By BILL CHAISSON
I like radio as a medium. Its lack of a visual component means that it can fade into the background around the house and that it is safe to have in the car with you. The invention of the transistor radio and then the “boom box” made radio mobile, which was not a particularly good thing, as we can plainly see now with the ubiquity of mobile phones. While phones have had a visual component for many years now and are therefore distracting and annoying, radios at the beach and picnics meant the public places became noisier, sometimes to the point of cacophonous.
I have an old tube radio at home in the kitchen. When you turn it on, it takes a while to warm up and start emitting sound. It, of course, has an analog dial, which means you have tune in stations manually. The tone is “that warm analog sound”; human voices sound like human voices.
I don’t tend to listen to commercial radio as the music is not to my taste. It is music that is made by corporations that they market as accompanying a lifestyle that is defined by the sorts of things that you might buy from other corporations (that will then be shipped to you with the help of yet more corporations). I got involved with college radio when I was in graduate school and have regularly been involved with it or community radio since. It is a good way to become familiar with a lot of different types of music, but I have also used it as a complement to my print journalism job. I developed a show called “Shin Hollow Radio” for the station of the Cornell Radio Guild in Ithaca, New York that I used as an opportunity to interview at length and in public interesting people that I had encountered while doing articles for the newspaper.
Radio doesn’t have to be non-commercial to be good. When I was in grad school in Amherst, Massachusetts, I often listened to the station up in Greenfield, Massachusetts, which was independently owned at the time (this was the late 1980s and early ‘90s). I have particularly fond memories of the Friday night show hosted by “Buddy Rubbish” (real name Louis G. Roscher). Buddy opened the window of the studio that looked down on an adjacent alley and people would drive by and shout requests (and other more hilarious comments) up to him. It was immediate (you could hear the traffic noise of downtown Greenfield) and a little dangerous (you never knew what people would say) and it was very personal and local (you got a strong feeling of community). These are all the things that make radio wonderful.
There are probably commercial stations like that here and there to this day, but mostly this immediate, slightly dangerous, and personal approach has been left to community, college, and some public radio stations. National Public Radio has become rather staid in its middle age (it was founded in 1970) and it makes me laugh to hear people describe it as “liberal.” Most of my truly left-wing friends cannot stand NPR because it is fair and balanced instead of a voice of the fire-breathing left. If you want left-wing radio, try Pacifica.
I like having access to two quite different public radio stations in this region. Vermont Public Radio seems to attract a lot of the adulation and awards. Last month they won six Regional Edward R. Murrow awards, including one for “overall excellence.” Their programming, with names like “Brave Little State” and “Rumble Strip,” very much conforms to the popular image of Vermont as somewhat eccentric and yet aspirational.
In contrast, New Hampshire Public Radio comes across as more down to earth and willing to talk about how much stuff costs, with locally produced series like “Only in New Hampshire” and “Adequate” (about the cost of public education). One need only compare the morning interview shows “Vermont Edition” and “The Exchange” to hear the difference in the two states’ approaches to public radio. The Vermont show and its laid-back host Jane Lindholm often focus on what is wrong and who is trying to fix it. The New Hampshire show and its hyper-active host Laura Knoy more often take a “let’s just take a look at this” approach to issues. I don’t really favor one over the other and it is certainly nice to have both.
Although both state networks produce their own programs, much of their schedule is syndicated, produced at public radio stations all around the country. “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” is based in Chicago; “Milk Street Radio” and “Here and Now” in Boston; “On the Media” in New York; and “To the Best of Our Knowledge” is produced by Wisconsin Public Radio.
The name of the last show rather sums up the NPR approach to news and frankly our culture in general. It is an approach to news that appeals to reason rather than to a political viewpoint. Conservative elected officials and commentators are regular guests on NPR shows, although some profess to be bemused to find themselves there. Conservatives also often find themselves surprised that they are allowed to speak at length on NPR and asked questions that are meant to draw them out, not give them a hard time. Leftists, on the other hand, are greeted with skepticism by NPR hosts when they trot out their conspiracy-of-the-right theories and are asked to justify their more outré positions with some facts.
As relaxed and reasonable as NPR is, it can be rather outdone by the Canadians. Vermont Public Radio happily broadcasts the CBC news magazine show “As It Happens,” which sounds a bit like NPR conducted from really comfortable chairs and with a nice view of the lake out the window. When they call up guests to interview them, you can hear them pick up the phone and at the end of the interview they will sign off with some Canadianism like “bye then” and you’ll hear it click as they hang up. And the hosts will chat with the premier of New Brunswick in the same sort of offhand tone as they address the owner of a paint store owner in Inuvik who is having polar bear problems.
In an era when the mass media — now in tandem with social media — seems to be constantly trying to wind you up, panic you, and generally trying to convince that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, I find it to be a bit of a relief to have a source of news and information that is not only relatively calm and occasionally even funny, but also based on an appeal to our better angels, our reason and our capacity for empathy.
Bill Chaisson is the editor of the Eagle Times and is probably listening to the radio right now.
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