Prometheus Interview

It’s worth mentioning that there’s a really good interview with Pete TriDish from the Prometheus Radio Project over at Columbia Journalism Review on-line.

Although, as he mentions in the interview, Pete caught a lot of crap from the pirate radio community for working on licensed low-power FM, the work he’s done is amazing, and I think he’s been able to do it without selling out unlicensed radio. Obviously, in his position he can’t be out there putting pirate stations on the air, yet much of the work Prometheus has done has been to benefit of all citizens (like the lawsuit against the FCC’s new media ownership regs).

Importantly, it should be noticed that Pete hasn’t gone about trashing the pirates, or publicly declaring that the unlicensed broadcasters have hurt the licensed low-power FM movement. Frankly, the neutereing of LPFM by Congress in 2000 gave the unlicensed free radio movement a big ol’ shot in the arm, and demonstrated that neither the radio industry nor our “elected” officials are much interested in seeing new community voices in the cities where they’re needed.

It is a war to win back our media and, especially, our airwaves, and there are many fronts. Some can and will fight it legislatively and with the FCC, others will be more underground. What matters is results.

Pete was also interviewed by Bob McChesney on his local radio show, Media Matters, on public station WILL-AM. You can listen to it in Real Audio by clicking here.