Posted by Larry Weiss on November 03, 2009 at 23:32:05:
With some 16 odd radio stations on Long Island, I couldn’t find a single one tonight with any decent election night coverage, at least in Nassau County/Western Suffolk. (I was able to catch a quick update every half hour or so on WBZO – I’ll give them credit for the attempt but it wasn’t impressive. If there was more coverage than that, I couldn’t find it as I tuned around the dial).
Meanwhile, in our immediate election district in Plainview, which has roughly 1600 registered voters, only a little over 200 bothered to come out to vote.
I can’t help thinking that the voter apathy toward local elections on Long Island and Long Island radio’s disinterest in genuinely serving local community have something in common. I fear the media’s apathy spurs the community’s apathy, and I long for the days when the FCC required so many hours of news, public affairs and community programming in order to continue a station’s license.
I remember when I worked at WGSM/WCTO in the early 70s, each year we turned the whole facility into election headquarters, and broadcast non-stop local election coverage over WCTO (which normally had a beautiful music format), with strong follow-up coverage on WGSM (a daytimer) the next morning. We had stringers phoning in reports from everywhere and the coverage was non-stop well into the night. (I even remember touting that ours was the first election night coverage in stereo). Obviously, those days are now gone. However, it seems as though any value placed on local community is gone with it.
Makes me sad.