Strength of Community Radio Fabric on Display at the 2011 Grassroots Radio Conference
GRC conference quilt Community radio producers, DJ's, advocates, organizers, engineers, and students came together for the 2011 Grassroots Radio Conference in Kansas City to share the joys and frustrations with producing independent, community-focused media. The vision of an informal national network of Community Radio stations is represented by the conference quilt that stitches together several radio station T-shirts. This vision, which references a dedication to local communities is as strong as ever, but masks the difficulty of maintaining resources and developing new programs. Representatives from stations as disparate as KPFA in San Francisco, KKFI in Kansas City, WORT in Madison, KOPN in Columbia, Missouri, KCSB in Santa Barbara, and many others spoke about the difficulty in attracting community organizations and individuals to produce their own programs. Joy Rushing with KOPN noted the lack of student involvement in the operations and programming of that station desp...