PLOWSHARE PEACE CENTER ADVOCATES A COMMUNITY ADVISORY BOARD FOR WVTF PUBLIC RADIO
1. What is the Public Information Committee of Plowshare Peace Center? The committee began meeting in early 2008. We met with the station; wrote letters to the station and local media; and held vigils at the WVTF-FM Open Houses. Our concerns became two-fold: that WVTF carry the Democracy Now show and that WVTF establish a Community Advisory Board to take input from the public about the station. To date, WVTF has not made a decision to carry Democracy Now! In response to our concerns, they have recently established what they are calling a Friends Council, but its purpose seems more related to fundraising than to improving programming.
2. Why should WVTF-FM carry Democracy Now!? Voices other than the mainstream media are sorely lacking in Southwest Virginia. The DN! program is now carried by 900 stations nationwide, including 50 NPR affiliates and nearby NPR stations in Johnson City, TN, Richmond and Charlottesville, VA. WVTF/Radio-IQ repeats many programs so there is room for DN!
3. Why should WVTF-FM establish a Community Advisory Board? WVTF, a public radio station, should seek public input on how to become an even better station. WVTF should want more than just listener financial support.
4. What can you do to encourage WVTF-FM to carry Democracy Now!? Contact WVTF-FM by mail and email and express your support for a free, one-year trial run of Democracy Now!. After that, contact them to express support for the show.
5. What can you do to encourage WVTF-FM to establish an effective Community Advisory Board? Contact WVTF by mail and email and express your support for a genuine representative Community Advisory Board, one that offers feedback to the station from the public on matters including programming.
6. Where can I contact WVTF? The mailing address is WVTF, 3520 Kingsbury Ln., Roanoke VA 24014; the email address for the director of programming (Mr. Rick Mattioni) is mattioni@vt.edu.
7. How can I become more involved in the Public Information Committee? Contact Mike Bentley at 540-389-3752 or greenprof2@gmail.com to join the committee; contact Gary Sandman at 540-989-0393 or plowshare@plowshareva.org to receive updates about the committee’s work and to join the Public Information Committee listserv.
8. What awards and honors have been received by Democracy Now! and its staff? They have received numerous journalism awards, among them the Pinnacle Award for American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria’s Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of two Nigerian villagers protesting an oil spill; and Goodman with Allan Nairn won Robert F. Kennedy Memorial’s First Prize in International Radio for their 1993 report, Massacre: The Story of East Timor which involved first-hand coverage of genocide during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. On October 1, 2008, Goodman was named as a recipient of the 2008 Right Livelihood Award, often referred to as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”, in connection with her years of work establishing Democracy Now! Journalist Bill Moyers has said that getting the DN! newscast aired in a community is the best thing one can do for creating an informed public.
