[1782] in peace2
Urgent: Prevent Cancellation of News On-air at MIT's WMBR
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Daniel Collins)
Thu Jun 13 09:22:05 2002
Message-Id: <200206131321.JAA25167@jimi-hendrix.mit.edu>
To: peace-announce@MIT.EDU
cc: "John Grebe" <indymedia@attbi.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 09:21:50 -0400
From: Daniel Collins <daniel_@MIT.EDU>
Howdy,
Below is a message I was asked to pass on. Please forward it to other
relevant groups (if people haven't seen it yet).
Thanks,
~Daniel
------------------------------------------------------------
URGENT APPEAL:
Stop WMBR Radio from Cancelling the Nightly News
12 June, 2002
Dear MIT students and grad students:
The only daily independent news on Greater Boston radio may be censored. Long
known as the Pacifica Nightly News, then Free Speech Radio News, the newscast
at
6 p.m. was cancelled on MIT's WMBR 88.1 FM, effective next week.
Send a quick note of support (sample below) to keep it on. Bolster the WMBR
News
Directors' appeal to their programming board this Friday, June 14. Help reverse
this unprecedented decision to eliminate this crucial exclusive newscast.
Your letter of support makes a particular difference since WMBR values its
mission to serve the MIT community in particular, in addition to the Greater
Boston broadcast area. Please forward this letter to other sympathetic
students.
Email polite a letter of support (like the sample below) to WMBR, today.
As listeners to WMBR, let's act on our tremendous respect for the decade
of volunteer expertise that WMBR's news crew pours into getting the news
on-air every weekday. For more details, find a longer note below.
Please act now. Email your quick note to the addresses below.
Call 617-253-4000, and press 4 to record a polite programming comment.
Send postal mail to:
Program Director
WMBR Radio
3 Ames St.
Cambridge, MA 02142
If you like, email the template letter below. This Friday, June 14, a decision
is made.
Yours truly,
John Grebe
Radio Coordinator,
Independent Media Center of Boston
JGrebe@TecsChange.org
________________________________________________________
(Please send a letter like the one below by Friday, June 14.)
To: program-director@wmbr.mit.edu
CC: news@wmbr.mit.edu, jgrebe@tecschange.org
Dear Program Director at WMBR:
Please keep the whole WMBR news line-up on the air every weeknight at 6 p.m.
[For ____ years I've been a listener to WMBR.]
[For ____ years I have been a financial contributor to WMBR.]
Original news programming has no equal in community radio to "Free Speech Radio
News," which defines networked original community news. Your exemplary
volunteer
news staff positions WMBR and Greater Boston among the national reporters
contributing their original stories to "Free Speech Radio News."
WMBR's 6 o'clock news line-up complements your committment to diverse
programming. Those programs inspire wide support for WMBR throughout Greater
Boston. Many new listeners first tuned in for news since it began in 1991.
Your underwriters know this. Listeners to "Free Speech Radio News" value its
unique independence from corporate ownership and its non-commercial mission to
provide national and international news from journalists around the world.
Listeners and underwriters have relied on WMBR for over a decade. Don't let us
down.
As a unique and valuable service to the entire Greater Boston listening
community, WMBR's 6 p.m. long-standing nightly news provides information
and perspectives crucial to an informed public participating in a
democracy. There is no other daily source like it in Greater Boston.
"Free Speech Radio News" provides high quality news stories unheard
anywhere in Boston radio on a daily basis. At a time when commercial
pressures dilute news content, at a time of national and global crisis,
WMBR should continue to offer this excellent newscast. WMBR should operate
with its non-commercial license to broadcast in the public interest by
keeping FSRN and the public affairs block on the air at 6 p.m. weeknights.
Especially in Greater Boston; especially in these times.
Yours truly,
[Your name]
[City or town]
[Affiliation, if any]
________________________________________________________
[More details about WMBR's move to cancel the nightly news.]
WMBR's programming board last Friday cancelled the 6 p.m. half hour of
nightly news that its News Dept. broadcast for eleven years. The board
also cancelled "Black Perspectives" (the only African-American public
affairs program) and displaced "Democracy Now!" from the evening news.
Next week, the broadcast ends, unless the listening public supports the
News Dept. in convincing the programming board otherwise.
The nightly news in Boston glares like a beacon to the listening public
wearied of super-slick heavily corporate-underwritten and advertised news
product.
Demonstrate the wide public support that WMBR's 6 o'clock news has
engendered throughout Greater Boston since 1991 as a unique source of
daily independent radio news. Listeners to "Free Speech Radio News" prize
its independence from corporate ownership, its thoroughly non-commercial
and unique enterprise in providing daily national and international news
from journalists around the world.
Especially amid what President Bush dubbed this "war year," Greater Boston
needs independent media reporting beyond official spokesmen's sound bites,
transcending fear- mongering talk radio, linking listeners to citizens'
perspectives around the country and the world.
