Community Broadcasting

Community Broadcasting and Democratizing Media

National Federation of Community Broadcasters
Forts Mason Center, Building D
San Francisco CA 94123
http://www.nfcb.org

AMARC – Association Mondial des Radiodiffuseurs Communautaires
World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters
3575 Blvd. St. Laurent #611
Montreal CANADA H2X 2T7
514-982-0351
514-849-7129 fax
http://www.amarc.org

Related Links

Nan has been an activist and organizer in community radio since college, where she worked at her college radio station and met the legendary Lorenzo Milam and Jeremy Lansman, who helped to start many community radio stations around the country and who penned such classics as Sex and Broadcasting and The Petition Against God.

It was in part through their inspiration and irreverence that Nan was inspired to move to Cincinnati to start a new community station which also launched her life-long dedication to community media. In Cincinnati,
she hooked up with an ambitious group of Model Cities organizers, a commune of pacifists and an array of artists and activists, who together formed Stepchild Radio of Cincinnati, which eventually became proud holder of station license WAIF at 88.3 FM. [link?]

WAIF eventually hit the airwaves in 1975, along with WORT in Madison Wisconsin. (WAIF and WORT were under construction neck and neck to see who would actually sign on first, and eventually they went on the air within a week of each other.)

There were a lot of community radio projects in the works, and back in 1972, Lansman and Milam had invited a number of the groups to meet in Seattle, for an informal gathering of the radio activists. By 1975, the group had organized itself as NARC, the National Alternative Radio Conference, which gathered again in Madison to compare notes and progress.

At the time, there were a number of developments underway in Washington DC, at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Public Radio and the FCC, that would have lasting impact on funding and regulatory policies for educational, noncommercial radio stations. With what seemed to be a critical mass of community stations on the air or under construction, the folks at NARC agreed the time was ripe for a national organization to voice their interests.

They agreed to reconvene a few months later in Columbia, Missouri, home of KOPN, and there they founded the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB) to represent the interests of community, alternative and independent radio stations. Nan, in the midst of putting WAIF on the air, was elected as first Co-Chair. Within a short time, an office had been set up in a Washington DC living room, and NFCB was on the map.

Within another year, Nan left WAIF to become NFCB’s Director of Station Development. In Washington, she worked closely with dozens of groups around the country helping them get incorporated, applying for broadcast licenses, acquiring equipment, and constructing and operating stations. She also worked with independent producers and production groups, and was instrumental in organizing the first Minority Producers Conference in Public Radio as well as being responsible for NFCB’s annual Community Radio Conference. Finally, as the representative of an important voice in the alternative media movement, she got to know policy and funding groups including FCC, CPB and the National Endowment for the Arts, and media reform groups like the Citizens Communications Commission and Media Access Project.

Another critical development that emerged while Nan was at NFCB was the growing international community and local radio movement. In 1980, she was invited to represent NFCB to help plan the first World Community Radio Conference, where she focused on promoting the role of women in community radio. The Conference was convened in Montreal, Canada in 1982, and Nan was able to assist a number of women engaged in community radio outside North America in attending.

Following another global conference, Nan was elected to the Steering Committee charged with drafting bylaws and structures to transform the conference into a permanent international community radio organization. With a resounding vote of approval from the excited and thrilled participants, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, better known as AMARC (Association Mondial des Radiodiffuseurs Communautaires), was founded in Managua Nicaragua in 1988, where Nan was among the key leadership. AMARC now has more than 2,000 members from every region in the world and it operates from an international secretariat located in Montreal, Canada an accredited NGO recognized by the United Nations.

Retaining her involvement with community radio in the United States and internationally through AMARC, Nan has recently become active in promoting the new low power radio service recently created by the FCC to license community stations with transmitters of 100 watts or less. Along with offering technical advice and direct assistance to groups filling out applications, she is also lending her operational and organizing experience to new groups of radio-activists like the Prometheus Radio Project.

Related Links

MediaChannel http://www.mediachannel.org

Media Access Project http://www.mediaaccess.org

Prometheus Radio Projecthttp://prometheus.tao.ca

Fairness and Acuracy in Reporting FAIR: http://www.fair.org

Benton Foundation: http://www.benton.org

Libraries for the Future http://www.lff.org

Hidden Jews of New Mexico, Community Media Services, Community Activities

Paper Cut Designs, Links, Home