RE: <nettime> Followup report on WBAI and Democracy Now

[ronda@ais.org (Ronda Hauben)]

"Jon Lebkowsky" <jonl@well.com> writes:

Ronda <ronda@ais.org> wrote:

>> It is good that Democracy Now is back on the air.

>Ronda, your message is somewhat misleading. "Democracy Now!" was never "off
>the air." You can listen online, the archive is at
>http://www.democracynow.org/archive/index.html.

It was no local issue - it was an effort to try out censorship by cutting
the program out definitely in NYC that day.

WBAI is a local NYC station. To cut the program in NYC where people have
been fighting against the attempt of Pacifica Radio to change the nature
of local stations is the issue.

>The program is broadcast by over 30 stations - the list is at
>http://www.democracynow.org/stations.html.

But if the program was cut off where its home station is -- that is a
deliberate act on the part of someone to test the waters for censorship of
it. Its interesting that instead of recognizing that and being glad that
someone from NYC is pointing out what is happening, there is an effort to
deny the reality by pointing to secondary issues.

I don't know whether the program was carried by any other station
elsewhere the day it was cut from NYC broadcast. But the fact that if a
program is cut off from its local audience, to say that that isn't
censorship -- that seems to try to create the misleading notion that the
NYC broadcast doesn't matter and the fight of people in NYC to challenge
the efforts of Pacifica's board to take over the local WBAI station.

>Even if WBAI stopped broadcasting the program, that wouldn't mean that it
>was "off the air" if it was broadcast by 30+ other stations. 

But the program is created at WBAI. If it isn't allowed to be heard on
WBAI that is censorship.

And as I am in NYC I don't know if it was heard anywhere else.

But the point is it is appropriate to challenge any efforts to take it off
WBAI as censorship.

Ronda
ronda@ais.org
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/

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