Town Meeting convenes tonight in Amherst to consider a resolution utterly consistent with its democratic ethos and commitment to civic
vitality: the assurance of a WFCR Advisory Committee that will genuinely live up to the station's Mission Statement pledge to serve
as a "community outlet" providing "outreach to the community" and drawing on the "talents and resources of the community."
It's a call for Town Meeting's moral witness. But embedded in the resolution are complex and volatile issues, both urgently and wonderfully in need of ongoing conversation. What, exactly, is "democracy" for a public radio station? Who is "the community"? What
kind of diversity? How can local programming meet high standards of
broadcasting and increase the audience? And just how committed are the station and its stakeholders to engage these questions thoughtfully, patiently and undefensively?
WFCR's management and staff (www.wfcr.org) have bravely sustained the station in the face of economic, political and cultural pressures. We're in their debt. They work hard, get paid little, do
their jobs in inadequate facilities. They've built a strong base of
support from hundreds of contributors, underwriters, sponsors, and volunteers - from "the community." The station seeks to provide community representation through two "advisory" organizations: the WFCR Foundation and the WFCR Advisory Committee.
Sponsors of the Town Meeting resolution, The WFCR Democracy Task Force, (http://justiceandpeace.net/WFCRdemocracy/) - sparked initially by the recent cancellation of locally produced programs, most notably "Tertulia" a voice of Latin American culture, and "Valley Folk" - began to study the station's community advisory mechanisms and found them seriously inadequate.
For example, the Task Force reports the station's general manager as
saying that "WFCR has voluntarily created the equivalent of a Community Advisory Board (CAB)." As specified by Corporation for Public Broadcasting standards, a CAB meets regularly, has meetings open to the public, makes its minutes public, and is intended to provide the public the opportunity to be heard on programming, community service, and the impact of major policy decisions.
But, reports the Task Force, the WFCR Foundation, overwhelmingly a fund-raising vehicle, "is self-appointed, has no open meetings, does
not make its minutes available, and does not solicit input from its
listening public." And the WFCR Advisory Committee - presently composed of representatives of the five colleges and two management-selected community members - "is not equipped," according
to the station's general manager, "to conduct any special research about the community's preferences for programming & and relies on the progressional management of the station."
These details go to our station's constitutional foundations and will doubtless be contested. I don't know; I'll listen, but it looks
lousy. However, the issue of community representation and reflection
doesn't exist in a vacuum. There's context. The real question isn't
who's on the board but what's on the air. The proof is in the programming. Right before our ears. 24/7.
There are many wonderful moments on WFCR: Mozart and Miles, Click and Clack, Terry Gross and the equally inquiring Guy Noir. But -- ponder this; it's confirmed in the station's posted schedule - other
than the introductions of (brilliantly selected) music by local hosts and insightful reports by local reporters woven into NPR news
shows, virtually all conversation, commentary, comedy, criticism - virtually all the spoken words on the station - come from programs purchased from national syndicates and produced in all kinds of places & but here.
Our own authors and activists, educators and students, nurses and patients, civic leaders and citizens, historians and futurists, grannies and prodigies, 12-tone composers and 12-step counselors, shrinks and shrunked, foundlings and fugitives, geniuses and boneheads & our own neighbors and our own selves, in one of the singlemost creative, conscientious concentrations of citizens in the
nation: all these and still more, on our own community radio station, are basically nowhere to be heard. And there is absolutely
no reason why well-produced programs, integrating these voices into
a seamless, continuous broadcast schedule, will not refresh old listeners, attract new ones, and, by their authenticity and "us-ness," generate fresh financial support.
What's going on? In a long feature article on WFCR (Feb. 5, 2007), BusinessWest Online reports, "'The simple answer is that we don't look at ourselves as a radio station anymore,' said [station manager, Martin] Miller, listing the many components of WFCR programming: WFCR HD2, a digitally-based programming stream; WPNI 1430, an AM companion station; podcasts available through the WFCR Web site & 'We're not in the radio business anymore.'"
OK. Good to know. Now what?
WUVT, the college station at Virginia Tech, was the first source of
reports on the shootings there and went on to gather information and
witness it, from the scene and from the heart. Two days later, a DJ
asked the audience to "call up and tell me what music helps you heal." When station manager and senior Michelle Billman was asked how she was doing, she replied, hesitantly, "I'm OK. I grew up outside of Washington, D.C. First it was 9/11, then the sniper, now
this." Then she choked up, "Everything seems to be getting closer and closer. But that's why we have to be here on the air. We just have to claim what's ours."
Everything at WFCR seems to be getting further and further away. So
how do we intend to claim what's ours?
Paul Gorman, an Amherst resident, is director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment and was a producer at Pacifica Radio's WBAI-FM in New York City from 1969-2000.