A quick overview of the history of policing in America through the lens of race, by Khalil Gibran Muhammad. A clip from an NPR podcast.
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“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
— Frederick Douglass (ca. 1818 — 1895), a speech on the twenty-fourth anniversary of Emancipation in the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C. (April 1886)
This year, descendents of Frederick Douglass read his powerful 1852 Independence Day speech “What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?”
Related:
“How Black Lives Matter transformed the Fourth of July,” Peniel Joseph, CNN
“How Black Americans Co-opted the Fourth of July,” Livia Gershon, JSTOR Daily
African American Fourth of July
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Top image (“Frederick Douglass, July 4, 2020” after an 1856 Ambrotype in the National Portrait Gallery) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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President Trump wants to defund public broadcasting in the name of economy, but it’s really typical Trump score-settling. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting received 0.01 percent of the federal budget last year, and most of that went to support PBS and NPR stations in the rural areas that voted for Trump. Kids in the hinterlands can’t watch PBS on HBO since cable companies won’t wire up farm country.
WAMU, the Washington public radio station owned by American University, has broadcast Bluegrass music since 1967, but that will end on New Year’s Eve 2017. On Thursday afternoon the NPR affiliate announced it will stop over-the-air broadcasts of the “High Lonesome Sound” and seek a buyer for its online music service Bluegrass Country due to “tremendous demographic shifts” in the Washington DC area.
“From 1967 through the 70s and 80s, generous support from the bluegrass community allowed WAMU to expand. Today, WAMU’s Bluegrass Country is a 24/7 bluegrass music service broadcasting at 105.5 FM, HD on 88.5-2, and streaming on http://bluegrasscountry.org . Bluegrass Country’s social media includes a YouTube channel with over 4.4 million views.”
— “WAMU Seeks New Owner for Bluegrass Country,” WAMU website (links added)
Hey buddy, want to buy a radio station? Look here. If nobody buys Bluegrass Country by the end of December, the service will close, so listen while you can, right here (click on “listen live”).
More:
“WAMU Will Sell or Close Its Bluegrass Station,” Andrew Beaujon, Washingtonian
“Bluegrass Country seeks new owners,” John Lawless, Bluegrass Today
Related:
“Washington D.C., The Bluegrass Capitol – The Story of Bluegrass in Washington, DC,” a film by G.T. Keplinger [24:27]
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“As NPR came of age in the 1980s, its audience matured with it. Three decades later, that is starting to look like a problem.
Many of the listeners who grew up with NPR are now reaching retirement age, leaving NPR with a challenge: How can it attract younger and middle-aged audiences — whose numbers are shrinking — to replace them?”
— “NPR is graying, and public radio is worried about it,” Paul Farhi, Washington Post
“Though NPR is seeing some listening gains on digital platforms, particularly with podcasts, its broadcast audience has dropped. Average–quarter-hour (AQH) listening during morning drive time has dropped 11 percent in the past five years, and afternoon drive audience has declined 6 percent. The only age bracket that has increased listening to NPR stations is the 65-plus audience.”
— “Drop in younger listeners makes dent in NPR news audience,” Tyler Falk, Current
More:
“Who Isn’t Listening to Public Radio,” Justin Fox, Bloomberg View
“WNYC is leading public radio’s transition to public podcasting,” Jack Murtha, Columbia Journalism Review
“Why I Left NPR,” Stephen Henn, Medium
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Image (“NPR Demographics, after Norman Rockwell”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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Tom Magliozzi, co-host of NPR’s “Car Talk” brother act, died on Monday at the age of 77. Besides joking and giving car repair advice, he and brother Ray ran a garage and a self-help car repair facility in Cambridge MRA, their hometown. A graduate of MIT, Tom also taught, worked in industry, and played bass in a Bluegrass band.
Tom and Ray Magliozzi put their weekly Car Talk radio program up on blocks in September 2012, and NPR has been recycling the good parts each week since then. The program ran for 10 years as a local feature on Boston’s WBUR-FM before being picked up by NPR stations nationwide 27 years ago.
Tom and Ray received a Peabody Award in 1992 and have been inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. More importantly, they have been honored by the Martin Guitar Company with a special edition Click and Clack Martin Guitar (great muffler inlay on the fifth fret).
“When Laura Silver‘s favorite knish shop in New York closed it doors, she started to investigate why it shut down. And that led to a years-long research project ….
Her book Knish: In Search of the Jewish Soul Food explores the history of the baked delicacy filled with meat or vegetables and what it means to the people who love it.”
— “The Humble Knish: Chock-Full Of Carbs And History,” NPR
Knishes are big in New York of course, but also in other places with large Ashkenazi (Central- and Eastern-European Jewish) populations, like Argentina:
NPR (formerly “National Public Radio”) showed off its new 400,000-square-foot headquarters to media rivals last week, and reporters’ attention wandered from the state-of-the-art digital production facilities to the wellness center, employee gym with a trainer, green roof complete with beehives, and the gourmet cafe with its resident chef. Seems pretty luxurious for a nonprofit outfit.
Tom and Ray Magliozzi will put their weekly Car Talk radio program up on blocks in September. The program ran for 10 years as a local feature on Boston’s WBUR-FM before being picked up by NPR stations nationwide 25 years ago. Tom Magliozzi is turning 75 this year and, according to his brother Ray, has decided that even one hour’s work a week is too much.
“Car Guys” Tom and Ray received a Peabody Award in 1992 and have been inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. More importantly, they have been honored by the Martin Guitar Company with a special edition Click and Clack Martin Guitar (great muffler inlay on the fifth fret).
Car Talk’s drive train may be shot but, like any old beater, it’s still got some decent parts. The show’s archivist and editors will bolt them together and test drive them on public radio starting in October.
National Public Radio execs are on a road trip to demo web services to the network’s 268 affiliated U.S. radio stations. The roadshow is also an effort to calm stations upset by earlier indications that purchase of expensive digital services would be required of all affiliates. NPR recently bought the Public Interactive web services company from Public Radio International.
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