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The next step, will be to remember our objective.

The students are being courted with the usual calls for understanding the process, for effecting change within the system, for using the system’s mechanisms to bring about reform. Examining all sides of the issue apparently. Looking at the station’s sources of funding, for example, to see if the effect of upsetting conservative donors can be countered elsewhere.

But this isn’t about how Colorado College or KRCC can afford to do this, this is about doing the right thing!

As a community seeking media reform, we know this isn’t just about DEMOCRACY NOW on the radio, this isn’t about a “left-leaning” voice on the radio, this isn’t about a political adgenda on the radio. This is about truth on the radio. This is about objectivity on the radio to counter everyday media disinformation.

And this is where the college and KRCC are making a very condescending assumption: that Colorado Springs is too ignorant to appreciate objective news reporting, that conservatives are by definition ignorant.

Americans in general have been coming to see that the media has been lying to them. That mistrust is being felt particularly hard by conservatives whose fiscal ideals have been betrayed by their politicians, while the press has looked on uncritically.

We’ll be scheduling a brain-storming meeting to plan for the next round of this fight. The fight to make people in the right places do the right thing.

Dear President Celeste,
We ask that you receive these well-intentioned letters of petition asking for you to consider airing the news program DEMOCRACY NOW on the public community radio station operated by your college.

We ask that you consider these attached letters in addition to the other petitions you’ve received:

1. The similar petition letters which have already been mailed to you directly.

2. Those letters from past years and seasons, making the same request.

3. Those community members who’ve left notes on the mykrcc.org website.

4. Those community members who’ve written letters to the editors in the local media.

5. Those who’ve left notes on KRCC’s official website, notes which have repeatedly been deleted.

6. Those who’ve called KRCC, during each fund drive, and between fund drives.

7. Those CC students who’ve submitted letters to you in the past years and semester blocks.

8. Those students who’ve signed the current student petition.

9. For all those students whose signatures are on petitions yet to find their way to your office.

10. And for all the letters to be arriving late from further community members and KRCC listeners!

Please accept all these voices in making your decision to improve the quality and level of responsibility to which we want to hold our local media.

Thank you,
Eric Verlo
Representative
PIKES PEAK MEDIA ALLIANCE

Please join us at 1pm on Monday, December 5th as a we deliver this year’s KRCC DEMOCRACY NOW PETITIONS to Colorado College. There will be a procession of VOICES UNHEARD, (except on Democracy Now!):

1. From CAMP CASEY to the CC WORNER CENTER: north on Nevada Ave, across Cache Le Poudre, then west.

2. Come as your choice of oppressed voice. Represent people who suffer without reprieve as a result of a media which ignores their plight.

a) Kneeling supplicants can represent the downtrodden, the world poor forced to its knees: those born into indentured servitude, those imprisoned, those indiginous peoples at the mercy of globalization.

b) Participants who prefer to walk can represent other unheard voices: the infirm who rely on social services, our nation’s invisible poor, the outsourced jobless, the working poor, the injured vets, etc. Causes or identities can be depicted in posters or photos.

c) A coffin will be be dragged along to symbolize the ignored dead: the under-reported genocide, aids, state terrorism, uncounted war casualties.

d) Others still can march not as representatives of the victims but as themselves: the ignored vast population who stand in solidarity. The peace movement for example!

e) Invisible participants can represent the uncounted voters.

3. We could welcome (or provide our own) counter-protesters to attend as representatives of those who are not under-represented by NPR: fat cat Americans, Iraqi kids kissing American soldiers, an earth not suffering under global warming.

4. Those walking on their knees will use walking staffs which will trail a long red banner which reads WE WANT DEMOCRACY NOW!

5. A delegation of Colorado College students will petition President Celeste in his office at 1pm, IN ADVANCE of the arrival of the community procession.

The 2005 petition drive to REQUEST THAT KRCC ADD DEMOCRACY NOW TO ITS LINE-UP has been a resounding success. Nearly everyone we have approached has been receptive and offered their signature. We are now preparing the results for presentation to Colorado College.

If you still have a signed petition letter you want to get to us, please do so as quickly as possible. Rush it to CAMP CASEY or TOONS by Wednesday, November 30. After that date petition letters will need to be sent directly to the college.

If you haven’t had a chance to sign a petition letter, you can DOWNLOAD A PDF HERE. Read the text of the letter HERE.)

There is also a LARGE-PRINT, condensed version if you prefer. The text of which is available HERE.

If you are a Colorado College student, please download the CC PETITON. (Text is available HERE.) It’s a PDF form which requires just name, class, and student ID number. It can hold 20 signatures per page, so be sure to pass it around your class or dorm before you turn it in.

Colorado College President Richard Celeste
14 E. Cache La Poudre
Colorado Springs, CO 80903

RE: Please don’t let KRCC dawdle any longer, we want DEMOCRACY NOW!

Dear Mr. Celeste,
As a KRCC listener, I ask you in your role as president of Colorado College with oversight of KRCC, to please bring the nationally syndicated news program DEMOCRACY NOW to our community radio station.

This request has been repeatedly rebuked by the KRCC station manager, but I believe the time has come to consider the idea with more sobriety.

Certainly you have noticed the population of this city has never been so ill-informed, and the time has never been more critical. While we can blame FOX, MSNBC and CNN, responsibility rests in no small part with NPR as well.

That’s where KRCC can come in. If more NPR affiliates such as KRCC carried DEMOCRACY NOW in the same line-up with their pro-corporate and pro-war programs, listeners would hear the stories and angles which NPR is currently choosing to omit. Perhaps NPR can be shamed into resuming the objective reporting for which it has always been respected.

DEMOCRACY NOW has won numerous journalism awards; the program is carried on over 350 stations nation-wide, host Amy Goodman has spoken to sell-out audiences on the CC campus; local community members have been making this request year in, year out; DEMOCRACY NOW even offers a six month free trial period. KRCC will regain disenchanted listeners and add further listeners searching for a news source they can trust. What exactly is KRCC resisting?

For the sake of the citizens our city, for our country and for the world, we plead with deep and sincere urgency that you hold KRCC accountable. DEMOCRACY NOW can do that. Let’s join ranks with the stations already airing this highly respected news program. Our country is at a crossroad, please act as soon as possible. Please Mr. Celeste, take our plea to heart.

Sincerely,

___ I am a member of KRCC, since: _______

___ I was a member of KRCC, from: ______, to: ______

___ I will consider being a member if KRCC carries DEMOCRACY NOW!

___ I will consider taking my donation elsewhere if KRCC still refuses DEMOCRACY NOW!

Spencer Center
2140 Kittridge Ave
Colorado Springs, CO 80919
Stephen Elder, Acting Vice President for College Advancement

Presidents Office
14 E Cache La Poudre
Colorado Springs, CO 80903
CC President Richard Celeste

Dear Stephen Elder and President Richard Celeste,

As a KRCC listener and Colorado Springs community member devoted to positive and progressive media, I ask you to help bring the nationally syndicated news program Democracy Now! to our community radio station. A diverse and balanced voice has become increasingly difficult to find in this age of corporate-controlled media. It is up to us to make sure that our community radio station, KRCC, maintains a high level of integrity during this critical period of deregulation.

I request that Democracy Now! join National Public Radio and BBC World broadcasts to offer the Colorado Springs community broader and more comprehensive news coverage.

Democracy Now! is a two hour-long daily news broadcast covering domestic and international affairs. Offered via KU-band satellite and as broadcast quality MP3 computer files, this program easily fits into any available time slot. Democracy Now! offers a six month free trial period, during which KRCC can gather feedback from community members. Listener demand for Democracy Now! will prove that it deserves a prime time slot. Aired by over 270 radio stations nationwide including KGNU in Boulder and KDUR in Durango, the program is the recipient of awards such as the George Polk award and the 2003 NFCB Golden Reel for the Best National News Story.

Thank you for considering this request to air Democracy Now on KRCC.

Sincerely,

___ I am a member of KRCC.

___ I would seriously consider being a member if Democracy Now! received a prime time slot.

___ I will become a member if KRCC gives Democracy Now! a prime time slot.