On the air: community radio in action

KGNU-FM features both original as well as network programming from Pacifica. The Pacifica Radio Network, founded in 1946 by pacifist Lew Hill, was the first public radio network in the United States. Its mission is to promote: “Peace, justice, and democratic discourse by fostering communication across diverse races, nationalities, and cultures, while [ensuring] the full distribution of public information by providing access to news and sources often overlooked or excluded by mainstream  commercial media.” 

Pacifica is a network of five independently operated, non-commercial, listener-supported radio stations in the US. The network produces and provides programming of a fearlessly progressive political orientation to over 200 community radio stations. It is operated by the Pacifica Foundation, with national headquarters adjoining station KPFA in Berkeley, California. KPFA became a rare media outlet for cultural and ideological pluralism during McCarthyism and an antidote to the conformism of the 1950s. Alan Watts, Langston Hughes, Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsberg and Linus Pauling shared the Pacifica airwaves with Caspar Weinberger, Edward Teller, the father of the H-Bomb, and the John Birch Society.

The network, which does not carry paid announcements, created the listener-supported funding model, which Hill calculated could be self-sustaining if just 2% of listeners contributed a modest fee. The five flagship stations still broadcast from Washington (WPFW), Houston (KPFT), New York City (WBAI), Los Angeles (KPFK), and Berkeley (KPFA). Pacifica also inaugurated the public-interest gavel-to-gavel live radio coverage format, beginning with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings of the 1950s. Unlike NPR or PBS, Pacifica is able to break format on a dime to provide its own special moderated coverage of events and distribute the broadcast nationwide to its subscribing public radio affiliates.

Locally Produced:

• Alternative Radio (Analyses and views that are ignored or distorted in most media) 

• Calendars (Concert Calendar and Events Calendar what’s going on in music locally, including “KGNU presents” shows, events posted by local organizations, read on-air)

• Connecting the Drops (An ongoing, statewide collaborative radio series focused on water issues in Colorado, co-produced by RMCR)  

• Connections (Weekly call-in program focusing on a variety of topics) 

• Dot Org (Brief profiles of local not-for-profits, the work they do, how to get involved)

• Hemispheres (Focused on international and national issues)

• How on Earth (Interviews of scientists from Colorado and around the world)

• Indian Voices (Explores Native American issues, music and culture) 

• It’s the Economy (Discussions of economic import with experts on topics affecting Colorado and beyond)

• The Labor Exchange (Interviews with local and national labor activists and workers) 

• La Lucia Sigue (Stories/issues from Latin America and the Caribbean seldom heard in the US media)

• Lanterns Over the Rockies (Stories of Colorado’s diverse Asian American communities) 

• Listener Comment Line (Listeners leave a message about what they like/don’t like about what they’ve heard on KGNU. Broadcast every week)

• Living Dialogues (Featuring pioneers in new paradigm thinking in a broad variety of fields. Each show provides a different facet of the vision emerging from the work of many to transform our individual lives—and our planet) 

• Looks Like New (Asks old questions about new technology, via CU’s Media Economies Design Lab)  

• Metro (News and issues affecting the Denver, Boulder & Front Range with a collective of hosts) 

• Metro Arts (Weekly arts magazine format show) 

• The Morning Magazine (Daily coverage of local and regional public affairs and news, with headlines and commentary)

• Outsources (News and information around and for the local LGBTQ+ community). 

• Pasa La Voz (Spanish Language news/health/public affairs) 

• A Public Affair (In-depth, call-in discussions around local news and rotating series such as “Talking Black,” and regular shows on practicing non-violent communication) 

• Rocky Mountain Community Radio Regional Round-Up (Weekly highlights from stories produced regionally by a coalition of non-commercial radio stations in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming). 
  

Pacifica Radio Network Syndicated Programming Shows carried by KGNU weekly: 

• The Alan Watts Program (Philosopher Alan Watts presented eastern spirituality to western audiences. This weekly show presents hundreds of lectures and seminars recorded in the 1960s, archived by Pacifica) 

• Between the Lines (News magazine featuring progressive perspectives on national and international political, economic and social issues) 

• Bioneers (Featuring social and scientific innovators from all walks of life and disciplines who have peered deep into the heart of living systems to understand how nature operates)

• Counterspin (Bringing listeners the news behind the headlines, exposing biased and inaccurate reporting; censored stories and narrow political debate) 

• Democracy Now (A daily progressive, independent syndicated program of news, analysis, and opinion hosted by Amy Goodman, with headlines) 

• Economic Update (Economist Richard Wolf takes complex economic issues and makes them understandable, empowering listeners with information to analyze their own financial situation and the economy at large)

• Latino USA (Latino news and culture, in English, hosted by award winning broadcaster and journalist, Maria Hinajosa)  

• Laura Flanders and Friends (Conversations about change and change-making with leading thinkers and doers, as well as commentaries and field reports) 

• Linea Abierta (Connecting Spanish-speaking audiences throughout the US and Mexico) 

• New Dimensions (Strives to provide listeners with an experience of what it means to be human on the planet in these times) 

• Peace Talks Radio (Created to inform, inspire and improve the human condition) 

• The Project Censored Show (Celebrating independent journalism while fighting media censorship, deconstructing propaganda, and supporting a truly free press) 

• The Ralph Nader Radio Hour (“What’s happening in America, what’s happening around the world, and most importantly what’s happening underneath it all”)  

• Reveal (Engaging and empowering the public through investigative journalism and groundbreaking storytelling in order to spark action, improve lives and protect our democracy)  

• Rising Up with Sonali (Lifting up solutions that bring us closer to economic, racial, gender, and environmental justice) 

• Sea Change Radio (Focused on the shift to environmental and economic sustainability)

• Sprouts: Radio from the Grassroots (Produced by grassroots community radio stations, Indy Media Centers, and other independent production groups, bringing news, cultural and progressive stories from local communities to the national airwaves) 

• TUC Radio (“Time of Useful Consciousness” is an aeronautical term. It is the time between the onset of oxygen deficiency and the loss of consciousness. These are the brief moments in which a pilot may save the plane.)  

• W.I.N.G.S. (Women’s International Newsgathering Service is a news and current affairs series featuring strong women’s voices and ideas from around the world)