mediageek 28 May 2009: Public Relations and the Crisis in Journalism

Public relations tactics have been used by major corporate polluters to “greenwash” their image and by the Pentagon to sell war policies to the American public. With the crisis in journalism will paid pundits and messages replace true reported stories? Diane Farsetta, senior researcher for the Center for Media and Democracy, joins to discuss this topic.

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mediageek 21 May 2009: German Experimental Radio

Early German radio enthusiasts, scholars and producers sought to make that medium something more than a means for broadcasting light entertainment and, eventually, propaganda. In his book Pieces of Sound: German Experimental Radio, Daniel Gilfillan makes crucial connections between these early experiments and our contemporary multimedia world where we still stand in that disputed territory between producer and receiver. Gilfillan is associate professor of German Studies in the School of International Letters and Cultures at Arizona State University.

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mediageek 7 May 2009 Part 2: More with Anne Elizabeth Moore

Part 2 of the May 7 program continues my conversation with Anne Elizabeth Moore about her Holle Cambodia project. We also talk about the challenges facing independent media while consolidated commercial media has its own crisis.

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mediageek 14 May 2009: Radio Performance Royalty Bill Passes House Committee

Satellite radio, internet radio, even radio in other countries have to pay royalties to the performers on the CDs they play, but not US broadcasters. That might change soon. A bill just passed a House committee that would end this decades old exemption. We discuss the question: should radio stations pay these royalties to artists and record labels, or is the promotional value of radio a sufficient quid pro quo?

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mediageek 7 May 2009 – Anne Elizabeth Moore and Holle Cambodia

Anne Elizabeth Moore is a veteran of many independent media projects–including the much missed Punk Planet magazine–and author of Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity. In 2008 she traveled to Cambodia for a residency in a women’s college dormitory where she introduced self-publishing in the form of zines. In this edition of the program we discuss the meaning of self-publishing in a country where women have been discouraged from self-expression and where being a journalist is still a very risky occupation.

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mediageek 20 April 2009: The Court Rules Narrowly on Indecency

John Anderson from DIYmedia.net joins to talk about some of the latest news or import to radio. The Supreme Court finally rules on fleeting indecency, slicing the decision so thin, you’d think they used a Ginsu. We also talk about commercial stations starting to beg for donations.

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mediageek 23 April 2009: Community Radio’s Founding Station Turns 60

This week Matthew Lasar, writer for ArsTechnica, returns. He’s in Washington DC right now, so he updates us on some hot communications topics in Congress. Then we reflect on 60 years of the first community radio station, KPFA in Berkeley, CA, and discuss the difficulty of building a democratic radio network.

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mediageek 17 April 2009: Time Warner Cable Folds on Bandwidth Caps

Time Warner Cable threatens to “test” absurdly low bandwidth caps in five more cities, then backs down when the public lets them have it. Also, Chicago’s Streetwise newspaper is having financial trouble.

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mediageek 9 April 2009: Newspapers’ Troubles Making Copps Go Soft

Chicago recently earned the dubious distinction of having the parent companies both major newspapers and the largest alternative weekly declare bankruptcy. And Chicago is not alone in having troubles with its newspapers. It’s getting so bad that even ardent anti-consolidation acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps is showing signs of softening on cross-ownership. We explore this issue, and the FCC’s new National Broadband Plan.

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mediageek 2 April 2009: ChiTownDailyNews Tries a New Model for Local Journalism

Geoff Dougherty is the founding editor of ChiTownDailyNews, a locally-focused news website employing professional journalists working with over 100 volunteer reporters to cover Chicago news not reported in the major mainstream news outlets. On this edition of the radioshow Geoff tells us about the site and the reasons why it pursues a this model.

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