Media metastasis

As media consolidates, the diseased theories and practices it harbors spread. It's a process of degeneration and homogenization that has real effects on the citizens of our country, in terms of narrowing what they are exposed to in the media, and eliminating any sense of locality and place in programming. Furthermore, the emphasis on the almighty dollar that has Paris Hilton as the lead story in the news has spread in a sinister manner to the way public radio positions itself in serving the population.

Chicago has had an interesting turn events with our local public radio station, WBEZ. First they announced that they were eliminating music programming entirely. After some backlash from the local community, organized town hall meetings (one of which I was directly involved in putting together), and petitions, they backpedaled a bit, but not much. They announced they were launching a new station, a secondary public radio channel that would be dedicated to the local community, including its diverse arts scene. It came across as half baked and showed little promise. They were also extremely secretive about what the format and nature of the station was going to be, apparently in some odd attempt to build 'hype.'

The secondary station was recently launched. It's called Vocalo.

So far the station is only available online and if you live in Northwest Indiana - the station they put it on is so weak signal wise, it doesn't even reach Chicago.

I've listened in a few times and have been unimpressed with the format and the likelihood that it's going to achieve their goals. It feels like the arts community that protested the change in format of WBEZ so fervently are being thrown a bone and told to go gnaw on it in the corner.

And it's not even a particularly tasty bone.

In the Tribune article about the launch, it says "CPR expects to be able to boost the WBEW signal to 50,000 watts, which would extend its reach into Chicago" (emphasis mine). In other words, if everything works out, it should reach Chicago. Otherwise, the only way to listen would be streaming online. Which directly contradicts their stated goal, which was:

"One of the station's primary aims is to garner the non-white audience that Chicago Public Radio's flagship WBEZ-FM 91.5 does not.

According to the 2000 census data, Asians make up 4.30% of our population,  Blacks make up 36.40%, Hispanics or Latinos make up 26.00%, Whites make up 31.30%, and the miscellaneous Others make up 2.00%. The fact that WBEZ calls itself a public radio station and yet serves such a narrow band of the population is absurd. 

The whole idea of a spin off, second station, wreaks of a racist creation of a ghettoized radio station for the 'other' folks who don't listen to WBEZ, hardly a civilized answer to the problem. . Apparently white folks like to listen to people talk and will give money for the privilege.

Another interesting thing to note is that some of the theories behind the changes seen at WBEZ, as well as in public radio formats across the country, have a scapegoat. That's right, there is a man behind this madness, and his name is David Giovannoni.

The NYTimes wrote an article about him back in 2001. He's responsible for the buzz words you hear on public radio, such as "listener-supported." He's essentially a numbers cruncher, or as the article refers to him a "numbers nazi," who figured out how to get the biggest audience of the people most likely to donate money.

This is part of a larger problem that I see as endemic in our society today, a reliance on the quantitative over the qualitative, the concrete over the abstract, and in a more definitive biological sense, a privileging of the left brain over the right brain.

To generalize and stereotype: we're being ruled by MBAs, CPAs and lawyers, individuals who believe that creativity can best be defined (and managed) if it can be endlessly replicated without resorting to creative types.  These individuals believe that paint by numbers and karaoke are examples of creativity,  that playing air guitar is one step away from having actual talent.

What's the problem with numbers in this case? To quote Paul Simon: "When times are mysterious/Serious numbers are easy to please."  To quote a friend of mine who has written on this same subject:

As Tom McCourt, author of Conflicting Communication Interests in America: The Case of National Public Radio (Praeger 1999), observed in a letter to the NYT editor following Freedman’s article, "Audience research is hardly neutral; it is designed to mold audiences as well as reflect them. In its embrace of audience research, public radio, rather than providing a ground for a public culture, isolates its audience into demographically honed segments. The ‘public’ it purports to serve is a public in name only."

So, if public radio is really public, it defines public in an incredibly restricted, narrow manner: the people who are most likely to donate money.

When the backlash from the arts community happened, many large donors to WBEZ and Chicago Public Radio stepped up and said they would no longer be donating to the station. So their market research couldn't have been entirely correct, and it was nice to see some people with some monetary clout sticking it to them for their decision.

The worst part of the whole situation was that when feedback was given to WBEZ, the answer that came back to us was a paternalistic "father knows best," that we should wait and see what good ol' Chicago Public Radio had in store for us. There was no sense of exchange, of engendering community, that our voice had any value. This was particularly entertaining considering the fact that they were pitching the new format station as 'giving voice to the community.'

HA!