Citizens Defending Libraries: WBAI 99.5 fm, Listener Supported Radio for the 99.5%, Needs Promotion- Here’s Some Promotion!

WBAI Radio, 99.5 fm, “Radios for the 99.5%,” “Peace and Justice Radio,” “Free Speech Radio,” the only truly listener supported radio station in New York City, needs promotion.

So here is some promotion we’ve put together.

The following are “carts,” radio spots that can be played on WBAI’s air waves. Some of them are already being played on WBAI. The links below present these as internet versions, YouTube shorts, Tweets, etc.

Members of our library defending community will probably recognize some of the voices heard. And by the way, if you’d like to volunteer to do some reading, we have more spots in the works, or we may produce new versions of some of these. Plus we are producing more, which means you can also suggest new scripts!

Listening to these spots you’ll realize that the reasons for promoting WBAI coincide greatly with the reasons for protecting our libraries, including having refuge from the internet and a protected realm for alternative narratives to the just-not-so and so-not-just stories that the powerful pump out for mass consumption.

One of our newly elected WBAI Local Station Board members* who is expert at and very successful at getting publicity, said that when he was running for the board he was stunned by how many of his friends just didn’t know about WBAI, or, at least, didn’t know what WBAI is up to recently. . . . And that ignorance has serious financial implications given how important it is for WBAI to be a robust institution.

(* Citizens Defending Libraries co-founder Michael D. D. White- whose voice you’ll har in many of the spots- is also on the Local Station Board)

As noted, these are audio spots that may be played on the air, but they are also now set up for internet distribution. Like it or not, the internet has a lot to do with the way things get promoted these days. Also, it is a way to reach out and promote the station to people who are not already listening to the station. And it’s an opportunity to remind people in the internet’s sphere that, when it comes to censorship, there can be a certain tenuous evanescence to the internet and that the internet and narratives there can be subject to strange and problematic combinations of monitoring and manipulation.

The spots below are set up for easy access and sharing via YouTube (including a playlist), Twitter (X?), and Facebook or other platforms. Please consider helping promote WBAI by sharing them.

If sharing produces certain favorites, we may find that means you’ll hear those spots when they played more often on WBAI as a result!

Hope your listening (and sharing) will be fun!

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