CHIRP working to give voice to community

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: CHIRP works to give voice to community : Following Loyola's takeover of WLUW, members work to create new local radio station : : Loyola University and the radio station WBEZ struck a deal in 2002 giving WBEZ control over fundraising, staffing, and volunteer-management of WLUW, Chicago's "independent community radio." Loyola owns the station's licensing but had little interest in managing and operating it at the time. Both groups retained the right to pull out of the deal at any time. In July of 2007, Loyola decided it wanted to take back management from WLUW. The University insisted that the decision was made on a purely academic basis. Loyola states it took back the radio station to use as a lab for expanding programs for their communication students. Following the repossession, the university was slow to communicate what differences the change in management would have on WLUW's operation. "They kept telling us nothing was going to change," said Erik Roldan, a former DJ and radio host on WLUW. It quickly became apparent, however, that this was not the case. : One of the first actions taken by Loyola was the firing of station manager Shawn Campbell and program manager Craig Kois. Campbell and Kois had both been with WLUW for a number of years and were an integral part of the station's backbone. The two were replaced by interim station manager Kristina Stevens from WBEZ. Following the dramatic turn of events, Loyola stopped communicating with WLUW, stating that no further decisions would be made until a new dean was hired. : After her dismissal from WLUW, Campbell began researching low-power FM (LPFM) and the Local Community Radio Act. In the past decades, most radio stations in the country have fallen under ownership by larger broadcasting companies, which means that the actual radio shows are increasingly displaced from their local point of reception. "The content is made somewhere and broadcast somewhere else," explained Roldan. After conducting research on LPFM, Campbell became interested in starting a new community radio station in Chicago. She asked several people affiliated with WLUW whom she knew if they were interested, and soon after the Chicago Independent Radio Project was founded. The project, known as CHIRP, currently has a ten-member board. Campbell acts as president; Roldan and associates from WLUW and other parts of the community comprise the board's members. The board jointly makes all decisions regarding the project. CHIRP's goal is to "be a professional-sounding music station that promotes local and independent artists." While this goal is aligned with the old WLUW's outlook, Roldan made it clear to me that CHIRP is specifically not looking to be a continuation of WLUW. "We definitely want to stand apart from them," he said. : So far the board's work has not, unfortunately, regarded any actual broadcasting. The main obstacle in the way of CHIRP's launch as a local-broadcasting station is the Local Community Radio Act of 2007. The large broadcasting companies that own most of the radio stations in the country have convinced Congress and the FCC that there is not enough bandwidth for new radio stations in urban areas, that the broadcast of new independent stations would just lead to interference with the large corporately-owned stations. The Local Community Radio Act, which involved a study that concluded more room exists for LPFM stations in the same area as already extant full-service FM stations, would provide local communities with the means to found new LPFMs. The act is currently sitting in Congress until enough support is rallied by groups like CHIRP. : Much of the work in the first year of CHIRP's existence has been devoted to awareness- and fund-raising activities. Volunteers have worked to send letters to representatives to rally action on the Local Community Radio Act. Two members of CHIRP went to Washington, D.C., and met with associates of Illinois Senator Richard Durbin and Senator Barack Obama to discuss the problems involved in establishing a new radio station. "When you go to those people they are surprised about how laws are set up, so that you or I can't get a license [to operate a station]," reported Roldan. As a result of that meeting, Obama agreed to cosponsor the Act. Right now, timing is everything for CHIRP. If the Local Community Radio Act is not passed by the end of the year, the process of recruiting support from the community and legislators begins anew. : CHIRP recently acquired space at the Dank-haus, Chicago's German-American Cultural Center, to soon begin streaming a web-only radio station while they continue their efforts to rally support for the Local Community Radio act and eventually establish a broadcasting radio station. CHIRP's work to draw support has so far had a good payoff, with over two-hundred people signed up as official members or volunteers. This weekend is the CHIRP Record Fair at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Union Park. The event is a great opportunity for members of the community to support CHIRP while adding to their record collections. : Erik Roldan hosted a radio show on WLUW for five years, he will soon be taking it off the air to continue it at thinkpinkradio.com. : : (Daily Northwestern)

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