Urban Unrest

17 November 2006 | Programming | Ernesto Aguilar

I arrived in Berkeley just fine, and am looking forward to our national program coordinator interviews over the next few days. I hope to give you photos and updates from Berkeley; some of you may know this, but our national office is next door to KPFA. I’ll try to give you the lowdown on what’s up on both fronts.

Now for those programming updates I promised yesterday.

Next week marks the final week of Informed Dissent. Informed Dissent was Pacifica’s mid-term elections program; its shelf life and budget were limited to a few weeks after the elections. I hope some of you caught the program. It featured some truly impressive interviews, guests and discussions. I, for one, am very disappointed the program won’t continue, but have been informed by Otis Hardy Maclay that Informed Dissent could likely become a monthly special; if it does, we’ll certainly feature it on Open Journal.

In the place of Informed Dissent, which airs at 11, we’ll be placing in syndicated programming, including the return of WINGS (Women’s International News Garthering Service) on Thursday and Latino USA on Tuesday. TUC Radio will be rebroadcast on Wednesday nights as well as Friday afternoons as it has been; in the coming months, we’ve hoping to develop a health/environmental serials block on Fridays, 1:30-2. On Monday night, we’ll be featuring From the Vault, the Pacifica Radio Archives’ new program that features a treasure from the voluminous archives. Since the program’s launch, From the Vault has featured numerous historical and topical programs. Our airing it here, I believe, would be a major plus.

These changes will take affect Nov. 27.

A health/enviro block has been among listeners’ big demands the last few years. People want an intelligent, progressive discussion on such topics, and I am confident we can deliver some great stuff.

Next weekend, A New Conversation with Men begins on Saturday nights, alternating with Hot and Bothered. As a fan of both programs, I believe KPFT listeners will see a net gain.

We’ll also be making tweaks shortly to Monday nights. More on that soon.

We had many notable programs this pledge drive, but I wanted to take a moment to recognize a new program that not everyone may have caught on to yet. It’s called Coming to America, and it’s produced by former Assistant News Director Valarie Torres and hosted by Gordon Quan. Airing at 7 p.m., Coming to America anchors our Tuesday night Latino programming block. How does a program hosted by an Asian-American community icon now anchor Tuesdays? Coming to America focuses on numerous facets of the immigration issue, with primary emphasis on offering legal advice (Quan is an immigration attorney) and public policy. Immigration in Texas is, certainly, largely affecting Latinos, but the reality is immigration is touching the lives of every person, no matter race, gender or ethnicity. This new program was very well received during pledge drive and, I believe, it bolstered the rest of the night. If you don’t tune in Tuesdays (as some listeners tell me they don’t, because they don’t understand Spanish), please take a moment our of your time and check out Coming to America, a new program in English that gives an informed assessment on an issue that simply doesn’t get the contextual and educated discussion that it should.

Do you have ideas about programming? What do you like? What do you tune out? Your feedback as we move on programming ideas is helpful. Please feel free to add a comment to this post if you have thoughts.

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