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What wonderful news! DEMOCRACY NOW is now on the KRCC line-up at 7pm every weekday!

Tune in, and if you like what you hear, let KRCC know what time of day would be more convenient for you to get your news!

Thank you all who attended the town hall meeting. Except that neither Colorado College nor KRCC were in attendance, the forum was a great success. 88 community members came to speak their mind. The expert panel was almost superfluous to the later discussion because there appeared to have been so many pent-up ideas which people came to express.

Are you a KRCC listener who would like to see a little more community involvement in your favorite local community radio station? Please check out this website, and see if this could be a forum for you.

This isn’t a news site. It’s merely a repository of views about the programming on KRCC.

When you go to any institution with a suggestion, you have no idea that you may not be alone in making such a suggestion. In fact you may be made to feel that your idea is so novel, and so off-the-wall, that it really could not be considered at this time.

What if there was a place where your suggestion could accumulate with others, and be kept independent of that institution, until the suggestions formed a virtual landslide of opinion?

It might become hard at that point for a COMMUNITY BASED institution to marginalize your voice much longer. Check out the first two anecdotes in the General section. Then contribute your own!

WELCOME!

Please contribute your thoughts. Your contribution can suite four different categories:

General
If you have an experience you’d like to relate about KRCC. About what you like or don’t like. About the role the radio programming plays in your daiy schedule. If you’ve had experiences talking about programming with KRCC personel, which you would like to relate here.

Reviews
An analysis of a current program on KRCC. Pro or con.

Proposals
A radio show which you would like to see picked up by the station. Describe the show, where you’ve heard it, where you think it might fit in the KRCC schedule.

Projects
Please send in any ideas you might have for how to reach more KRCC listeners and solicit more listener input. We also would welcome creative strategies for reaching the ears of those who make the decisions at KRCC

Who are we?
We are KRCC listeners who would like to hear more. More news, more balance, more relevent programming and less corporate pandering on our local community radio station.

Efforts thus far to request alternative voices on KRCC have fallen on deaf ears. It is our collective belief that the Colorado Springs community would be better served to hear about the peace movement, about the social justice movement, about the labor movement, subjects which cannot at present be found on NPR.

What is this website about?
This website is about having a place to share our concerns and ideas about our favorite radio station in the world.

So many of us may have expressed ourselves individually, without a sense that what we were feeling was shared by many. Indeed, we’re summarily made to feel that we are alone in making our suggestion, when in fact we are not. This website seeks to unify our message.

Why do this website at all?
Have you noticed the recent surge in popularity of non-fiction books, and the unprecendented popularity of documentary films? Could this be due to the lack of critical information in the major media?

It seems that a large number of Americans know they are not hearing or seeing the truth through the usual channels and they are seeking it out wherever they can.

Some NPR listeners believe that compared to Fox,CNN or MSNBC, public radio is providing them a balanced report of the news. But a growing number of people know that this too is a false assumption. F.A.I.R. (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) has shown NPR to be be similarly censored and complicit in advocacy of corporate and conservative interests.

When do we want it? Now!
That’s why the show is called DEMOCRACY NOW!

Have you noticed a very recent increase in combativeness on the part of some NPR interviewers? Could this be due to having to compete with the likes of DEMOCRACY NOW and other alternative news sources, side by side?

When NPR listeners hear an hour of critical investigative news, then hear ALL THINGS CONSIDERED fail to mention what the other show reported to be happening, they begin to question the parallel reality which NPR has been wanting to project. The more people who have access to real news, the more NPR’s deceit is revealed.

Let this be our hope: that Colorado Springs join the many communities which form the critical mass to push public radio back into the public fold. Don’t be mistaken, this kind of reform is happening all over the country. Let’s make it happen in Colorado Springs!

Surely the many NPR reporters long to follow their consciences again. Perhaps they have been too concerned with falling out of step with FOX, like everyone else. DEMOCRACY NOW can bring them back to the National Public Radio we have always known and loved.

Where -or better- why KRCC instead of TV or cable?
Because radio is where most people get their best news.

We watch local TV news for blurbs about what happened in town. We watch the network news to see what just happened in the country or in the world.

But analysis we get from the radio, in the car, or at work.

How can KRCC be improved?
Such an easy question! A significant first step might be to add the news show DEMOCRACY NOW to the news lineup. Democracy Now is a one or two hour long news broadcast produced by a Pacifica radio station in New York City since 1996 by indefatigable journalist Amy Goodman.

Hundreds of public radio stations throughout the country have already added Democracy Now. The show is also broadcast on public and cable television channels nationwide.

On the public radio stations on which Democracy Now already runs, the show has challenged and more often than not achieved higher ratings than ALL THINGS CONSIDERED and FRESH AIR.

Many listeners stream Democracy Now online. But we yearn to have access to it on the airwaves, in our cars. And we yearn for others to have access to it. Democracy Now features scoops and views and voices which are simply absent, often subverted, in the current media.

Are we preoccupied too much with the news?
Perhaps. But we’re not suggesting replacing any of the music programs in a favor of news programs. This is only about the news content of the news programs.

Isn’t the issue of what kind of news we are getting, and of who’s telling the news, of primary concern right now? With the upcoming election? With the wars in Iraq and Afganistan? With the subverting of environmental treaties and personal freedoms everywhere?

Is this website about political advocacy?
Alright, a little. But this website is non-partisan. It isn’t about right versus left. It’s about access to informative news.

Neither side should fear knowing more. Doesn’t that make sense? Why would one side fear having access to world opinion?

There have been recent changes in the line-up of news at KRCC, but the changes have been toward more conservative obfuscation about what is happening instead of against it!

The addition of THE WORLD from “Public Radio International” THE WORLD, add only to the dispassionate commentary on world events. The BBC WORLD SERVICE as carried on KRCC is not the BBC as heard by the rest of the world. It’s a program tailored specifically for American consumption, tailored by the UK government, currently our prowar partner.

KRCC lost HIGH COUNTRY NEWS when the local environmental news program stopped production. That progressive voice has not been replaced.

An election hangs in the balance, Iraqi civilians and American soldiers are dying every day. Could KRCC make a difference in informing the public of Colorado Springs?

What does NPR have to do with the war?
NPR beat the drums to war in Iraq. NPR was complicit in ignoring the anti-war protests. NPR joined the corporate media in misrepresenting the American public’s opposition to the war.

There is no playing field on which to challenge NPR. A grass-roots effort has to start with its member stations and affiliates. If we can make our voices heard at KRCC, our NPR member station, we can effect the whole. Media reform movements are happening all over this country.

One day the yellow press will be held accountable for misleading the American public and leading this nation to war. Who bears the burden of this guilt for Colorado Springs? We all do. Because we didn’t push the people who could make a difference into doing the right thing.

Since Gutenberg revolutionized book printing and helped propel the Enlightenment, communication technology has offered humankind the promise of more peaceful and productive tomorrows. Radio, and then TV, renewed this promise and for 60 years it seemed like it could work.

The Problem
But powerful corporations found other ways to use our public airwaves; for Profit instead of Progress. And Control instead of Empowerment.

What’s missing in mainstream media? ….. Just about everything important! REAL NEWS gets swept to the side to make way for sensational sex-teasers. The Star Player’s rape trial trumps millions of Laid-Off Workers. Reporting of Corruption in Government and Business yields to coverage of another murder trial. Children’s programming morphs into commercial exploitation.

What’s worse, on the local level, where station consolidation eliminates jobs and community connections, all that’s left is an unmanned warehouse pumping out “local stories” from a thousand miles away.

Cable Franchises promise limitless channel potential, but offer limited repeats of the same old junk.

And throughout the mix, the hand of the corporate masters steer to avoid challenge to their control.

The Solution

Pikes Peak Media Alliance Goals:
-Advocate fair representation of alternative news programming in local media.
-Educate and inform the public about alternative media and fairness and accuracy in broadcasting.
-Develop local media programs that cover viewpoints and events which currently go unreported.
-Broadcast alternative programming by way of local cable access channels, low-power radio and/or Web-casting.
-Secure a local FM radio station to serve the alternative needs of the Pikes Peak Region.