Tuesday, September 6, 2005

Focusing on a different angle: New Orleans music & radio At the start of the semester the news writing class focuses on traditional daily newspapers, where "local" is one of the keys to newsworthiness. Later we'll look at other kinds of publications and broadcasters that have a different focus or cater to a particular audience. For a headstart, here are a few examples from the Web this week. My obsessive link-clicking started with the Hurricane Katrina coverage at World Music Central, where today's headline is "New Orleans Musicians Who Survived Need Housing and Instruments." (For a conventional magazine with a related focus, see the interviews with New Orleans musicians in Rolling Stone.) The World Music Central story also links to listener-supported, volunteer-operated New Orleans radio station WWOZ, where general manager David Freedman is blogging (via WFMU in New York), while the station's website streams recorded programs onto the Intenet as "WWOZ in exile," and keeps track of musicians who survived the hurricane. The WWOZ site also links to New Orleans news station WWL-AM 870, which is both broadcasting over the airwaves and streaming a live "local news" signal to the world via the Web as "United Radio Broadcasters of New Orleans," supplemented by staff members from other stations. The recorded WWOZ program I was just listening to included an announcement thanking people for contributions to a successful "fall fund drive" -- clearly a tape from a previous year. Freedman's blog describes the station's current financial needs in some detail, along with little bright spots like an early call from a Corporation for Public Broadcasting official offering some "wading-around money." The station signed off on August 27 at midnight and hopes to have temporary broadcasting facilities in October. 12:33:52 PM    comment [] Frist Prompts High Point in Student Activism Tennessee's Senator Bill Frist has been an inspiration to students across the nation this year, judging by Mother Jones magazine's award for "Protest of the Year." Here's a clip (highlighting added): When Senate majority leader and Princeton alum Bill Frist threatened to go nuclear in the battle over judicial appointments, students at his alma mater responded by staging the mother of all filibusters. It began quietly enough, with eight students in cheap suits gathering in front of the Frist Campus Center to give dramatic readings of the campus phone book... Within a week, the phenom had gone national, with copycat protests on 50 campuses in 35 states, from UCLA to Bates College. Even the theatrically challenged Democrats were quick to recognize the value of a good publicity stunt. The 384-hour gabfest wrapped up with a "fili-bus-tour" to Washington, D.C., where guest bloviators Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) joined in. "Campus activism" isn't what it used to be, at least on the left, but Mother Jones is just the magazine to keep track -- presenting its annual roundup in the back-to-school September/October issue. Other headings include Student Activist of the Year (at Georgetown) and Victory of the Year (over Taco Bell?),  plus links to its 2003 list of "Top Ten Activist Campuses"  --  from Tehran  to Berkeley, and a 2001-02 list that did not have to include pie-throwings in its "top 10." Is there a similar list about activism on the right somewhere on the Web? Anyhow, I hope next year's lists from both sides will include plenty of "student activism" in support of the thousands of folks displaced by Hurricane Katrina. 11:24:51 AM    comment []

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