The Importance of Localism
LPFM Comes to the Rogue Valley
Suzia Aufderheide
“Promoting localism means ensuring that local communities can rely upon
their local television and radio stations to deliver local news, which includes,
among other things, local political coverage, local weather, and local community
affairs. Comments from the National Association of Broadcasters, Clear Channel,
Intercom and others focus on their stations’ commitment to delivering
these valuable local services to their audiences...” (from Comments
to the FCC from American Federation of Musicians, American Federation of Television
and Radio Artists, Future of Music Coalition, The Recording Academy, Recording
Artists Coalition.)
“However, promoting localism also requires that broadcast stations reflect
and create opportunities for local artists and create avenues for other forms
of local self-expression.”
Low Power FM radio can provide this and more to t he Rogue Valley. This opportunity
is available now to grow a radio station that allows myriad of local voices
to blossom. We have an incredible wealth of musicians and other vocal artists
that can fill the airwaves with new and experimental ideas. Ideas that otherwise
fall from the mind and die. This is our opportunity to build regular local
news and opinion shows to keep the valley abreast of what is going on. What
is cool and what is uncool. Where the needs are and where the assets are.
And, finally how the two can meet. We can communicate with one another.
On January 22, Media Eye, local media watchdog group, convened more than fifty
Rogue Valley citizens at the Ashland Public Library to vision what 94.9 fm
KSKQ-LP could look and sound like. Checking in, people identified themselves
as engineers and techies, folks into alternative energy and people with passion
for programming and a democratic structure that includes everyone. To set
a tone of compassionate ethics for KSKQ-LP and to project the potential for
well-rounded balanced insights for the new Rogue Valley radio, Brad Knickerbocker,
seasoned journalist of the Christian Science Monitor, spoke about “Ethics
in Media”. So that reporting springs from a basic respect for the rights
of man towards self-government, reason and conscience putting good information
out so people can make wise decisions concerning our communities large and
small..
Media Eye member, Terry Hill, led participant brainstorming structure of organization,
technical:needs, programming, fund raising, advocacy, alternative energy and
conundrums We found that we have enough political savvy to bring national
and international issues to light with the local connection. The interrelationship
of the microcosm with the macrocosm, as it were. It has been said, way too
often, that an educated populous is what makes a Democracy work. Does anyone
else out there feel just a little bit dumbed down by the information over-glut
and, like too much fast food, with no nutritional or true value at all? We
can remedy this sorrowful situation. This poor excuse for the fourth estate
of Democracy...this media that hurts more than it heals. We will have to work
hard and with a passion that can see through all kinds of obstacles. But a
puzzle so worth doing that we would be foolish not to give it our best.
In December 2004, Winter Solstice, after waiting nearly four years, the Rogue
Valley has an opportunity to build its own low power fm 100 watt radio station,
KSKQ-LP. The very fact that citizens waited four years from the time when
the original application was submitted in June 2001, to when the permit to
build was issued by the FCC is a symbol of some of the barriers that we will
face. FCC is a large bureaucracy of the US government with helpful generous
employees supporting a system bulky with paperwork confusing information and
a language that most of us do not speak. It is charged with managing the airwaves
a very precious piece of the public space that we all own together in this
Democracy.
KSKQ-LP, now a sanctioned licensee of the FCC, is in a position to communicate
what it sees as appropriate use of the airwaves. Perhaps it would be helpful
to get the $70 billion dollars that the airwaves are worth and make these
valuable assets the funding engine for healthcare and education. We have a
crumb of this value at our fingertips now.
What does this mean? It means that citizens will have to roll up their sleeves
and develop a structure for governing the radio station itself so that the
airwaves are protected from being auctioned to the highest bidder which is
almost all that we know at this point in time. We need to figure out how to
make the widow’s mite equal to corporate big bucks.
License holder, Multicultural Association of Southern Oregon agrees with Nelson
Mandela that: “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate,
they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart
than its opposite.” Don Senter, president of the Multicultural board
says: “It’s important to promote cultural diversity. ..We want
to be proactive and head off stereotypes.” The three original license
applicant groups represent the spiritual, the cultural and the political.
The interconnection between them is germane to a healthy community and must
include the environment which holds all three in the cauldron of its majesty.
Stipulations of the license that must be met are based in local programming
(we are the remedy for Clear Com and etc.). If we decide to bring in programming
that is international or national by nature we need to consider how we can
tie these larger issues to our home valley. And then, of course, there is
the technical. We will have to determine what equipment we will need to send
out a clear legal signal. The station will be off the grid and will be powered
by the wind and sun. A lovely, artistic windmill will help power 94.9 fm,
KSKQ-LP, with the antenna mounted on top.
This project is an embryo that needs a large community to design, develop
and build and then deliver ideas and information that allow this valley to
grow whole and healthy.
Citizens have been meeting sporadically all these years to figure out how
to make this acorn of an idea become a great oak of protection and deliverance
to the southern Oregon northern California region. Her full name is 94.9 fm,
KSKQ-LP, (thanks to those who helped with an instant run-off voting experiment
in naming her! - the KSKQ-LP!
I have thought allot about the First Amendment vis a vis pornography, free
speech and why thoughtful educated genteel male landowners would consider
the voice so important. The voice is that mechanism by which we relieve ourselves
of our angst, share ideas, feelings, opinions and find allies and enemies.
Or, those who try our patience and challenge us to learn a new approach. Then,
we discover who we are to each other and how each of our own unique consciousness-piece
fits with the whole rest of the puzzle. How we fit. This project needs us
all to find our place in this home valley media puzzle.
Finally, let us not “continue to blindly walk the way of “ centralized,
homogenized, and uniform programming conceptualized and operated without the
input or participation of individuals who live in the local communities to
be served.” Let us build 94.9 fm KSKQ-LP as our local remedy. Let us
teach and broadcast and pass on information that makes the Rogue Valley an
example of honesty forthrightness and truth to power as well as truth in reporting.
The next meeting time is 1:00 p.m. February 5, 2005 venue to be announced.
All are welcome. For information please call 482-3999