Chi Journalism Town Hall Reveals Creative Tension b/w Old and New Media

This week’s radioshow is now online, with audio from a national conference call on low-power community radio along with excerpts of last week’s Chicago Journalism Town Hall.

I meant to comment on the Town Hall earlier, but then all of a sudden already a week passed. First, I want to say that I was glad to be able to attend, and thanks go to organizer Ken Davis who was nice enough to squeeze me in after it looked like their RSVP list was full.

It’s tough to organize such an event and try to be balanced and fair with regard to representation. To begin with, the task of discussing local journalism in Chicago while the two major daily papers are on the ropes is not so simple. If you’re looking to get out of the echo chamber you want to be sure to include voices critical of the mainstream journalism status quo, but at the same time you risk alienating a lot of receptive participants if you don’t also include folks from inside that mainstream. Of course, since many observers pin responsibility for the newspaper’s decline on the internet, you need to have some new media newsies there, too.

Faced with that challenge I think the organizers did a fine job, including both current newspaper reporters and columnists along with bloggers and critical voices. Somebody with an axe to grind can certainly complain about a particular person or institution not being included. But I’d challenge anyone to come up with better representation across the local journalism spectrum in Chicago… nevermind actualy getting them to show up.

Lasting some three hours, it would be difficult for me to effectively summarize the Town Hall in a readable way. Instead I’ll reflect on what stands out to me most one week later.

Without a doubt the friction between new media and old media was present and palpable throughout the event. I wouldn’t say that it ever got hostile, but a level of mutual suspicion could be sensed. The beef of the mainstream, primarily print, journalists echoed a frequent complaint which was summed in one word by Chicago news veteran John Callaway: “theft.” That was his answer to a question of how newspapers might achieve a level of success, audience and revenue online similar to that achieved by the Huffington Post.

At many times the contention that news websites and blogs still rely heavily on the work of the traditional press was brought up. Sometimes it was during a discussion of the negative effects of major newspapers going out of business, noting that such an occurrence would leave bloggers without something to comment on (and, presumably, steal). Other times it was expressed with more bitterness, accusing web-only enterprises of failing to produce much original content, therefore not showing promise as the new guard.

The feelings weren’t much warmer from the other side, as those running web-only news sites, like ChiTown Daily’s Geoff Dougherty cited how profiteering by big newspaper owners began squeezing the papers to death before online was serious competition. Dougherty also forced the issue of original content, given that ChiTown Daily pays both experienced professional journalists and new citizen journalists to do original reporting for the site.

Another strong current was the issue of making money online, with traditional journalists questioning if online ads, in particular, would ever be sufficient to sustain a fully online newspaper. That question met with two different answers. Some panelists, like Community Media Workshop’s Thom Clark and In These Times’ Salim Muwakkil, pointed out that making a profit at reporting news isn’t guaranteed by the first amendment and has contributed significantly to the current crisis. Other commenters from the audience argued that there’s plenty of money to be made with online ads. Sachin Agarwal, CEO of Dawdle.com, was there as an advertiser who buys ads on many Chicago-based websites. Brad Flora of the social news site Windy Citizen invited Agarwal and also spoke up in defense of the vitality of online advertising.

In the end my conclusion is that the tension isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, if there’s a silver lining to the cloud of the current crisis it’s that it is forcing people to have the conversation not just about what the future of local journalism will be, but why it’s important in the first place, and what it should look like. Without rejecting the model of the daily commercial newspaper, at this moment it’s important to reflect critically on what features we wish to retain and what, perhaps, we can do without.

I forget who made the remark, but this line of thinking causes us to question why we have to stories about local government bundled with sudoku puzzles. Just because that’s the way the daily newspaper ended up doesn’t mean that’s the way it has to be.

Of course there are bigger questions at stake, regarding the place of objectivity and so-called advocacy journalism; about who gets to be a reporter, and whether future reporters will be able to make a living wage doing journalism. And of course, we still have the issue of who determines what gets reported and how.

I can’t say that I’m ready to dance on the graves of the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times. For all of my criticism for how their owners have done business, and for the gaps present in their coverage of social and economic issues, they nevertheless contribute a great deal of valuable original reportage that would be immediately missed if they went out of business. Yet, these two papers cannot and should not be the only game in town. One of the major underlying problems is the extent to which we all are over reliant upon too few sources of news. And, yes, we probably would not be here if consolidation across media, encouraged by regulation and legislation, had not occurred on such a grand scale in the last quarter century.

The revolution in online news gathering really got off the ground almost ten years ago with the first Indymedia center covering the Battle in Seattle. The notion of uncensored user-contributed news, including photos, sound and video, was radical, forward-thinking and utterly pragmatic. So much so, that a decade on we take it for granted. I’d guess that most folks working online news sites and blogs are largely unaware of this lineage.

The same struggles that catalyzed independent and community media will continue to spur change in online journalism. Money is always an issue, but profit doesn’t have to be.

I left the Town Hall feeling unexpectedly stimulated and hopeful. Despite the overemphasis on making a profit online and the tensions between old media and new, I was heartened that such an open and frank discussion was happening in the first place. I doubt that the same broad mix of folks could have been brought together in the same way five or ten years ago. It’s a sign of both how severe the economic environment is, how much owners like Tribune have run their papers into the ground, and also how traditional journalism can ignore or minimize online efforts only at its own peril.

On Thursday’s Radioshow: New LPFM Bill & Journalism Town Hall

Another new Congress, another new low-power FM bill. In what’s become a tradition since Congress voted to stunt the growth of low-power radio back in 2000, a new Local Community Radio Act has been introduced. But this time around the bill arguably has the best chance of passing yet. We’ll hear from some of the bill’s sponsors and proponents.

Then we’ll hear some excerpts from the Chicago Journalism Town Hall that brought together a diverse panel and audience to discuss the future of local journalism.

The mediageek radioshow airs live Thursday night at 9 PM CST on WNUR 89.3 FM in Chicago, IL, and streaimng live online at wnur.org. The podcast will be posted this weekend.

Limited Area Broadcasting

I’ve just spent a little chunk of time plowing through the archives of the Low Power Radio blog, which I found through my referrer logs. It promises insight on “how to set up and operate your own low power radio station.” By low power, the blogger Kev means:

Micro radio, micro power broadcasting, part 15 radio, community radio, neighborhood station, experimental broadcasting, hobby broadcasting – I love it all!

It’s primarily a pretty good compendium of annotated links that’s been going with a few posts a month since February. Indeed, I found info about many more part-15 low-power transmitters for both AM and FM than I knew were available. There’s been a community of so-called “legal” low-power broadcasters in the US for a very long time. Many enthusiasts and broadcasters have been congregating for years at a message board called “Community Radio USA”. One of the denizens of that board has his own site called HobbyBroadcasting.net HobbyBroadcaster.net, which I found while reading through the Low Power Radio Blog.

While here at the ‘geek the focus is often on unlicensed broadcasters operating with power above the part-15 limit (roughly 100 milliwatts or so), there’s much utility to be found with part-15 stations, especially in dense urban areas or similar circumstances. Since FM part-15 limits are based on field-strength it’s relatively difficult to build a station with much reach that remains truly legal — even if you pump only 10 milliwatts into a very efficient antenna several hundred feet off the ground you’ll likely be reaching further than part-15 regs allow.

However, AM limits are specified in antenna length and power (100 milliwatts), allowing much more room for creative engineering and getting more broadcast range without breaking the law. Kyle Drake’s excellent LPAM handbook is a great reference for anyone wanting to try out legal part-15 broadcasting on the AM dial.

Much of the info that the Low Power Radio blog has dug up is more historical in nature, culled from both internet and print sources, like this 1991 handbook for starting a station. While the references to equipment manufacturers and sellers may be outdated, there’s still some decent tech and historical info to glean. I’m glad that someone is compiling and sharing this stuff and I hope that the blog sticks around a while.

Sirius/XM Merger an Opportunity for Openness & Access? LPFM for Satellite?

Matthew Lasar continues his excellent reporting for Ars Technica with an article on a recent letter from House Energy and Commerce Chair John Dingell (D-MI) and Internet subcommittee Chair Edward J. Markey (D-MA) to the FCC urging an open platform for satellite radio if the Commission approves the Sirius/XM deal. What they’re calling for is the ability for any manufacturer to make Sirius/XM compatible satellite radios, without the ability for the merged company to prevent things like iPod docks or HD Radio capability.

Lasar also notes the gathering steam in support for setting aside some of the merged company’s channel capacity for noncommercial programming, similar to what has been required for direct-broadcast satellite TV. Apparently even Clear Channel wants 5% of capacity set aside for “public interest” programming, whatever Cheap Channel means by that.

I oppose the merger on the principled basis of the fact that such a merger was specifically prohibited as a provision of the original authorization of the service. Nevertheless, I recognize that principle rarely rules the day in DC. Therefore I very much support setting aside channel capacity for non-commercial broadcasters as a necessary condition if the FCC chooses to approve the merger.

Obtaining a non-commercial channel on Dish Network was vitally important for Free Speech TV and has allowed that organization to distribute its radically critical grassroots programming in a way that it simply could not before, feeding public access TV stations around the country.

Although internet distribution is still more practical for radio programming than for TV programming, having several nation-wide progressive and grassroots radio channels nonetheless would be a great opportunity, and could be of great service to community radio stations.

A channel I’d love to see is one built on an Indymedia type of model, mixed with Current TV. It would be fed by programming from independent producers and community stations, like the programs you find at the A-Info Radio Project and Radio Indymedia. But, like Current, it should be edited and curated. That is, I’d like to see things selected and knit together into a coherent program flow. Maybe a whole show would be carried, or just a particularly good segment. And then combine these shows and segments with regular hosts and other original content related to particular themes and topics.

In a way, this idea is a lot like what a lot of people over the years have hoped would come of NPR or Pacifica, that they would function truly more like networks connecting up stations than as program syndicators. But I do understand how the overhead of the kind of operations they need to run make playing that networking role more difficult.

That’s the beauty of having new channels on satellite radio — the overhead is comparatively low because you don’t have to worry about physical broadcast stations, licenses or signing up affiliates. Like an internet station, but with a different kind of reach, the low overhead allows more opportunity for experimentation.

Of course the kind of channel I’m envisioning is not necessarily well suited to distributing programming in the same way that Free Speech distributes Democracy Now to stations. That’s why we need to have multiple channels set aside, so there is room for multiple models. Compared even to satellite TV channels, satellite radio channel capacity is cheap. I don’t see any reason why the FCC can’t or shouldn’t make this a condition of approving the merger. It could be like creating LPFM for the nation.

May 2 Radioshow Notes & Links

Links and notes related to the May 2 mediageek radioshow:

• FCC Proceeding on localism: http://www.fcc.gov/localism
• Public Knowledge’s Orphan Works Act page: http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/ow
• Matthew Lasar’s Ars Technica article: NPR’s war on Low Power FM: the laws of physics vs. politics

You can read the full test of the show’s news headlines after the jump.
Read more »

NPR Still Ludicriously Fighting LPFM

It’s been eight years since the FCC voted to establish LPFM, and in that time NPR has only seen its fortunes rise, with listenership and income rising in sharp contrast to the fortunes of the Clear-Channeled commercial radio industry. Yet, as Matthew Lasar reports in Ars Technica, the nation’s largest public radio network continues to trot out the beaten dead horse of interference in arguing that the Commission should not take steps to protect LPFM stations. NPR’s especially against the proposal that full-power stations that want to relocate transmitters should assist LPFM stations in making sure the low-power signals are not degraded in the change.

I covered this on Friday’s radioshow, too, and the more I think about it, the more disappointed I am in NPR. Despite many of the criticisms of NPR’s establishment-oriented news coverage and upper-middle-class demographic focus, there’s much to like about NPR and its programming. I am a daily listener because NPR’s news programming is better than anything on the commercial radio dial, and better than commercial TV news. That said, I don’t get all my news from NPR, and think it’s also vitally important to have community radio and great international programs like Democracy Now and Free Speech Radio News, both of which merit wider distribution and better funding.

Back in 2001 when I had a little Q&A with then NPR president Kevin Klose he maintained that the network was hewing to the interference concerns of the Western NPR affiliates, using translator stations to reach mountainous and isolated regions. He tried to express sympathy for the goals of LPFM, while also criticizing the FCC for how he believed it rushed LPFM through.

But we all learned the interference concerns were unfounded when the Congressionally mandated Mitre report was released. So why does NPR insist on opposing LPFM still?

The only answer that makes sense is that the network is behaving in a very Clear Channel/NAB way, opposing any competition, regardless of the potential competitor’s merits. This is nothing new, NPR joined up with the CPB back in the 70s to kill low-power Class D radio the first time around (see my chapter in the Radio Reader). NPR’s competition anxiety is a little different than Clear Channel’s in that now, as in the 1970s, it has a lot to do with CPB grants, which are still the lifesblood of most NPR affiliate stations. These grants have been shrinking, and increasingly are based on listener ratings. Especially in medium size markets, LPFMs can pose a real threat of listener erosion.

The bigger fear, I reckon, is that beyond just posing competition, NPR fears that some stations might actually have to give way to or assist LPFMs if they want to move tower locations or increase power.

Nevertheless, I remain unconvinced of NPR’s apparent fears and critical of their opposition to LPFM. I believe that public radio as a whole has more to gain from having additional noncommercial, community stations on the dial than it has to lose. In any event, NPR’s continued opposition of LPFM is short-sighted and unnecesary.

I am definitely considering halting my contributions to NPR-affiliated stations in protest of NPR’s stupid LPFM stance. I wish there were a way to make pledges to stations to continue support local programming without any of that money going to the network (maybe there is?). What do you think?