Silent treatment

The shutdown of Radio Free Allston could spark a free-speech revolution. Plus, domestic partnerships, a journalist gets busted, and the Times' China syndrome.

by Dan Kennedy

There's more than a touch of the absurd to Steve Provizer's media crusade. Eight months ago, his Radio Free Allston burst onto the airwaves at 106.1 FM without benefit of a license from the Federal Communications Commission. On October 28, two agents from the FCC's Boston office showed up at Provizer's makeshift studio -- at the 88 Room, an art gallery in the Allston Mall -- and politely but firmly ordered him to shut down.

Right in the middle of The Solid Rock, a religious show, no less.

Well, what did he expect?

It turns out that Provizer knew exactly what he was doing. By dramatizing the extent to which huge corporations now monopolize the airwaves, and how federal laws and FCC regulations protect that monopoly, Provizer may strike a blow for low-powered community radio stations -- which have been rare since the 1920s and illegal since 1978, when the FCC stopped licensing stations smaller than 100 watts.

"This is all about what should be on that broadcast band," says Provizer, whose campaign to free the airwaves has moved to the cluttered kitchen of his second-floor Allston apartment.

Since last February, Radio Free Allston (RFA) had broadcast Monday through Friday from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., more or less, offering foreign-language programs, a weekly talk show hosted by former city councilor David Scondras, public affairs (RFA was the only station to broadcast a recent debate among the at-large city council candidates), and distinctly nonmainstream music. At 20 watts, its signal barely extended past Allston and Brighton into parts of Cambridge, Brookline, and Jamaica Plain.

Provizer, who once worked as a writer and producer for TV and radio, can't stand it when people describe RFA as a "pirate" station. In fact, he operated entirely in the open, broadcasting from community events and even receiving a handsome, "whereas"-laden resolution of support from the Boston City Council in July.

But that wasn't enough to keep him on the air. According to the FCC, the complaint against his station was filed by WROR Radio, owned by Greater Media, a New Jersey-based conglomerate with 15 stations in five markets. There is no evidence that RFA interfered with WROR's signal, located just down the dial at 105.7 FM. Perhaps Greater Media officials feared listeners would stumble onto RFA and find it more compelling than Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. (WROR program director Harry Nelson referred an inquiry to the engineering department, which did not return a reporter's call.)

Now Provizer and other community-radio activists fear that the FCC is stepping up its enforcement efforts. The day after RFA went down, the FCC called on Mike Malone, the operator of WDOA (89.3 FM), a 60-watt pirate music station in Worcester, and brought its nearly two-year run to an ignominious conclusion. "They were nice enough to us. It's not like they were swinging axes," says a rueful Malone, who ran WDOA from his apartment.

Nevertheless, the FCC is clearly doing the bidding of the media monopoly. Indeed, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), a powerful lobby that worked to weaken the ownership restrictions on radio stations two years ago, has been urging the FCC to crack down on pirate stations. Earlier this year, after the closing of stations in New Jersey and Florida, NAB president Edward Fritts pronounced himself "delighted" that the agency was "sending a strong message to broadcast bandits that their illegal activities will not be tolerated."

Yet in a mediascape in which corporations can own as many as eight radio stations in a market, and in which deregulation has virtually eliminated the requirement that commercial stations serve the public interest, illegal community stations have emerged as a small but growing alternative. By some estimates, there are several hundred illegal stations operating across the US, on shoestring budgets, often built from kits that can be purchased on the Internet.

Most illegal operators, such as Provizer, say they go out of their way not to interfere with existing signals. But under current law, it doesn't matter. "It does not come to bear whether they're interfering with other stations or not," says Magalie Salas, an enforcement official in the FCC's Washington headquarters. The FCC's formulation is simple: no license, no station. And if a station is putting out less than 100 watts, it can't get a license.

It doesn't have to be that way. In countries ranging from Canada to Italy to Japan, low-powered neighborhood stations operate legally, filling in the information gaps that big commercial broadcasters simply can't be bothered with.

Apart from some rather disorganized grassroots activism, US efforts to legalize such stations are embryonic at best. If there is to be a solution, it may come from the courts. Sarah Wunsch, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, says her agency plans to work on Radio Free Allston's behalf by arguing that the FCC's ban on low-power licenses violates free-speech protections. "We think the First Amendment issues are there and they're serious," she says.

Meanwhile, Provizer is encouraging RFA's supporters to sign petitions and write letters to local newspapers. He's also planning a strategy session to be held this Saturday at a time and place to be announced. For more information, call (617) 562-0828.

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Boston Globe ombudsman Jack Thomas delivered a well-deserved whack upside the head to op-ed columnist Jeff Jacoby this past Monday for a recent antigay screed. Though Jacoby's October 23 column, which criticized gay activists for fighting a Harvard Christian organization's antigay event, wasn't particularly egregious as such things go, it's always useful to remind Jacoby that a majority of his media colleagues find his views homophobic. Jacoby's a smart, likable guy, and he really ought to get over it.

Ultimately, though, media homophobia will give way to the same forces that are transforming the culture-at-large. And there's been some encouraging news on that front recently, as three big media corporations have announced they will extend domestic-partnership benefits to same-sex couples.

Knight-Ridder, with 36 newspapers (including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Miami Herald) serving some 9.8 million readers, became the biggest newspaper chain to offer domestic-partnership benefits when it announced it would offer medical insurance to same-sex partners. Life insurance isn't included, and Knight-Ridder's papers are not required to go along with the home office's policy. But it's still a huge step in the right direction.

Going even further is the Times Mirror Company, owner of seven papers, including the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, the Baltimore Sun, and the Hartford Courant. Times Mirror will extend health and life insurance to "life partners" at all of its papers starting January 1, according to company spokeswoman Vicki Cho Estrada.

And in a long-awaited dropping of the other shoe, the New York Times Company, which owns 21 newspapers, as well as magazines and TV and radio stations, has begun offering health insurance -- but not life insurance -- to same-sex partners of the company's management employees. Union employees were granted domestic-partnership benefits several years ago, and gay activists say they've been puzzled by the delay on the management front.

The Times Company's action does not affect its local property, the Boston Globe, which began offering full domestic-partnership benefits several years ago. Across town, at the Boston Herald, there have been no moves to offer domestic-partnership benefits. But staff writer Tom Mashberg, who chairs the Herald union's editorial unit, says he'd welcome such a step, and notes that negotiations for a new contract will open next year.

According to Sherry Boschert, who follows domestic-partnership benefits for the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, the next big target is Gannett, the country's largest newspaper chain, with 91 daily papers (including USA Today) read by 6.7 million people. The company also owns TV, radio, and cable operations. "What's their excuse?" Boschert asks.

Says Gannett spokeswoman Donna Faulk: "Gannett does not offer the benefit." No word on when that might change, either.

Perhaps Gannett officials, whose papers serve smaller, more conservative areas than those owned by Knight-Ridder, Times Mirror, and the Times Company, are a bit more skittish. If that's the case, Kim Mills, a spokeswoman for the Human Rights Campaign, says not to worry: "Our sense is that more companies are adopting these benefits, with no adverse impacts either on the bottom line or on the way they're perceived publicly."

Unless Jeff Jacoby finds out about it.

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Earlier this year the Weekly Standard exposed the sorry state of the FBI's efforts to track down child pornography in cyberspace. My favorite statistic: three full-time agents to pursue an estimated 4000 potential cases, versus 81 full-time employees in congressional relations and public affairs.

Yet the FBI somehow found the wherewithal to arrest one Larry Matthews, a business correspondent for National Public Radio, who's been charged with trafficking in child porn on America Online. Matthews told the Washington Post that he was gathering material for a freelance article. He did three reports on the subject for a Washington radio station last year.

Matthews's arrest has attracted the notice of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, whose executive director, Jane Kirtley, has cited the case as an example of why journalists should be exempt from child-pornography laws.

As for Matthews himself, he appears to have been hung out to dry. "He's no longer an employee of NPR," says spokeswoman Judy Reese, explaining that his temporary stint came to an end on September 30.

Writer and anti-child abuse activist Barry Crimmins says the Matthews case points to the dangers that individuals face when they attempt to go after child pornographers.

Several years ago Crimmins conducted his own investigation of traffickers on AOL, and had a hand in perhaps several dozen convictions. He always made sure, though, that government officials knew what he was up to, a precaution that Matthews apparently failed to take. That's dangerous in the turf-conscious world of law enforcement.

"There's so many people getting away with this crap," Crimmins says. "Why waste time and money going after somebody who's exposing the problem? Because he's embarrassing the authorities?"

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Just five months ago, the British handed Hong Kong over to the Chinese government after 155 years of colonial rule.

Yet in this past Sunday's New York Times, Seth Faison described Jiang Zemin's "summit meeting with President Clinton [as] clearly the most important diplomatic event of the year to the Chinese."

Guess it depends on the nationality of the journalist keeping score.

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Dan Kennedy's work can be accessed from his Web site: http://www1.shore.net/~dkennedy/

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Dan Kennedy can be reached at dkennedy[a]phx.com

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Articles from July 24, 1997 & before can be accessed here

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