|
 Where's
WBAI?:
post-signal@HELP.com?
by
Robert Dean
I enjoy WBAI and listen throughout the week. I also enjoy
the disputes on the Pacifica WBAI Message Board. I've got a
few opinions, too. But I have to remember that WBAI is a
radio station; in the end it's only radio. I get to
experience the unique qualities the radio medium, especially
WBAI, provides. But I also listen to many other radio
stations in the New York area. So this makes me pause when I
hear explanations from the programmers on the different
stations on why they are a great station and why we listen
to them. I always think, regardless of the different
boastings, they are not the reasons why I listen to their
shows. I listen to spy, soak up a mood, or to learn some
details about something I knew nothing about. Any station
provides that for me, not just theirs.
I also wonder how to translate the radio experience into
political action. Which then makes me question what
political programs I'm for. I might think I'm for universal
health care. Sounds fair. But since I listen to different
stations I eventually see the subject is more complicated.
But I decide to remain focused and ignore counter-arguments
to my opinion. I can rely on WBAI or NPR to reinforce my
opinion. NPR is slicker and more professional in pushing for
this view and certainly reaches more people so NPR is where
legislative reform will be instigated, if at all. But if I
want to hear sub-cultural reasons supporting universal health care I turn on WBAI.
It's interesting to hear the anarchist, Marxist or
libertarian position on the issue while I wait to vote every
four years. Just think of the amount and variety of
information we can hear on the radio about this topic over
four years while waiting to pull the lever. Once the time
comes, I'm forced to ignore the nuances of the debate and
push on through to vote for a basic beachhead to establish
new legislation. I am always reduced to a knee-jerk response
in the democratic republic.
WBAI, in particular, claims that it provides alternative
information to the mainstream. This certainly was true
before the middle nineties, but the Web trumps WBAI on that
front. So why do I listen to BAI? Usually to hear the
quaint, eccentric programming. The programmers are sincere
but in practical terms what they offer can't be applied
collectively. The postmodern thinkers call it the death of
"public space". This is essentially true, but a
more precise way to explain it is that we now have the birth
of many new media spaces each creating their own publics.
The old public space of strictly literate citizens has
taken a back seat or got lost in the shuffle. The "chickenhawks"
around President Bush have taken advantage of this fact.
WBAI can help inform protests while the demonstration is in
progress but the Web is responsible for the huge numbers
that responded recently around the world. A Harvard Internet
Studies Center recently pronounced the Web the "second
superpower".
So, WBAI as radio gives the New York area local color in
our media diet.
It is only radio and management has to keep the
programming going 24 hours a day non-stop. Presently, it
claims to be re-evaluating all programs. In the name of
what? The only way it can improve is provide more variety of
subcultural views. The best way to do that is limit
programmers to 8-week stints and allow more people to have
programs. I recall a persistent caller named
"Monroe" advocating this. Perhaps he's right. If
this proposal is impractical, then let's admit what the
situation really is: BAI is the "Hyde Park" of
local radio, hijacked by a necessarily limited number of
programmers, and that's all it can be. This is entertaining
enough, but please don't make any dramatic
"narratives" out of the facts. Overall, any radio
station offers discontinuous ear candy. It depends on the
temperament of the listener to decide when the sugar is
transformed into real nutrition. It's hyper-subjectivity
all-round.
I would hazard that the common denominator of the BAI
listener is a desire for peace. The perceptive among us know
the question is how to achieve it. "A million voices
instantly respond to this issue". Would we consider
that social peace is aggravated by increased access to
information? I suggest this is the cause for the death of a
public space that the "Left" was, for most of the
first two-thirds of the twentieth century, quite adept in
shaping. However, we don't live there anymore. So is BAI
condemned to the role of a reminder of what the old issues
and revolutions were? Just to be a kind of nostalgic
hologram. What would happen if its management stated this as
a social fact on the air at least once a week? It would
certainly evoke a passionate debate among the listeners.
If BAI wants to attract new listeners, then it must
broaden its appeal. It would have to include
"politically incorrect" programming to really
accomplish this. Am I wrong to conclude this is not likely?
If not, then we are back to square one. BAI cannot adapt to
the new realities. It must remain true to what it
represented in the past. But the past doesn't offer a
challenge to perception and awareness. Only the
uncategorizable "new" does. And that will always
be provided only by new devices and their ensuing
environments. So BAI can only be a Noah's Ark for
countercultural and subcultural effects from previous media.
And this is perhaps enough for most BAI listeners.
"Past times become pastimes".
Now there are new, idealistic adolescents arriving on the
social activist stage every day. What are we to say to them?
"Honor our efforts. Pay your respects." This is
not enough when their sense of urgency is so intense,
especially in these apocalyptic and dangerous times. I've
noticed that these more innocent enthusiasts don't have
national, racial, or sexual differences clouding their
visions. They are instinctively denizens of a tiny planet.
Why even speak to them in the categories of any verbal
language, let alone English? They live a simulation of ESP.
One just has to check out the Matrix movies to feel the
pulse. So, a slow, verbal medium like WBAI looks to them
like a sick, old turtle. Now, over the next couple of years,
as they confront older technological environments that are
too unwieldy to be removed or bypassed, they will be forced
to check their ESP for older forms like speech. At that
point BAI may appear relevant - a kind of lithium, to buffer
their "shock of the old". THEN we can recruit them
in the campaign for universal health care. And then this
museum just might become a successful political force.
I often hear Gary Null on his Natural Living program
marvel at listeners who have newly-discovered health
problems, like cancer, even though they've been listening to
his program for ten or more years. This example should
encapsulate what radio is really all about. That it's a
massage rather than a careful exchange of remembered
point-by-point information. (This is why music is the real
source of power today.) Perhaps most media end up in that
function. And today, with so many media available for
tactile exchanges, I could be amazed BAI is still here. But
I'm not, because the wealth of our time means there's
nothing old under the sun. Although this, in practical
terms, means every environmental artifact has its hand out.
Hence, my message to the present deep-diving WBAI
management and staff is: "Surface at once. Ship is
sinking."
And, remember, never talk politics at a rave if you want
more dance partners. |
