[A-IMC radio] spreading Behind the News through the AIR

[Danyl Strype]

Kia ora Kedron

I spoke to Jim from BtN today and he suggested you or Ian would be the 
best people to communicate with about rebroadcasting his programme. I 
spoke to Ian last week and came to the conclusion that I need to come in 
and meet with you. I also spoke to Sonia today and she suggested I send 
you a summary of who we are and what we want to do.

First a bit of background. I am a volunteer with Aotearoa
Information Radio (http://air.enzyme.org.nz) an emerging network of
non-profit, community-based radio organisations whose goal is to see at 
least some of the airwaves used for the public good as opposed to 
commercial profit. Most of our affiliates at this stage are Low Power FM 
(microradio) stations like RadioChomsky in Auckland, theStationFM in 
Waikato and Critical Analysis Broadcasting here in Wellington. They 
broadcast in the guard band, operated by volunteers
who also cover their costs out of their own pocket. Currently most of 
the programming played on these stations comes via internet archives 
like Radio For All (http://radio4all.org/) from overseas sources.

Part of the motivation for forming the AIR network was to facilitate
the digital archiving and sharing of relevant local programmes from
around Aotearoa. Working in co-operation with AIR, Aotearoa Indymedia
(http://www.indymedia.org.nz/) and the Indymedia radio network
(http://radio.indymedia.org/) Aaron Moore of Raglan Community Radio (a
public access station like yours) has been uploading his programme
'Under the Radar' to an internet server called Paranode. It is then 
downloaded and rebroadcast around the country by the various AIR stations.

I'd like to see the same thing happening with other quality information
programmes like Behind the News on your station and also Earthwise on
PlainsFM in Christchurch. Like any non-profit station Access Radio and 
its programme-makers have the right to download and rebroadcast 
programmes from Radio4All and the same applies to the AIR archive on 
Paranode (http://stream.paranode.com/aotearoa/). I'd like to see other 
non-profit community radio groups like access stations and student 
stations replaying and sampling from this material because I see this 
mutual exchange of information programmes between community radio 
stations as part of a broader strategy of supporting an informed and 
active democracy.

Access Radio could also put links on its website so listeners who miss 
any of your shows we host on Paranode can still listen to them online. 
For Access Radio to set up such a system yourselves would have ongoing 
monetary costs for hosting, bandwidth and wages for a technician. So 
although none of us have any source of funds to pay stations for the 
rights to programmes, AIR is offering the benefits of this archiving and 
syndication system and the knowledge and skills of AIR volunteers at no 
cost. Obviously we respect the rights of programme-makers to choose 
whether they want their programme shared and we suggest the use of 
CreativeCommons.org copyright licenses which specify the conditions 
under which the digital version of the programme can be shared (eg 
non-commercial or use of samples only allowed if the resulting programme 
is released under the same conditions).

I would particularly like to get a recording of the interview I
arranged for Jim with Mark Atkin of the Fluoride Action Network NZ. If 
there are technical issues of how to encode the program into a digital 
file (mp3 is most common although I encourage the use of the superior 
.ogg Vorbis format now that support is fairly universal) and get it to 
us I can help with both software and hardware advice.

Please feel free to email me back or give me a call (3894 246 or 021
11 77 578) and let me know when we can meet and discuss these 
possibilities further. If you can put aside 10 or 15 minutes some time 
next week to have a chat that would be much appreciated.

Regards
Danyl Strype
Volunteer organiser
Aotearoa Information Radio