Listen Up Northwest is a collaboratively produced radio magazine featuring stories of communities in action throughout the Northwest. Each broadcast highlights the work of skilled community radio producers and artists from our region, including Alaska, British Columbia, Washingon, Idaho, Montana and Oregon.

The pilot broadcast (for the first week of April 2008) features pieces on an environmental initiative of the Samish Nation, (Robin Carneen/KSVR), homelessness in Seattle (Adam Vaughn/KBCS), arts and empowerment in women's prisons (Julie Sabatier/Destination DIY) and remembering Japanese internment (Marianne Gutteridge/KSER).

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From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

...Although dwarfed by such noncommercial/public-radio stations in this market as KUOW-FM and KPLU-FM, KBCS-FM still manages to draw enough listeners to show up in the quarterly ratings tables (behind the two NPR stations, KEXP-FM and KNHC-FM in fall quarter, according to the Radio Research Consortium).

KBCS hopes to build on that by rolling out new technology. This year it started an audio archive featuring programs from the previous two weeks that can be streamed an hour at a time, as well as a real-time playlist.

Next up is its digital transmitter, which the station hopes to have operating by the end of this summer. That will enable KBCS to use HD technology's capabilities to provide three channels of programming -- two for KBCS itself, the third a student-run channel tied to a curriculum program to be developed with BCC.

But lots of stations boast the same technology. What will set KBCS apart, Ramsey says, is its community focus, with a rich mixture of specialty music programs (featuring everything from vintage jazz to bluegrass, zydeco and Hawaiian) and public-affairs programming (nationally syndicated as well as local).

The local content is produced by about 200 volunteers who come through the station each month. KBCS has built that army of volunteers with training courses through BCC's continuing education program to turn almost anyone into a radio producer...

Tony Riddle, until recently Executive Director of the national Alliance for Community Media, has left that position and will be joining the staff of Pacifica station WBAI-FM in New York as Executive Director. RTM considers Tony an especially valued colleague (along with others who have recently changed jobs within the media democracy movement, including former Media Alliance ED Jeff Perlstein and former Future of Music Coalition ED Jenny Toomey).

During his work at the ACM, Tony did a great job of highlighting the media policy issues affecting public access, educational and government cable channels, and making sure that the media democracy movement understood how sustaining grassroots community media is a crucial issue alongside media ownership, net neutrality, etc. RTM hopes that new ACM leadership will pursue these connections as Tony did.

The Washington State Legislature will consider a handful of bills dealing with media and telecommunications issues during this year's short legislative session. Live issues include protecting freedom of speech for student journalists, a proposed initiative to expand high-speed broadband deployment statewide, and a resolution asking Congress to overrule the FCC's recent deregulation of media cross-ownership rules. Read on for details on specific bills!

Wading through the flood of news on Iran? Wondering what it all means? On Thurs, Jan. 31, Reclaim the Media joins the Seattle Iranian American Community Alliance to present an evening of short lectures and conversation. Featured speakers UW professors Arzoo Osanloo and David Domke will point the way to critical tools and knowledge we can use to make sense of news coverage on Iran and US-Iran relations. Click here for complete info or download a flyer.