Archive for December, 2006
Tuesday, December 12th, 2006
There's been a certain speculation that newer LPFM stations have been quicker to adopt technologies such as podcasting than have 'traditional' community stations. A story from Missouri describes one counter-example to this thesis, KOPN of Columbia Missouri, which is "aiming to keep up with the latest advances in technology by ...
Posted in Radio | Comments Off on Podcasting community radio in Missouri
Monday, December 11th, 2006
This has been just below the horizon for at least a decade, but seeing actual planning towards radio's end is a sad moment for a radio geek like myself. It's troublesome seeing these decisions being made by people who obviously have no understanding of, or love for, the medium:The regulator ...
Posted in Radio | Comments Off on UK signals end to radio
Sunday, December 10th, 2006
One of the fears governments often express when examining the notion of community radio is that such stations might be divisive, fuelling factionalism as against a sense of common national spirit. One South African regulator, Lumko Mtinde, of the Media Diversity and Development Agency, addressed this point in a talk ...
Posted in Radio | Comments Off on Government fear of community radio
Sunday, December 10th, 2006
So much for my prediction on WednesdayFormer prime minister Baroness Thatcher is "greatly saddened" by the death of Augusto Pinochet, said a spokesman. So we are told by a BBC News story. A separate article, meanwhile, puts all of this into context:Gen Pinochet seized power in a coup against an elected ...
Posted in International Affairs | Comments Off on …but not that long
Saturday, December 9th, 2006
An interesting story from Caledonia, of a community that has decided to push for a community radio station after a recent snow storm:When the lights went out during last month’s snow storm, many people were left in the dark literally and figuratively. The TV society thinks a community radio can ...
Posted in Radio | Comments Off on Snow storm makes case for community radio station
Saturday, December 9th, 2006
A fascinating article in Hard News Media examines the prospects for media in India in the coming years. Drawing on the projections of the Eleventh Five Year Plan, it examines everything from print, to radio, to telecoms and the internet. On radio, it notes the differences between India and the ...
Posted in Radio | Comments Off on Media access in India
Friday, December 8th, 2006
A fascinating interview in the People's Weekly World looks at the career of Bernie Hayes, a U of Illinois alum and African-American DJ, who has been in the business for over 50 years:The industry was very segregated, as it is now. Being Black in America is the same as being ...
Posted in Radio | Comments Off on A career in radio
Thursday, December 7th, 2006
The World Institute for Development Economics Research at United Nations University has a new report on wealth distribution around the world. An interesting undertaking, and some interesting conclusions for those, like me, who like to track such things:In this paper we show, first, that there are very large intra-country differences ...
Posted in Income and poverty | Comments Off on Richest two percent own half of world’s wealth
Wednesday, December 6th, 2006
This is, I think, the fourth time in the last four or so years that Pinochet's doctors have discovered an illness that gives him days to live, each time conveniently just before he's due to appear in court in relation to crimes committed by him and his regime:But the general's ...
Posted in International Affairs | Comments Off on Guess what? Fires of hell have to wait a little longer for Pinochet
Friday, December 1st, 2006
You know those figures about how 2 billion people live on less than a dollar a day, and half the world's population lives on less than $2? Ever wonder just how far removed from that the developed world is?
The answer may surprise you:Seven dollars a day. That’s not the income ...
Posted in Labour issues | Comments Off on One fifth of Americans live on average of $7/day