Prometheus Radio Project

Presented at The Fifth HOPE (2004), July 9, 2004, 3 p.m. (60 minutes)

The Prometheus Radio Project started with radio pirates fighting for local groups to be able to run community radio stations. But over the years, Prometheus has sued the FCC to stop media consolidation, built stations in places like Guatemala and Colombia, and experimented with using off the shelf wireless technologies to do for hundreds of dollars what commercial stations spend tens of thousands to do. This panel will help bring you up to date on the political debates in Washington about low power FM, reforming the spectrum for wireless broadband access, and the grassroots organizing that can be done to reshape the media. A picture show of community radio barn raisings and stations that Prometheus has worked on around the world will be included.


Presenters:

  • Pete Tridish
    Pete Tridish is one of the founders of pirate station Radio Mutiny, 91.3 FM in Philadelphia, and its legal successor RadioVolta.org. He is also a founder of the Prometheus Radio Project, an organization that organizes for low power radio and provides free assistance to LPFM applicants. He actively participated in the FCC rulemaking and the grassroots organizing campaign that led up to the adoption of LPFM. He tours the country regularly to help start community radio stations and fight for democratization of media, speaking at colleges, coffee shops, living rooms, garages, and even the CATO Institute.
  • Hannah Sassaman
    Hannah Sassaman is an organizer with the Prometheus Radio Project. She has spearheaded national campaigns against the Clear Channel coalition and partnered with local, national, and international individuals and organizations to bring people out in force to the FCC hearings on "localism and diversity" in Texas and South Dakota. She also develops a variety of web tools to bring people's voices to power structures in the U.S. government.
  • Josh Marcus
    Josh Marcus is a community activist and programmer living in Philadelphia. He has been a developer on the open source projects that underlie the Philadelphia Independent Media Center, including the Slashcode-based open publishing system and the studio-transmitter link software that powers WPEB 88.1 FM. He is also a contributor to various open source projects, and the Director of Technology of Datarealm Internet Services, a Philadelphia based webhosting company.
  • Dharma Dailey
    In the mid 1990s, Dharma Dailey learned about an LPFM pirate radio station that broadcast out of a housing project in Illinois. As a teen mom who grew up in low income housing projects, she immediately recognized the potential of LPFM and wondered why something that was so good for community building was illegal for those who could use it most. She's been researching LPFM ever since.

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