Story by Chris Graham
The Federal Communications Commission is opening a window for local groups across the country to apply for full-power FM-radio noncommercial educational frequencies.
A Valley-based chapter of the OrangeBand Initiative is aiming to bring one of these stations to Western Virginia – but it is running out of time.
“This is a very rare opportunity to bring a full-power community radio station to Harrisonburg,” said Brent Finnegan, the editor of hburgnews.com, which has been the host of some of the discussion involving the effort to bring a full-power station to the Valley.
Hburgnews contributor Kai Degnan is leading the charge – which specifically would locate a full-power educational FM station in Rockingham County. Degnan and Finnegan also envision a companion website that would bring the content of the over-the-air station to listeners in Harrisonburg and surrounding areas via the Internet.
“I think this would be a really cool opportunity to get the community involved in sort of user-generated content – because almost everyone has a PC or a Macintosh with a microphone where you can do a podcast,” Finnegan said.
“The idea that we’re trying to develop is that people from their home can submit their own content – submit either their own talk shows, anything of local interest or national interest. It could be a political talk show or whatever. I like the idea that users can generate this content – and it kind of has a crossover with the website as well,” Finnegan said.
“There’s no monopoly on information and the dissemination of information – which is something that I talk about a lot on hburgnews. And it’s something that I believe strongly in – that there is a possibility of user-generated media. You don’t have to have a degree in journalism necessarily to do this.”
On the Web
For more information on this, go to www.orangeband.org.
Chris Graham is the executive editor of The Augusta Free Press.
Share
Contributors
