[Imc] LPFM, community journalism

[Paul Riismandel]

There's a good article on low-power FM and community radio in the most 
recent edition of the American Journalism Review.  Unlike a lot of other 
articles I've read, this author ties lpfm in with the community radio 
movement.  It seems most writers I've read think lpfm just appeared out of 
a vacuum, with no precursor.

This author discusses KGNU in Boulder and WORT in Madison some, with a bit 
on WORT's daily news show.  I find this excerpt informative and something 
we should keep in mind as we put together plans for our own news collective:

"Even at existing stations such as WORT in
Madison--which has the luxury of a large complement of
volunteers--the daily local news program staff, 20 or so
radio amateurs who call themselves the In Our
Backyard Collective, "spends a lot of our time rewriting
the newspapers," says Rob McClure, a founder of the
group.
       Fuqua agrees: "We don't like having to do that, but
that's our main source. Our state and local news is
largely rewrites from the newspapers, without the car
crashes and fluffy stories. The hardest thing to get
people to do is go out and cover events."

I don't focus on this to be killjoy, but just to show that just a 1/2 hour 
of local news a day is not cakewalk. (But can certainly be done, and done 
well, even with minimal rewriting of the N-G and DI).

Read the whole article for yourself here: 
http://ajr.newslink.org/ajrfishoct00.html

--Paul