Banish The Bling

NPR's Juan Williams assails today's African-American culture as "a virtual blueprint for failure" in a much-read Washington Post op-ed. "Where is the civil rights groundswell on behalf of stronger marriages that will allow more children to grow up in two-parent families and have a better chance of staying out of poverty?" he asks. ". . . Where are the exhortations for children to reject the self-defeating stereotypes that reduce black people to violent, oversexed 'gangstas,' minstrel show comedians and mindless athletes?"

XM vs. Sirius: Endless Options Narrow to One

The Washington Post's Marc Fisher gives Sirius the edge in the public-radio category in a side-by-side comparison of satellite radio services.

Northwest Community Radio Summit: Seattle, Sept 15-17 | Reclaim the Media

College and community radio stations in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest are creating the Northwest Community Radio Network, a network for sharing content and expertise. Stations are meeting in Seattle next month. (Related article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.)

CJR March/April 2006 - Storytelling's rise on public radio

The Columbia Journalism Review examines the resurgence of personal narratives on public radio via StoryCorps, Transom, the Public Radio Exchange and This American Life. "We are social beings, and our lives got kind of fragmented -- our media lives, our civic lives, our personal lives," says independent producer Rob Rosenthal, director of the radio program at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. "Listening to these kinds of stories on the radio can connect us to one another."

Beyond Broadcast: Reinventing Public Media in a Participatory Culture -- Videos -- Center for Social Media

The Center for Social Media has produced a 13-minute video about the Beyond Broadcast conference held at Harvard Law School in May. Conference participants discuss the growing popularity of participatory web media and its potential in the public sphere. (Current's Beyond Broadcast coverage.)