God bless community radio

A few days ago, I was on the air on WGDR, the community radio station broadcast from Goddard College.  I was speaking with Merry Gangemi, host of Woman-Stirred Radio, a “multicultural queer journal.”  It was a great conversation, and Merry asked some really good questions, but the coolest part is simply that the show exists.  Public radio, overall, does essential work (of course I say this; I work in the industry and listen incessantly).  But community radio fills this wonderful, creative, dynamic niche that the larger stations sometimes miss.  Community radio really allows people whose voices often get overlooked to be heard, regardless of whether the programs generate enough “cumulative audience” or fit into a tidy program format.  This is a critical part of what public radio is all about — and it is the part that is most vulnerable to funding cuts.