>>The Federation encourages listeners to turn off Air America Radio
>>and instead push for democratization of troubled Pacifica stations
>>like WBAI (NYC), KPFA (Berkeley), and KPFK (Los Angeles) and to
>>participate in community-based independent broadcasting.
>
>What does "democratization" mean in this context? Who should run the
>radio stations? The listeners? If so, which listeners? How much
>professionalism should there be? Too much of Pacifica's airtime is
>taken up by people who don't know what they're talking about and
>don't talk very well. Do we need more of that (in the name of
>authenticity and "community") or less?
Direct producers and listeners should run the radio stations. As for professionalism, there are lots of individuals professionally trained in broadcast journalism who do not have full-time jobs doing it. Just looking at Columbus, OH, I can think of three right away: Bob Fitrakis, Evan Davis <evan at iwaynet.net>, and Chris Shumway <cshum1 at mindspring.com>, the last of whom is a former radio and TV broadcaster (for CBS and NBC affiliates, not for the independent media) who now teaches video production at Capital University: Chris's resume is available at <http://chris.shumway.tripod.com/id29.htm>. Only one of them -- Bob Fitrakis -- is well employed as a tenured professor of political science at the Columbus State Community College. Give Evan and Chris good jobs with decent wages and benefits at independent radio stations, and I'm sure they will take them. There is no shortage of talent.
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* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>