WAMU

RECENT POSTS

November 3, 2010 | 2:34 PM | By

The Kojo Nnamdi Show is at The Arc, tonight.

As I mentioned yesterday, The Kojo Nnamdi Show will be in Southeast D.C. this evening, hosting another “Kojo in Your Community” event, at The Arc. Doors open in three hours.

If you read this blog, you’ll probably be very interested in the topics they will be discussing– including the employment gap, how Ward Eight is changing (organic groceries! art galleries!), plus gentrification. The event is free and metro-accessible (Green Line: Southern Avenue Station). The show will air tomorrow, so if you can’t make it tonight, you won’t miss it entirely…but wouldn’t it be much cooler to ask Kojo questions, in person?

FILED UNDER: Delightful City, Gentrification, Kojo, WAMU
November 2, 2010 | 5:59 PM | By

Kojo in Southeast, tomorrow!

Need plans for tomorrow night? How about some Kojo?

WAMU’s Kojo Nnamdi will be hosting a “Kojo in Your Community” event tomorrow, at The Arc in Southeast D.C. Come hang out with the man whom the Washington Post calls “Maybe the best interviewer in town”. The Arc will be open at 5:30 and the event goes until 8pm. I’ve been told that plenty of parking is available.

Address: 1901 Mississippi Avenue Southeast

Metro: Green Line- Southern Avenue Station.

FILED UNDER: Media, Delightful City, Kojo, WAMU
October 26, 2010 | 11:08 AM | By

Liveblogging Juan Williams on WAMU

Today, erstwhile-NPR Analyst Juan Williams was on the second hour of the Diane Rehm Show, here at WAMU. I listened in…

Interesting: Juan and Diane are good friends, have been for many years; he has been on DR show several times. He thanks her for speaking to him during this “turmoil”. It’s a nice reminder that he’s an actual person, with a long history beyond this and not just a political football or insensitive panderer.

The NPR ombudsman has received 22,000 messages about this? Wow.

“Diane I’m the same person in both venues (NPR and Fox), but I’m aware of the differences in both venues.

“When I was fired, last Wednesday, the woman who called me said, “would you have said the same thing on NPR?” and I said, “of course”…(she tried to say I had violated journalistic ethics)…it would violate my journalistic ethics if I didn’t tell the truth!”

Diane is playing the actual exchange between Williams and O’Reilly for us.

DR: Do you have any regrets…
JW: None!

Williams says that his comment about Muslims is not analogous to the comparisons his critics are making to negative speech about African Americans (i.e. “How would he feel if people said something similar about Black people?”): “There’s no history of black people getting in airplanes and…”. He goes on to describe how fear can be appropriate, even in “small town America”, because “it’s a matter of being aware of your environment”. He clarifies that he wasn’t advocating profiling or extra scrutiny, saying “I simply admitted to my feelings.”
Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Media, NPR, WAMU
October 25, 2010 | 5:55 PM | By

Juan Williams on WAMU, tomorrow!

Fairfax County Public Library

Juan Williams

A few of you have emailed and asked if I’m going to comment on Juan Williams– how about hearing from a far more distinguished employee of WAMU, instead? I’m referring to Diane Rehm; Williams will be on the second hour of The Diane Rehm Show, tomorrow.

Juan Williams is a political commentator for Fox News and until last week he was also a news analyst for NPR. He joined NPR in 1999 as the daily host of Talk of The Nation, and in recent years he’s served as an NPR senior national correspondent. His comments on Fox’s The O’Reilly Factor last week prompted a seemingly abrupt dismissal from NPR. Juan Williams talks about his career, his roles as news analyst and commentator, and his reaction to the recent controversy over his dismissal from NPR. [link]

Tune in to 88.5 FM  at 11am to hear everything.

FILED UNDER: Media, Diane Rehm, WAMU
October 19, 2010 | 1:55 PM | By

“Do not pledge to Public Radio”

I will admit, he's my favorite character on "30 Rock".

If you’ve been listening to WAMU 88.5 FM, you know that today is the fourth day of the Fall Membership campaign– in fact, as I type this, The Kojo Nnamdi show is taking a break to ask for your support.

While NPR stars like Scott Simon remind you that your support powers stations like WAMU, you may have also heard Alec Baldwin, star of “3o Rock“, exhort you NOT to pledge to public radio. We’ve been airing Baldwin’s hilarious segments periodically, but if you missed them, you can find them all here. There are a total of five recordings, including a tribute to Glenngarry Glenn Ross (“Coffee is for PLEDGERS”).

You can support WAMU online here, or by calling (202) 885-8850.

FILED UNDER: Media, WAMU
October 15, 2010 | 2:34 PM | By

Michelle Rhee, a “thank you” and a promise.

Angela N.

A DCentric reader who works for the Georgetown Public Policy Review helpfully sent in a link (thank you!) of an interview that they did with Michelle Rhee yesterday. The questions include, “How do you want your term as DC Chancellor to be remembered?” and “What would you say to education reformers disheartened by your resignation?”. I will admit, I am not familiar with this organization, so to get a sense of what point of view the interview/er was coming from, I surfed around– and didn’t have to go far.

The post which precedes the interview is titled, “Of Hereos (sic) and Villains: A review of the film “Waiting for Superman,” directed by David Guggenheim”. It was penned by the same person who conducted the Rhee interview by email: Padmini Jambulapati. I tripped over the last two sentences of her review:

…in light of Rhee’s resignation, one cannot help but feel that our villains have struck again. But, if the real heroes of Waiting for Superman have taught us anything, it’s that we should continue to hope and aspire for good, in spite of the bad guys.

Our villains? The bad guys? In Jambulapati’s piece, she links the words “our villains” to this Politico article by Ben Smith: “Teachers union helped unseat Fenty“. So the villains are the Teachers Union. Got it. I went back and re-read the interview with that in mind but it felt like it came from a relatively neutral place, despite that review paragraph. This is the portion of the exchange I was most interested in:
Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Education, Michelle Rhee, Schools, WAMU
September 24, 2010 | 10:27 AM | By

On Monday: Diane Rehm on Dog Fighting

BBC World Service

Pit bull puppy

DCentric is based at WAMU 88.5 FM, the NPR affiliate for D.C. We’ve mentioned Kojo Nnamdi on this blog before, but the other WAMU “star” I get asked about when people find out where I work is Diane Rehm. I’m never surprised by such inquiries; her show has over 2 million listeners and this year, she won a Peabody award. The Diane Rehm show always covers interesting topics, but I wanted to draw your attention to the second hour (11 am) of her show on Monday, when she’s going to discuss dog fighting.

I am an animal lover with a Humane Society pup of my own, so two weeks ago, when a rescued pit bull-mix named “Parrot” briefly fought with a bichon-poodle and was shot and killed by a D.C. police officer at the Adams Morgan day festival, I was especially concerned and saddened. On local blogs and news sites, the unfortunate story attracted hundreds of comments about how such dogs were dangerous, menacing beasts who had been bred to kill in dog fights. I’m looking forward to Monday’s Diane Rehm Show, because she’ll be discussing the “culture” of dog fighting, canine forensic science and how to rehabilitate these dogs. If you don’t think the “culture of dog fighting” isn’t loaded with racial or class issues, you should definitely tune in.

FILED UNDER: Media, WAMU