Our public media campaign has a new home at SaveTheNews.org, where you’ll find information about journalism, public media and media consolidation all in one place.
Stay tuned, as the fight for public media continues.
My career in radio broadcasting, though relatively short, has deep roots. I grew up in a family which almost exclusively listened to public radio, valued varied tastes in music, and encouraged artistic, musical, social and political exploration. I spent hours listening to the radio, taking in every bit of world news I could and wondering how radio broadcasting worked. I dreamed someday to be at the controls of a big mixing board, twisting knobs and talking into a microphone for the whole world to hear. Little did I know then that when I got a bit older I’d be working as program director at my college radio station and studying the impact community media and Low Power FM radio each have on their communities.
The curiosity I learned as a child, coupled with my interests in music and radio, have resulted in a love for the work I do every day. Like all college students, I have the whole world ahead of me and I’m empowered to do anything I want. Unlike most college students though, I’ve found exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life: I want to empower other people by working to give them access to a media world which has traditionally had very high barriers to entry. I want to expand community-based Low Power FM radio and community media in all its forms in order to give voice to the voiceless and instill the same exploratory sentiment in all people. I want all people to have equal access to and equal representation in our media.
We live in a world which, because of the Internet, becomes more and more globally-focused with each passing day. As beneficial and important as this global network is, however, we seem to have collectively lost focus on our local communities. The news and information we get on a daily basis is almost exclusively provided by national and global reporting outfits which do little to serve the local public interest. We get fluff news billed as real news and produced far away from our communities. And we rarely encounter quality locally-based journalism.
Our nation is suffering from an epidemic of too few creators of media content, a failing journalism system, and a newly-seeded attack on public media. Why? Because big business dominates the broadcast media world and creates programming almost exclusively for the sake of advertising revenues rather than prioritizing education, diversity, or the promotion of local creativity (or creativity in general). The power that the “Big Six” media companies have in comparison to indie producers could be considered criminal. Luckily, something can be done to significantly alter our media landscape and make localism in media a prerogative: expand Low Power FM radio by passing the Local Community Radio Act of 2009.
Low Power, Big Impacts
Low Power FM (LPFM) stations are non-commercial radio stations owned and operated by non-profit organizations, churches, schools and members of the local communities they exist within. LPFM service was established in 2000 by the Federal Communications Commission largely in response to the need for more local voices on the airwaves. These stations operate at an effective radiated power of 100 watts or less and are thus poised to primarily serve their local communities (because their broadcast range is so small). However, soon after this service was created, Big Media companies raised concern that these small, locally-owned and operated radio stations would interfere with their huge, nationally-reaching radio networks.
So Congress passed legislation at the wiles of industry lobbyists that severely limited the availability of civil rights organizations, labor unions, churches, and every day citizens to have their voices heard on the airwaves. In 2003, a congressionally mandated study concluded that the restrictions levied on LPFM were based on false and speculative reasoning. Legislation that would have overturned this ruling has died out in the last two sessions of Congress, thanks in large part to heavy lobbying from commercial broadcasters.
Congress Can Right This Wrong
But this year is different. The Local Community Radio Act (LCRA) of 2009 (H.R. 1147; S.592) has gotten farther than either of the two previous bills and is now waiting to be approved by the Senate. The passage of this bill will enable community broadcasters in urban areas who have been waiting since 2000 to go on the air. Local communities will have access to important hyperlocal news and information during natural disasters and other times of crisis. Women and minorities will have the opportunity to have better representation in the media than ever before. Independent musicians and record labels will get more airtime and listeners will be able to hear their neighbors, local politicians, church leaders and children on the airwaves. And best of all, we won’t be force-fed the same junk media wherever we go in the United States because the airwaves will be ultimately more diverse than they have ever been before.
We must urge our senators to pass this legislation so that we can return to the localism that has been missing in our media for far too long. Find out more about the Local Community Radio Act and Low Power FM radio by visiting these websites: