August
2004
Animal
Rights Radio: A New Way to Use Your Airwaves Wisely!
By Lori Nitzel
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When my city’s community radio station put out
a call for volunteer engineers, I jumped at the chance to be an integral
part of the best radio station in southern Wisconsin, WORT-FM. Learning
how to work the sound board was much easier than I had expected, and
I quickly felt comfortable engineering a locally-produced news and public
affairs afternoon talk show. I enthusiastically absorbed news and debate
on issues that are so rarely given airtime in the major news media—issues
such as Canadian small farmer Percy Schmeiser’s legal defense
against Monsanto and its genetically engineered seeds, the bioterrorism
charges against art professor Steven Kurtz, and live coverage of the
WTO events in Cancun and the FTAA protests in Miami. To my and the audience’s
amusement, one show even had a lengthy discussion between the host and
listeners about George W. Bush’s codpiece, as worn during his
“Mission Accomplished” aircraft carrier speech in May, 2003.
How I love community radio!
Nonetheless, my initial joy in this refreshing banter waned a bit as
I found myself searching for animal rights-themed programming and found
very little. As the director of a local animal rights nonprofit, I know
that there is a constant stream of newsworthy animal issues in our community,
so why the lack of coverage? Why was the hard-hitting political and
social justice commentary consistently missing a dialogue regarding
the role of animal advocacy, vegetarianism and compassion toward all
species in politics and society? I’m not sure I know the answers
to these questions; they are part of a much larger issue that the animal
rights movement must seriously deal with. However, as a start, I set
out to find a way to make issue-specific programming more available
to community radio stations everywhere.
In these times of monopolistic media control, activists need to continuously
reassess our media and determine where we can find a forum for our issues.
One of our best sources of access is independent media, which is already
well established in many communities around the globe. Radio is just
one type of independent media, and takes the form of public, community,
and low-power radio. Although National Public Radio (“NPR”)
in certain areas is very accessible to the general public, community
and low-power radio are truly the people’s podium. These stations
are, in many cases, run entirely by volunteers and supported wholly
(or almost wholly) by listener contributions. They are the embodiment
of grassroots—news and cultural programming for the people, by
the people, and without corporate/capitalist influence.
Community and low-power radio provide a perfect environment for animal
advocacy—those already attuned to politically progressive issues
are often not in touch with animal issues, and with just a small nudge,
these individuals can become our future allies and converts.
In order to help facilitate the addition of animal rights-themed programming
to community radio, I developed a website, www.animalrightsradio.org.
One of the purposes of this site is to create a web space for those
who dabble in radio production to post their own animal rights audio
files, with the hope that community radio stations around the globe
will download them for use in on-air programming. It is now easier than
ever to add animal rights issues to local stations! Additionally, if
you are a producer looking for a site to distribute your work, look
no further.
The most important objective of this website is, however, to empower
those of us who are not schooled in the technical aspects of radio production.
Radio is a tool that ALL animal rights activists should use to get our
message out. To that end, the site features a “DIY” section
that will give novices a series of step-by-step instructions on how
to produce a radio piece. No technological savvy is needed—individuals
at all ability levels can (and should) do it! With very basic equipment,
activists can go into local communities and record interviews, speeches,
rallies, conferences, and other events, for radio airplay. Once recorded,
people can fine-tune their work and polish it into a finished audio
piece, or simply post the raw audio files for others to use; or their
work can be uploaded directly to animalrightsradio.org for distribution
or for listening via streaming (RealMedia and mp3 formats are used)
from the site.
Mainstream media, for many of us, is sadly out of reach. Fortunately,
media activists are incessantly working to change this, but in the interim,
activists should strive to make better use of the resources already
available. Because animal rights is currently underrepresented in community
radio, my hope is that all animal activists can participate more fully
in creating media for this market.
Contact your local community or low-power station and get involved in
programming, engineering, or production. These stations are completely
a product of volunteer interests and passions, and your participation
can tremendously affect your local programming. Alternatively, go to
www.animalrighstradio.org and learn how to produce your own animal rights
radio stories. We want this project to be interactive and non-hierarchical.
Please send your suggestions, ideas, and contributions of material to
help make this website all it can be. These airwaves are yours for the
taking. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by!
Lori Nitzel is a volunteer at WORT-FM Community
Radio in Madison, Wisconsin, and director of the Alliance for Animals,
a statewide animal rights nonprofit organization. She recently produced
a feature for “Sprouts Radio” on the first-ever International
Animal Law conference, held in the spring of 2004. Lori can be contacted
at lorinitzel@tds.net, or through the contact form on the website.
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