Cooper on KPFK

Dennis dperrin13 at mediaone.net
Thu Jan 31 06:31:33 PST 2002



> In sum, glancing at WBAI's heyday shows their success in the marketplace
> had nothing to do with selling out. They were as noncommercial as you
> could imagine; they positively flaunted their noncommercialism. But they
> had variety and charisma. And that's what they are missing now.
>
> It could well be that the best path to broadening the audience and
> convincing more people that left ideas are good ones is not becoming more
> commercial but becoming less -- having more variety and more free form, so
> that people come to hear great shows that aren't about politics whose
> creativity and excitement and uniqueness they then associate with the
> politics. And vice versa. The problem with pacifica stations now is
> their utter sameness -- they are as monotonous in their own way as MOR.
> Creativity, variety and change -- and a programming staff with a large
> helping of the young, the inspired and the short term. Want to attract
> the young? Give them shows. They'll attract themselves.
>
> Michael

Not to crank my own handle, but when Laura Flanders and I co-hosted FAIR's "Undercurrents" on BAI, we did it live, employed music, injected a load of humor into the rather grim business of dissecting the corporate press. I used to get broadsided after shows by a few of the more dour staffers there -- they'd chastise me (but never Laura, who was untouchable) for being too flip, too sarcastic, or as one said to me, "too funny about unfunny things!" But the listeners liked it, and we were told that our show was among the top draws at the station. Indeed, one of the managers offered Laura and I our own show, separate from FAIR's, but since he could scarcely pay us, we passed.

(One week, when Laura was globetrotting, I hosted alone and did a strictly musical show, using songs like NWA's "Express Yourself" as prods to listeners to get involved in media activism. I did a part of that show as Alex Cockburn, whose voice I had pretty much down, and someone poked his head in the studio looking for him.)

"Undercurrents" became "Counterspin" and is now pre-taped and edited for national distribution, which makes sense. But I do miss those live shows when mikes would conk out, a long-distance hook up to a guest would fuzz out and we'd have to improvise to fill the air, and especially those pledge drive shows which could go on for a couple of hours, and Laura and I would write up quips and copy on the fly, try it out untested on a live audience. Fun times.

DP



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