WESLEYAN STUDENTS, ALUM: You may have conflicting opinions about the imminent Takeover (it is a T-A-K-E-O-V-E-R) of the WESU 88.1FM, and currently many of you may not care one way or the other how it turns out. We—not Students for Democratic Action, but a wide range of student groups and individuals—ask that you do care, and that you support—like the WSA—the continuance of WESU without ANY NPR INFLUENCE.
Why? There are several ways to look at this issue:
Student Power/Administrative Parentalism
The Takeover of the radio station is a continuation of top-down decision making by the Administration. The dynamic, over past years, is easily recognizable. The Administration makes a decision, is willing to “dialogue” about it, but ultimately steamrolls student opinion and opposition. Students—the lifeblood and consumers of this institution—cannot continue to be ignored (Chalking, Dining, Academics, Financial Aid, Gender Neutral Housing, Ethnic Studies, etc). For many of us, this is the last straw.
There is no need for NPR.
Who initiated the NPR deal? Was it students—or was it Bennet? Who has created a false sense of urgency by dictating artificial deadlines? Changes do need to happen to WESU, but there is absolutely no necessity for NPR in that equation, nor the Administration’s timeline. The Administration’s decision to bring in NPR is, simply put, parentalism. They are saying that WE ARE UNABLE TO RUN OUR OWN RADIO STATION. This, in spite of the fact that the WESU board has presented an imperfect but substantive counter-proposal, and the fact that many community stations around the country (WPKN in Bridgeport, for example) are entirely self-sufficient on listener support.
What is NPR?
Any examination of NPR will reveal it to be, historically, a paragon of white, male, middle-class, yuppy-ism in makeup and outlook. Like any type of media beholden to corporate/political interests, it shies away from controvers—rom true investigative journalism.
NPR is part of the problem of media consolidation, in a radio market that is dominated by three companies: NPR, Viacom, and Clear Channel. NPR has shamefully and arrogantly worked within the biggest media lobby, the National Association of Broadcasters, to silence community voices, successfully preventing the licensing of low-power FM (LPFM) community radio stations around the country. For more information on NPR, see: www.prometheusradio.org orhttp://www.fair.org/media-outlets/npr.html Once NPR comes in, it’s not going away.
No matter what anyone says about a “trial period,” once NPR comes in, it’s here for good. It is highly unlikely that, after a year, this Administration will say to NPR “We don’t want your MONEY, or the INSTITUTIONAL RESPECTABILITY that your bland programming provides Wesleyan—we’re going to do this on our own!”
Who is to say that, four years down the line, the Administration will decide to totally change the set-up with NPR and bring it in for most/all of the day (like it originally wanted to). Once the student memory of WESU as independent is gone, there will be no one to fight this.
Have we mentioned?
Have we mentioned the Censorship that will come with an NPR affiliation? Or that the Community is being kicked out of the station? Or that there are already 10 NPR feeds in the area? Or that the WSA is against it? Or that the proposed director of WESU under an NPR deal is Justin Harmon, Wesleyan’s public relations official? Yes, we have: moving on:
Bringing in NPR kills WESU’s potential.
No one denies the internal problems to WESU. Bringing in NPR, however, will kill WESU’s ability to live up to its potential as a free form station that serves the Wesleyan/Greater Hartford community. If WESU can retain autonomy, we face an exciting future of forming a truly powerful community voice in WESU. There is no possible way that NPR can serve these communities better than WESU. The importance of local media to democracy—especially in these times—needs no explanation.
We can do it!
Students—if we join together—can fight this Takeover and win. We can, more broadly, reverse the trend of Adminstrative decision making that leaves students on the defensive and powerless.
We are anything but powerless!
If you would like to help out with this effort, come to a meeting in the bottom of the Campus Center, Sunday at 9 p.m.
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