"Free Radio Tucson" is off the air. Federal authorities have shut down the pirate FM radio station that was operating from a home near Mission and Valencia. The U.S. Attorney's office says the shutdown is a first for Tucson.
According to the man that says he ran the station, it had been in operation for about ten months. But that all changed August 1st, after Free Radio Tucson got tuned out by federal regulators.
KOTA-TV Rapid City, SD reports that former Republican Senator Larry Pressler, the chief author of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, is raising money for a possible return to politics. After serving two terms in the House and three in the Senate, Pressler was defeated in 1998 by Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD). The station reports that Pressler is most likely to bid for South Dakota's lone House seat, which is being vacated next year by the retirement of Rep. John Thune (R-SD). It would be unusual, but not unprecedented, for a former member of the upper house of Congress to seek a seat in the lower chamber.
Free speech has taken on new meaning at Pacifica radio's political talk show "Democracy Now!" with host Amy Goodman suspended this week without pay by her bosses yet continuing to do the show. The program, which airs locally on Pacifica's KPFK-FM (90.7) and examines political, social justice and environmental issues from a far-left perspective weekday mornings, has been in reruns since last week.
That's when Goodman, her engineer and two producers said threats and intimidation from staff and management at their flagship station in New York made them feel unsafe, so they began broadcasting from a studio elsewhere in Manhattan. But instead of the live shows Goodman says she has been broadcasting--in exile as she describes it--Pacifica has been airing archived episodes of "Democracy Now!" on four of the five stations it owns: KPFK in North Hollywood and those in New York, Washington and Houston.
As part of the civil war within the network, KPFA-FM in Berkeley is the only Pacifica-owned station to carry the live shows, which are also broadcast by such independent affiliates as KFCF-FM in Fresno and WMNF FM in Tampa, Fla. A dissident group of listeners has scheduled protests in support of Goodman for Tuesday morning outside Pacifica stations.(see story link for more)
The company will purchase Whitehall Enterprises' Full Service WAAM-AM/Ann Arbor, MI for $2 million, thus giving it 1,201 stations. The purchase increases Clear Channel's holdings in the market to five.
Many have said it isn't over until the fat lady sings. Yogi Berra famously said it ain't over 'til its over. But when it comes to the effort to eliminate 3rd-adjacency protection for existing radio stations in order to shoehorn in as many low power FMs as possible, it may never be over.
The MITRE Corporation is soliciting information from consulting engineering firms to determine the costs and technical approaches which will be associated with studying LPFM 3rd-adjacency interference. This is part of a bill signed into law by Bill Clinton 12/21/00, "Making Appropriations for the Government of the District of Columbia for FY 2001" (HR 4942).
According to a letter to a broadcast engineering firm which has been obtained by RBR, such firms are being asked to detail what they think the approach and associated costs should be. Apparently, a firm or firms will be selected at a later date.
A list of communities which are possible test sites was included. The largest is Bakersfield CA. 24 additional California communities are
listed, along with one in Minnesota and one in Connecticut.
In via e-amil, a Call to Action from Media Alliance and the Pacifica Campaign:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NATIONAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH DEMOCRACY NOW!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
When: Tuesday, August 28
Where: Your Local Pacifica or community radio station
What: Show solidarity with Amy Goodman and the Democracy Now! staff
Amy Goodman and the Democracy Now! team have been suspended without pay
for insisting on violence-free workplace. And Democracy Now!, which is
being produced from a safe site in lower Manhattan and not Pacifica
station WBAI, has been yanked off the air.
At WBAI, the Democracy Now! staff have been physically and verbally
attacked by interim station manager Utrice Leid and other Leid
loyalists. When Pacifica senior management ignored their repeated
written requests that something be done about the intolerable
atmosphere of intimidation and threats, they felt they had no choice
but to fashion some interim solution last week
and find a safe and secure workplace to produce the show.
No worker should be forced to report to a job site where they are
physically attacked by supervisors and where staff members go on the
air to urge their physical destruction. Let's stand in solidarity with
Democracy Now! on Tuesday, August 28.
The operator of a volunteer radio station in Cleveland could not raise a constitutional defense during a hearing on the enforcement of a Federal Communications Commission cease and desist order, a federal appeals court decided.
Jerry Szoka stopped broadcasting "Grid Radio" in March 2000 after a federal judge issued an injunction against the low-power FM radio station. Szoka challenged the validity of the federal licensing requirement, but the U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati (6th Cir.) said the proper venue to address that legal question was in another court. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. (D.C. Cir.) will hear Szoka's case in September.
The commission released a notice saying the applications were "accepted for filing," which means they've passed the agency's initial screening and can move forward if no outside parties object. No fewer than 26 applications filed by the New York State Department of Transportation were on the list, along with countless others from churches and religious groups nationwide. All of the applications arrived at the FCC during the Jan. 16-22 filing window. Petitions to deny any of the listed applications are due at the FCC by Sept. 17.
It's hard to know when the FCC is on the prowl until "scene reports" start trickling in. One can seemingly only track the agency's enforcement troops after they strike. And striking they are, all across America. Within the last two weeks alone, enforcement agents have been spotted and encountered in Virginia, Arizona and Colorado. Unlicensed broadcasters, take note - Charlie's on the hunt. (see story link for more, including details on a recent raid in Tucson)
From a converted cattle shed, The Voice of Resistance radio station starts its broadcasts at 5 a.m. each day with this clarion call: ``Guerrillas of the FARC, with the people to victory!'' Maybe it's not as catchy as ``Goooood Morning Vietnam!'' the wake-up call of U.S. Armed Forces Radio during that conflict. But then again, this is the flagship station of Colombia's largest and oldest Marxist guerrilla force. (visit story link for more)
The grumbling inside the music business had been growing for months. Now, an independent concert promoter in Denver has come forward to assert in court what many have been afraid to say out loud: that music-industry giant Clear Channel Communications runs an illegal monopoly that thwarts competition. (see story link for details)
this in via e-mail:
NEWS / PRESS RELEASE
FROM COUNTRY 98ONE / FREE RADIO WARRENTON
THURSDAY JULY 26, 2001
CONTACT: Roy Clark 540 341 0329
WFRWFM98@YAHOO.COM
FCC VISTS AND ORDERED STATION OFF AIR
On Saturday, July 21, 2001 at around 1100am the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) visited and inspected radio station Country 98one / Free Radio Warrenton. The FCC took pictures of the broadcast facility and asked a few questions. Afterwards, he ordered the station off the air. This station has been on the air since Feb 24, 2001 24 hours 7days a week in Warrenton, Va.
Free Radio Warrenton is a public access independant media station, that seeks the citizens of Warrenton and surrounding area a place on the air to voice their views and opinions. Which is virtually impossible to do on stations that are controlled / owned by mega media
corporations.
We feel that the recent action by the federal government is unjust, invalid, and a violation to our constitutional rights to the public airwaves. Therefore we are not obeying such invalid order. We are still on the air on 98.1 24 hours a day / 7days a week.
We had filed an application for low power fm radio station license, but a big corporate media giant filed a petition to deny us, sighting third channel interference problems with a station on 98.7 in Washington DC. We find this argument and petition bogus. It is impossible for a ten watt radio station three channels away can interfere with a 50,000 watt station which is located forty miles away. The only possible interference would be they would interefere with us, and it is a very small ossibility of that happening.
So where is the problem we ask. We dont know cause there isn't one other than the corporate media giant dont want small public access
community radio stations on the air. So the outcome of our application was denied. We are seeking the support of the community in anyway that
they can support this radio station which is here for the community.
Contact information is at the top of this news release.
Thank you,
Roy Clark
Country 98one/Free Radio Warrenton