Community radio needs help

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Eleven New Voices grants were awarded to community radio and cable access television stations. Simply put, only three remain active.  The others succumbed to high turnover in project leaders, and on-air demands that focused on programming with limited resources for web production.

New Voices applications for funding revealed that many community radio stations want to develop community newscasts, often with a corps of volunteer journalists.

Of the 46 New Voices grants in this study, eight were originally awarded to community radio stations. Two were rescinded for failure to perform. Three others are no longer active. A sixth, Appalshop’s Community Correspondents Corps, stalled after training 12 correspondents and was recently revived under the leadership of newly hired AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer.  Still, equipment is badly needed to train new storytellers.

Two other New Voices community radio projects, however, are notable successes. Radio Free Moscow’s nightly newscast has supplied important news and information for five years to Moscow, Idaho, and is often live when larger stations are on automation. Its success has much to do with the consistent and passionate stewardship of news director Leigh Robartes.

Reclaim the Media’s ListenUp! Northwest project has created a content-sharing network for stories produced by more than 14 stations throughout the Pacific Northwest. The project has amplified reporting of regional issues and enriched programming for resource-strapped stations. “We are the best caretakers of our stories and Listen Up! Northwest is tracking to be an effective container for these stories,” said project leader Jonathan Lawson.

New Voices also had mixed experiences with cable-access community news projects. Three New Voices grants were awarded to cable-access television stations; two are no longer active. AccessSF’s “The Street” went dark after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors pulled the plug on the entire station. The St. Paul News Desk, a project of the St. Paul Neighborhood Network, produced two half-hour shows then lost the project coordinator. The project never resumed.

The successful exception is Cambridge Community Television’s Neighbor Media, which has 10 citizen journalists covering issues in Cambridge, Mass., including three who have been involved since 2007. The correspondents have produced 536 stories and blog posts to date.

To provide robust community news, community radio and cable access stations need more support for expensive equipment and funding for stable leadership and web production if their news initiatives are to endure.

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