Radio, the Internet and Maximizing Resources

I appeared on Carl Redding’s radio program Thursday (3/11) to discuss, among other things, the fight over health care reform. BTW, this is a struggle that goes back to the days of President Harry Truman in the 1940s. What he started then, building upon a larger struggle for what we now know as the Social Security system started by President Franklin Roosevelt, didn't see sucess until 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson was able to sign into law Medicaid and Medicare and enroll former President Truman as the first Medicare client.

Most of our current elected representatives don’t know what they are talking about regarding what President Obama is trying to accomplish and haven’t delved into the main proposals on the table. They wait for executive summaries from staff members who wait for marching orders from their particular political party’s top dawgs.

Carl has health care coverage because he is a military veteran (Marine Corps); I have no health care coverage because I am a journalism veteran. As a former colleague put it, jobs in journalism "are melting away like dirty snow in the new spring sunshine."

But enough of that for now.

The radio program was on a black-owned gospel radio station, WEHA 88.7 FM, that is also on the Internet: wehagospel887.com That led me to at least two thoughts.

First, we as people of color are not as out of the loop Internet-wise as some people want us to believe. There is power not only in the blood but also in the ‘hoods!

Second, there should be a network, not just of gospel radio, but of all Internet-based radio so that we can come together to address issues like health care reform and emergencies such as the January earthquake in Haiti. Particularly regarding Haiti, Chile, etcetera, when mainstream media move on to other subjects, this network could still provide information to and receive information from folks on the ground. It could also help people determine which organizations to make donations to -- the good, the bad and the downright ugly.

I recently came across something called Carribean Christian Radio (www.caribbean-radio.com; “Island Radio Stations Broadcasting Over the Airwaves and via the Internet”). A link between those stations and fellow travelers here in the States (Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Manhattan, Silver Spring, Md., lots in New Jersey and Florida, networks like Black America Web, etcetera) could be powerful. And we wouldn’t have to re-invent the wheel and duplicate what are sometimes ego-driven and fairly fruitless efforts.

What do you think?