Page 91 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

80 COMMUNICATION AND CITIZENSHIP

broadcasters) of public-service campaigns. In an interview he recounts
how the idea developed while he was at Group W:
[When I was] at GW I felt we should consolidate all the dollars
we were spending here and there into one focused program so that
we had more dollars to do better programming and do it more
effectively; to promote those [public service] programs, to do it
over at least a year and finally to find some way to measure our
impact. The worst thing you can do is dissipate time, energy,
money, anything.
We try to pick a specific issue or problem peculiar to a given
market and make our station the champion in that area. If we do
something, I think we should own it, if you see what I mean. We
started in Boston with YOU GOTTA HAVE ARTS right after
Reagan came in and chopped the National Endowment for Arts,
then the Mass. legislature also reduced subsidy to arts. Boston
being a cultural hub had a strong identity with arts. We started by
having the company make a contribution to the arts of 75
thousand dollars, as a basis for the campaign so that in the end we
would have a foundation of sorts for continuing support for the
arts. We owned it. Any other station who later wanted to get
involved with the arts would be confused with [W] BZ [TV]!
My role was inspiration. The station people focused in on it and
did a fabulous job. Then they started the Anti-Crime Team (ACT)
and used the station to focus on community activities —using car
decals. Lots of off-air meetings we handled and a lot of collateral
[=non-broadcast material such as posters, stationery, outlines for
local strategies, etc.]. We owned them and continued to live with
these projects and programs. The Police Chief said the crime rate
went down about 8%. Well, if it only went down 2%, we were
still doing a lot. These programs were devices for converting
members of the station staff into evangelistic enthusiasts.
Management at KDKA [in Pittsburgh] were quick to pick up on
what was going on in Boston and they got the idea. It started from
the chance event of a letter being read with a check on the news
from someone who wanted to help create food for the poor. As a
result, a flood of checks hit the station—this led to the creation of
KD’s Army [= the groups of volunteers who pitch in for station-
supported programs] sending barges up and down the river
collecting food; station folk worked joyfully seven days a week,
lots of volunteers.