Why we need local public radio - not NPR

The real history of KGPR

by Paul Stephens 

(This was published in my Great Falls Tribune "greateco" blog on April 19, 2012)

Every year during pledge week, we get the same group of professional liars and UM alumni to tell us that we don't really have a local public radio station - we're just a satellite of KUFM, Missoula, and thus part of "Montana Public Radio."  We can't have our own station in Great Falls because we're too stupid and apathetic.  So, send your "pledges" to Missoula.

And some of the people who actually started KGPR - especially Bruce McKenzie (who left GF in disgust decades ago) and Sidney Graham (now deceased) - were adamant that we should have an independent station, and not be under the control of "the dicatator" Terry Conrad and the Missoula Gang, who were only interested in expanding their own signal, revenues, and political influence. 

In those days, Missoula had several Marxists on its City Council, and the meetings were broadcast in their entirety on Monday evenings.  So, the first priority was to substitute "local programming" for this 2-hour slot on Monday evenings - because, obviously, the people of Great Falls weren't "ready" to hear a bunch of radicals talk about democracy and local self-rule, and besides, this was just about Missoula.  But no one here wanted to do local programming, so they played tapes of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and other canned music during that time.  (Our symphony conductor in the late 1970's, Mr. Winkler, came from there).

The honest thing to do would have been to have a local public affairs program at the same time, or perhaps broadcast the Great Falls City Commission meetings (or a tape of them from the week before) in the same slot.  But we know that democracy is not a value in Great Falls, and that our government has never been "transparent" or "accountable" to the people.

I was one of the people who wrote the original letters to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting requesting they approve a license for a LOCAL, GREAT FALLS station.  Missoula and KUFM weren't even in the loop - indeed, they couldn't be.  CPB doesn't fund, and the FCC doesn't license networks - just individual stations, and we are, and always have been, an INDEPENDENT, self-governing station, able to contract with any sources for programming. 

That was how we originally contracted with KUFM to use their signal TEMPORARILY until we could develop our own programming.  I tried twice to get on the board to carry forward this process.  The first time, Stever Doherty was selected over me.  A year or two later, John Torstveit and Carrie Calahan-Bronson (sister-in-law of the City Commissioner) and I were all selected for the Board.  We formed a "programming committee" and began broadcasting a "Local Origination Program" on Saturday afternoons - usually just tapes of recordings we made of local events - it was the era of the Great Falls and Montana Centennials, so there were lots of things to record and broadcast.

I know Arlyne Reichert is getting along in years, and her memory is failing, but much of what she said in her history of KGPR broadcast on Thursday during the Mid-day Music program is false.  (Her daughter, Claire Baize, was a graduate of the UM broadcasting program, and her family has always had close ties with Missoula. Claire, for the first time ever, has recently began doing short, humorous commentaries for KGPR, and I still count her as a personal friend).  Carrie is also a graduate of the UM J-School, and worked for Stan Stephens in his Havre station, KOJM.  So of course those "public radio activists" were not interested in a real public radio station independent of Missoula and commercial broadcasters (or the Tribune) here. 

That has been the battle all along.  Do the same people continue to control all of our "news" and civic discourse, or do we have a variety of independent sources with complete freedom to disagree and discuss the important issues of our lives? 

The answer with the KUFM-dominated KGPR is clearly "No." 

I was the first to do local broadcasts of original material in Great Falls.  I was the first to broadcast the Great Falls Symphony and chamber music programs, here.  That is all elided from the "official history" because I was twice kicked off the air - the first time for broadcasting a recording of the Easter anti-nuclear demonstrations at the Malmstrom Main Gate (at John Torstveit's insistance), and the second time for promoting the independent KGPR in 2001, when I was classical music director  (at the insistance of one of the "Golden Triangle" UM alumni, who eventually shut us down, and made us revert to a KUFM satellite station).   In neither case was there any "due process" or the right to defend myself, although I did so extensively in writing - all of which was suppressed. Arlyne and Carrie didn't even mention our two-year attempt to establish KGPR as a fully-independent local station, which they both helped to eliminated under the "leadership" of Dan Rice and some other UM Alums.

I have spent half of more of my working life for the past 30 years supporting public interest causes in Great Falls, and local public radio has been the greatest one.  You can imagine how I feel during this "pledge week" to see this whole history distorted and made to conform to the gangster politics of the local political machines. 

Thanks to Tom Halvorsen who at least has the guts to have long advocated that we broadcast Democracy Now!, and that failing, is featuring a descendent of Al Capone (Tom, like Terry Conrad, is from Chicago) as an advocate for our local station. 

I found out just a couple of years ago that Amy Goodman, the founder of Democracy Now and still anchor of it, was college room-mates at Harvard with Cindy Herbig, a Missoula cellist who dropped out and was later killed working as a prostitute in Washington, D.C.  Because of that, KUFM has steadfastly refused to broadcast Democracy Now! - an independent daily hour-long news program which is far superior to anything on NPR. 

We also get the figures every year on how much KUFM spends for NPR programming - some $280,000, or nearly half the amount raised by our pledges.  Democracy Now, the BBC, and other news programs (I'm sure we could get the CBC here, too, for little or no cost) are either free or very inexpensive.  ATC and Morning Edition are about $100,000/year by themselves, while KUFM only pays $10,000 for the much better BBC, most of which is overnight.  Many other independent news and public affairs programs are available free of charge.  So even if you want to send money to Missoula for KUFM programming, you are not getting your money's worth. 

Please support the repatriation of KGPR to the people of Great Falls, and don't send your money to Missoula, unless you want them to establish their own full-time translator here, which they have always been willing to do.