Category: Uncategorized

Today the Baltimore Sun reports that the Washington bureau chief for Maryland-based Sinclair Broadcast Group’s news division has come out to denounce his employer for forcing all of its owned and operated stations to air an anti-Kerry program: “It’s biased political propaganda, with clear intentions to sway this election,” said Jon Leiberman, Sinclair’s lead political…

Wired News reports on a group of “progressive media activists” who are joining forces to create a new TV network, supposedly bolstered by the success of Michael Moore’s Farenheit 911. I don’t know too much about the participants, except for author and journalist Greg Palast. One thing that looks good is that the group seems…

Monk, one of the chief organizers behind Boulder Free Radio (KBFR), maintains a blog where he occasionally posts tasty tidbits about how the station runs and what they’re up to. Last week Monk posted a rundown of the setup the station uses to stay a step ahead of the FCC, leveraging wireless Internet and a…

In our hyper-technologized culture, obsolescence is a pretty relative, subjective term. The average person on the street would tell you that the 8-track tape medium is obsolete, even though there is a strong subcommunity of users and enthusiasts, and an unknown number of players that soldier along in cars, trucks, garages and dens around the…

The Christian Science Monitor editorializes in favor of John McCain’s new bill that would undo the Congressional mandate that currently limits the number of low-power FM stations. The Monitor even cites the MITRE report, which found that LPFM presents absolutely no interference threat to full-power stations, leading the Monitor to conclude: “This only confirms that…

Last month I posted about the Calvary Chapel of Twin Falls, ID, and its CSN radio broadcasting division. According to REC Networks, the FCC dimissed a whole slew of LPFM applications filed under various Calvary Chapel organizational names. Today I received a polite e-mail from Don Mills, who is the station manager of KAWZ, the…

On the last two Fridays, the mediageek radio show has featured a critical examination of media ownership in Champaign-Urbana and Central Illinois. These two programs are now archived for listening on-line: Part 1, from April 2, features a review of radio and newspaper ownership, including a closer look at the Illini Media Company, the student-run…

Denver’s alternative weekly, Westword, has a short article on an independent zine library there, the Denver Zine Library. The article is refreshingly non-patronizing, avoiding the common stereotypical approach of reporting on zines as either “aren’t they crazy and cute,” or “they’re the next big thing!” Some ten years after ‘zines hit the mainstream as the…

The Brattleboro, VT daily newspaper the Reformer published an editorial today calling on Vermont’s Sen. Patrick Leahy and Rep. Bernie Sanders to support Radio Free Brattleboro. Both men have been outspoken proponents of free speech causes, with Leahy being honored for his work in support of the Freedom of Information Act, and Sanders being one…

Yesterday I asked if Dish would pro-rate my subscription charge for the loss of my Viacom channels — Comedy Central being the only one I miss. Well, the answer is, yes. Dish is running a continuous feed of a short video featuring CEO Charlie Ergen explaining the situation (from Dish’s POV), and he tells us…