news@wmbr.org goes to all of the above. Feel free to ask us any questions you may have.
The WMBR business phone line is 617-253-4000, or 4001 to bypass the voice menu. Feel free to call us there during one of our shows.
MIT students and staff should become station members. This first step is quite easy. Just study a few basic rules and procedures and then take a low-key oral test.
Tests are normally given after our weekly management meetings, or if that's inconvenient you can schedule a different time with our membership director.
If you are an MIT student, your membership will do a great deal to preserve the news at WMBR, which is currently under serious threat.
Come down to No Censorship Radio and tell our thousands of listeners about issues or events of interest to the lefty community. Please always check with us first ahead of time.
Suggest one or more interesting people for us to interview. If you'd like to lead the interview, that's even better. Or just throw in the occasional question if you are feeling inspired.
Interviews can either be live or prerecorded. They can be done within WMBR using studio equipment (with our help), or you can borrow recording gear and do an interview elsewhere.
Prerecorded interviews are usually edited before broadcast, but if you keep it short and tight, they needn't be.
Then choose the juiciest excerpts for air play.
Attend a rally, march, conference, court hearing, or other event, with recording gear in hand, and produce a report.
No Censorship Radio is open to your suggestions.
Talk to the NCR folks if you are interested.
There are often a bunch of lefties hanging out at the station during NCR, including any live guests of course, so feel free to stop by Friday nights, 6-8pm.
This show has the broadest scope, and will generally allow interviews and reports on a wide range of topics, anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes, depending on the subject matter, and how full the show is that week. Please always check with the NCR folks first ahead of time.
Interviews and reports on local issues and events. More selective than NCR. Prerecorded material is generally more tightly produced, more concise. As an added bonus, production of news reports counts as volunteer work. Contact us ahead of time with your ideas.
If you would like to cover an issue in greater depth, ask Mark Weaver about possibly preempting the second hour of Democracy NOW! for your special 30 or 60-minute program.
You should also consider using internet distribution for your programs. This is also a way to publish raw footage or extended versions of your reports which are too long for WMBR's limited public-affairs airtime.
When publishing on the internet, make sure to explicitly give permission to rebroadcast your report, assuming you'd like to see it possibly get airplay on other radio stations. Some people choose to only allow rebroadcast for non-commercial stations, and some choose to disallow "excerpting".
If you feel like getting more involved, we encourage you to propose your own radio program. Slots are normally 2 hours, or 1.5 hours during the public affairs block (6:30-8pm). If that's too much time, you could choose to air an hour of Democracy NOW! during your slot if you like. That way, you'd only have to fill 30 or 60 minutes each week, and you'd be bringing a much needed program to the Boston airwaves (we currently only air 2 out of 5 days of Democracy NOW! per week).
If this sounds interesting to you, please let us know. Although becoming an approved "OTA engineer" is a long process, we can get you on the air before that's done. We'll just arrange for another OTA engineer to "babysit" for you until you are fully trained yourself. This also results in volunteer points for your babysitter, so it's a win-win situation.
The 6:30-8pm public affairs slot at WMBR has recently been reduced: two of the 5 days have been changed to music programming over two recent programming seasons. It is likely that in the future, students will get first priority for those prime time slots. Therefore, students are in the best position to help save the public affairs slot.
Most of us at WMBR use portable minidisc recorders, which can store just under 2.5 hours of high-quality mono audio on a single reusable disc, and which allow simple editing on the device itself. One of these recorders is all you need to produce a finished report.
WMBR has two portable minidisc recorders which you can borrow. Unfortunately, they are currently kept in a very restricted area of the station. Mark Weaver is currently the only news department member with access. Fortunately, he spends most of his time in an MIT office, so it is usually convenient for him to come down to the station on short notice.
He of course prefers as much advance notice as possible via email, but if that's not possible, or
if you're feeling inspired at the last minute to cover an event,
please don't hesitate to call him at the GNU project office
(253-8568), and there's good chance he'll be willing and able to come
down to the station right away.
Getting trained
Feel free to stop by unannounced during either
No Censorship Radio (Friday 6-8pm), or
Democracy Now (Thursday 2-4pm), and there's a good chance Mark
will be there to loan you equipment. These are also the best times to
come down to get a quick training session on how to use the equipment.
It shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to cover the basics, including
basic editing.
WMBR Meetings
WMBR's weekly management meetings are held at the station every Monday at 6:30pm.
Although they are called "management" meetings, they are open to
all station members, prospective members, as well as MIT students
and staff. We encourage you to stop by to learn about the internal
station politics, and to voice your concerns and opinions as you
wish.
Volunteer Work
Since no one gets paid for the work which keeps WMBR running, volunteer work is highly valued at the station. Volunteer ratings are the favored way of resolving programming (i.e. scheduling) disputes. Since the news and public affairs programming is during much sought-after prime time, volunteer work is crucial for our survival at the station.
If you want to have your own show, volunteer work is required. The baseline is 1 hour of volunteer work for each hour of airtime you have. Work related to your own show doesn't count.
If you don't want your own show, don't worry about volunteer work. It's a great way to help out, but it's not required.
What counts as volunteer work is somewhat complex, but here's the basic gist: It must not be specific to your show, but instead must help the station as a whole in some way. Here are some things that count as volunteer work: