In December 2000, the U.S. Congress severely restricted a process guided by the Federal Communications Commission that would have allowed the granting of a small number of low-power broadcasting licenses nationwide. Such licenses would have allowed community non-profit groups to broadcast transmissions of local interest, bolstering diversity on the airwaves and potentially energizing community cohesion and activity.
By applying for a low-power FM broadcasting license in 2000, and engaging in the FCC's process through most of the year, residents of Mount Pleasant, Adams-Morgan, Shaw, and Columbia Heights participated in the low-power licensing process earnestly and optimistically, only to confront the chilling reality that, ultimately, our Government does not act on behalf of the people it serves. The FCC’s modest approach to allowing community voices to propagate on the airwaves was ultimately undone by pressure from the same forces that created the homogenous, corporate-driven mix of programming we currently must endure on the radio – as well as most other forms of mass media. In the end, our elected officials demonstrated that they are beholden only to the empowered few, not to the interests and will of the People, submitting yet again to the rapacious needs of moneyed interests, conceding to entities who only conceive of the airwaves – indeed, ALL PUBLIC SPACE – as nothing more than a cash machine that should treat its people as mere members of a marketing demographic cohort.
Thus, we have no recourse but to act on our own behalf.
* WE BROADCAST BECAUSE governmental machinations have made it clear that the voices and interests of residents will be ignored.
* WE BROADCAST BECAUSE we find INTOLERABLE the relentless corroding of public discourse and social activation by the homogenization of transmissions in our public space.
* WE BROADCAST BECAUSE we believe that our system of Government rules best when the voice of the people is heard.
* WE BROADCAST BECAUSE by announcing what kind of Government our community will respect we take one step toward obtaining a respectable Government.
* WE COMMIT this act of civil disobedience in order to protest the injustice of the forces described above.
* WE COMMIT this act of civil disobedience ever more enthusiastically because in doing so we also conduct the same crucial civic action that has, inconceivably, been forbidden.
* AND WE COMMIT this act because we understand that we have the support of residents and organizations in Mount Pleasant, Adams-Morgan, Shaw, and Columbia Heights to commit this act in their interest, as well as the support of social activists everywhere who will RESIST the silencing of many voices to protect the interests and profits of a powerful few.
* WE COMMIT this act of civil disobedience to remind us all, through this very act, that tyrannies such as these cannot go unprotested.
* WE BROADCAST ON BEHALF OF OUR COMMUNITY AND OUR COLLECTIVE CONSCIENCE.
A Nationwide Movement for Small-Scale Community Radio
All over the United States, people are getting sick of corporate control of the media, and are agitating for greater access to the public airwaves. The Federal Communications Commission is considering expanding the low power FM radio service it launched in 2000, and many community groups are receiving licenses to broadcast through that service. Many groups, however – like our own – have been cut out of this opportunity, and will likely continue to be cut out even if the FCC expands the low power FM service. So many groups are taking our approach: taking to the air and broadcasting to their communities, even without a license. These groups take this risk because, like us, they believe in the importance of democratic dialogue and free access to the public airwaves. Radio CPR is not alone: we are part of a movement of unlicensed, undocumented radio stations that are serving their communities all over the country.
Some of our compatriot stations are:
San Francisco Liberation Radio. SFLR has been broadcasting without a license for ten years, seven days a week from 9:00 AM to 11:00 PM. Station programming includes shows dedicated to labor news, tenants rights, queer youth, local news, women in hip hop, opera, and sex techniques (well, it is San Francisco). The San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently passed a resolution in support of San Francisco Liberation Radio, praising the station for the public service it provides the city, urging the FCC not to interfere with the station’s operation, and urging local law enforcement officials to refrain from engaging in activities that would prevent the station’s operation. For more on SFLR, see www.liberationradio.net.
Radio Free Brattleboro. RFB has been broadcasting to the town of Brattleboro, Vermont for five years. They were shut down by the FCC in June 2003, but returned to the airwaves in August, citing an enormous outpouring of community support as justification for continuing to broadcast. The Brattleboro Reformer, the town’s main paper, published an editorial supporting the station and its right to broadcast, saying, in part, “Stations like radio free brattleboro provide a forum for those whose voices and music are excluded from mainstream media. As such, these stations' existence is vital to our country's and our community's political and cultural health.” For more on RFB, see www.rfb.fm.
Radio CPR supports these stations and others like them in their attempts to continue to broadcast to their communities, even in the face of threats from the FCC. We also support the hundreds of community groups that are applying for licenses through the new low power FM radio service. Such groups include the Southern Development Foundation in Opelousas, Louisiana, a civil rights organization; Southern Arundel Citizens for Responsible Development, an environmental group on the Chesapeake Bay (www.wryr.org); and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworkers’ rights group in Florida (www.ciw-online.org). To find our more about the low power FM service and the new stations going on the air through it, visit the Prometheus Radio Project at www.prometheusradio.org.
We also support the work of other groups agitating for media democracy at large, including Media Alliance (www.media-alliance.org), Media Tank (www.mediatank.org), and Coalition for Media Diversity (www.mediadiversity.org).
