problem. Today, CNN's Anderson Cooper noted the trend on his blog.

"I've never, not even once, seen a story spiked because the victim was not attractive enough or the wrong race. But I've seen plenty of stories fall by the wayside, pushed down and out of the show, because a consensus develops that says, 'You know, I don't think our viewers are very interested in this case.'

"Is that racism or realism? We can't cover every murder, but ignoring them all or reporting just statistics seems irresponsible. So how should we decide whose life or loss is covered?"

So first of all, racism and realism are not mutually exclusive. "Just being realistic" has been used as an excuse for racism many times in the past. No exception now.

Second, I think it's wrong - and perhaps a form of passive racism - for newsroom producers to put responsibility for this sort of coverage on their viewers, saying that viewers aren't interested in a particular case. All of us who have made decisions in a newsroom have to trust our own news sense and intuition as to what makes a good story, but we must always be critical and self-reflexive to avoid the pitfalls of just the type of journalism that Anderson refers to.

Third, and most important, why the hell do we need so much ridiculous, sensational coverage of crime in the first place? People do bad things. Some particularly bad people sometimes kill other people. It's awful. And it has been going on for millenia. I fail to see how it's news each time, much less the national media blitz that seems to always accompany these stories.

Just imagine, if we didn't have so much sensationalist coverage of kidnappings and murders of people (mostly white women), how many in-depth, investigative, critical stories could be aired instead? If we set journalists to actually doing meaningful journalism, imagine how much more vibrant a democracy we could have... how much more aware Americans would be of the scoundrels in office, how much more aware about people and places around the world... would we have ended up with the neo-fascist regime we're living with now...

Anderson writes off mainstream newsroom decisions as a "consensus that develops," but that is utter bullshit. Sensational pap sells ads, and newsroom decision-makers are so attuned to this system that they internalize it as a "consensus." Real people - with names, families, lives, and histories - are the ones making the decisions. We cannot allow the responsibility for those decisions to be collectivized such that no one is responsible. News producers that consistently decide to run such "journalism" are all responsible. And they are all in part responsible for the waning democracy in the United States today.

WORT may not air every story that's out there. In fact, I'm sure we miss some pretty important stories from time to time. But there are threads that consistently run through all of our newsroom decisions.

We try to air stories and programs that can actually affect our listeners. Budgets, legislation, activism, community organizing, policy, labor negotiations, war & peace, environment, race, poverty, homophobia, access to health care, freedoms and rights, development, corruption.

Many of our interviews end with the question, "What can people do to find out more?" That's because we try to air stories and programs that our listeners can get involved with. Events, conferences, activist groups.

We air stories in greater depth than almost any other broadcast medium. In Our Backyard, with some of the shortest stories on our airwaves, averages 3-5 minutes per story. That allows us to provide more detail, more discussion, more analysis, and more understanding.

We air stories with critical angles, angles that aren't covered in typically "straight" broadcast news accounts. Angles that are informed by critical theory and critical thinking. Angles that have a vision for a better society and world.

That's what WORT does. And we hope to help make our corner of the world more democratic because of it.

I just love Lyse Doucette and Judy Swallow, to say nothing of Robin Lustig and Julian Marshall. That gang of Newshour folks puts together a bangup newscast every weekday, which WORT broadcasts at 5:00pm, Monday-Thursday.

I'm happy to announce that if you're one of those technophiles, with your fancy handhelds, MP3 players, and sundry other "mobile devices," you can listen to the BBC wherever you go.

I just received the following message from the BBC Station Relations Coordinator, Kyle Lerfald:

"A quick note to let you know that The World Today will start podcasting a 15 minute selection beginning next week. You and your listeners will find the podcasts at the BBC World Services website."

That web address looks to be: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/downloadtrial/

Enjoy!

# posted by WORTNews @ 1:43 PM 0 comments

Friday 8 O'Clock Buzz, 8 to 9 am, March 17

Jonathan Zarov runs an interview with George Clinton, the Godfather of Funk. Hear Clinton opine on the birth of funk, who is and is not funky (John Ashcroft is not entirely unfunky, but Barry Manilow is), getting naked on stage, and what to expect at the upcoming show at the Barrymore Theatre.

So WORT finished up its Winter 2006 fundraiser on Saturday at midnight, and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. I know I wrote about the benefits of grassroots fundraising (scroll down a bit to read it...), but honestly, pledge drives are kind of a pain in the neck.

Speaking of pains in the neck, I had to visit the doctor yesterday to have a little cyst removed. This perhaps veers into the category of Too Much Information, but I only share it with you to highlight my continuing love of WORT. As one of the very few paid staff members, I get full health benefits. No copay on office visits. No deductible. No monthly payment. It's really quite wonderful, and it reflects WORT's desire to live out its socially and economically responsible principles. We have our health care covered, as it should be for everyone. I have to visit several doctors this week (optometrist, dentist, ear-nose-throatist), and it's wonderful to know that it's paid for. It's a small window of what could be in this country if we were able to mobilize a movement toward a more socially minded health care system. Health care for all! Just imagine. It's like communism or something...

Speaking of communism, Saturday jazz host John Kraniak dredged up this old book of "Vintage Cocktails and Forgotten Recipes" a couple weeks ago. Included in the list was a libation called "The Communist." Kraniak photocopied the recipe page for us. And at our post-pledge drive soiree on Sunday at the station, he set up a little wet bar in the basement to shake these drinks up. They were enjoyed by all, though perhaps a little tart. In case you're curious, the recipe calls for a jigger of gin, a jigger of lime juice, an ounce of cherry brandy, and a half-ounce of orange juice. If memory serves...

So now with the drive over, I've taken a couple days off to recharge the ol' batteries. Then back to the station, and I'm already getting pretty excited about some projects I am or will be working on. Like our website - that circa-1996 looking piece of HTML you clicked from to get to this blog. Yeah, it needs updating. Look for a new, redesigned site sometime in the summer, that will eventually include 30-day archives of all of our news and public affairs programs, available for your download or stream.

I'm also excited about the Grassroots Radio Conference. WORT will be hosting the 11th conference in Madison this July 28-30. The conference is a yearly gathering of the "member" stations of the Grassroots Radio Coalition - a loose coalition of likeminded community radio stations and producers, born in 1996, as a reaction against increasing commercialization of public radio and lack of support for volunteer-based stations. It encompasses all sorts of stations, from WORT and the Pacifica stations to various LPFMers to a guy webstreaming out of his basement. Look for more in this space as we get closer to it.

I'm also psyched to just work on the news department. Getting new volunteers trained up and skilled in in-depth reporting. Helping to meet the needs of our veteran volunteers. Finding new folks (like you?) who want to make great community radio news reporting happen.

To close things out, a final plug... WORT's new Board Secretary Jane Richard has set up a blog to post the WORT Board minutes, committee reports, and staff reports. You can visit that blog at http://wortboard.blogspot.com/

That's all for now (as if it wasn't enough...)

~N