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The demotivational factor

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Radio days: Air America and WBAI

Goodnight, Air America.

Thank you for introducing the world to the magnificent Rachel Maddow and acting as a political launching pad for Al Franken who might one day grow into a valuable senator. It's just too bad that what started out as a clever, aggressive reaction to Bush/Cheney and the right-wing lie-mongers in radio and Congress never took root, financially or otherwise. Air America's programming and scheduling always seemed to me to be hastily thrown together with no design, no thought-out strategy. Most of the shows made for tedious listening, and a so-called star host like Randi Rhodes was permitted to waste hours of airtime ranting and repeating herself. If you wanted to listen to Rhodes at all, you quickly learned to turn her off after, say, 15 to 20 minutes, because the rest of the show would be a pointless regurgitation.

Here are two reports on the demise of Air America:

Media Decoder: Air America to Cease Broadcasting Immediately
by Brian Stelter, The New York Times, January 21, 2010

Farewell, Air America, when we need it most
by Ron Reagan, Salon, January 24, 2010

Liberal Radio, Even Without Air America
by Brian Stelter, The New York Times, January 24, 2010

Back in the late '80s, I did time at Pacifica Radio's WBAI with what was then the Women's Radio Collective and the Gay and Lesbian Independent Broadcasters, as well as producing some specials on my own. Broadcasting was totally new to me and--after listening to a women's news program--I'd been drawn into it on a spunky impulse that, for a basically shy person, was a form of courage. This new challenge stimulated my creativity, and I brought to it a typical Virgo's preference and competence for organization, much appreciated by the station's engineers.

But WBAI was a roiling mess--and still is, if Michael Powell's hilariously snarky report on a meeting of the station's board is to be believed. And, having seen that place from the inside--I sat in a staff workshop on diversity where a fistfight broke out right in front of me--I do believe.

99.5 FM, Where the Board Meetings Make the Broadcasts Seem Tame
by Michael Powell, The New York Times, January 15, 2010

Who knew? Rachel Maddow loves dance!

Rachel Maddow with Suzanne Carbonneau
Photo: Christopher Duggan, courtesy Jacob's Pillow

As some of you may know, I am a huge, huge, huge fan of broadcast journalist Rachel Maddow and her MSNBC show, having first heard her and followed her work on Air America. Some years ago, my wife and I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Rachel at a women's conference at Barnard College. I remember her telling me that she'd never actually met a dance critic.

So, it was a delightful surprise, a few days ago, when I received the following note from Mariclare Hulbert, Communications Manager of Jacob's Pillow Dance. This--along with the Maddow show's recent initiative to help the Iraqi baseball team get uniforms and equipment--is enough to make me forgive Rachel forever for being a rabid Red Sox fan!

Enjoy!

Eva :-)

**************************


Rachel Maddow with Suzanne Carbonneau
Photo: Christopher Duggan, courtesy Jacob's Pillow


Dear Colleagues,

As you may know, on August 8th Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival hosted a PillowTalk (free and open to the public) with Rachel Maddow, host of top-rated programs on MSNBC and Air America. The talk was held on the Pillow’s Inside/Out stage, an outdoor performance space where thousands of people attend free performances every Festival season. The PillowTalk, was moderated by Scholar-in-Residence Suzanne Carbonneau, noted dance critic and historian.

Rachel Maddow lives in the Berkshires of Massachusetts and she and her family often attend performances at Jacob’s Pillow. She began the talk by declaring that she is not a dance expert:

“I know nothing about dance. I am a fan. I am a fan of dance and of Jacob’s Pillow and a fan of people who know nothing about dance going to see dance.”

Throughout the hour-long conversation, Ms. Maddow and Ms. Carbonneau discussed many topics including the arts, education, society, politics, policy, and the role of the arts in society.

Ms. Maddow was well prepared for the event in her characteristically intelligent, thoughtful, and witty way, and it was clear that she was engaged by the topics at hand.

Here are a few quotes I would like to share with you:

“Sometimes we choose to serve our country in uniform, in war. Sometimes in elected office. And those are the ways of serving our country that I think we are trained to easily call heroic. It’s also a service to your country, I think, to teach poetry in the prisons, to be an incredibly dedicated student of dance, to fight for funding music and arts education in the schools. A country without an expectation of minimal artistic literacy, without a basic structure by which the artists among us can be awakened and given the choice of following their talents and a way to get to be great at what they do, is a country that is not actually as a great as it could be. And a country without the capacity to nurture artistic greatness is not being a great country. It is a service to our country, and sometimes it is heroic service to our country, to fight for the United States of America to have the capacity to nurture artistic greatness.”

– Rachel Maddow

“Not just in wartime but especially in wartime, and not just in hard economic times but especially in hard economic times, the arts get dismissed as ‘sissy.’ Dance gets dismissed as craft, creativity gets dismissed as inessential, to the detriment of our country. And so when we fight for dance, when we buy art that’s made by living American artists, when we say that even when you cut education to the bone, you do not cut arts and music education, because arts and music education IS bone, it is structural, is it essential; you are, in [Jacob’s Pillow founder] Ted Shawn’s words, you are preserving the way of life that we are supposedly fighting for and it’s worth being proud of.”

– Rachel Maddow

What's up with the world?

Okay, it's not about dance, but don't you want to keep current with progressive radio's most brilliant, most vigilant host? Then check out Rachel Maddow's Air America show podcast from Green 960! Yes, she's a Red Sox fan, but I forgive her!