Fact of Fiction?

If Jesus Was Coming Down Through the Clouds in Duluth, Would Your Jock in Albany Know It?

Does anyone in your audience care that your content is not produced locally? Are they aware that your DJs voice-track from another market? These are good questions and they do not have clear right or wrong answers.

People who needed to hear the radio during Katrina sure cared. There was a low power FM station that was able to brave the storm and stay on the air providing some of poorest parishes in New Orleans basic survival information in a new world that had no electricity or facilities. A low power FM was able to give the basic communication that we forget is so important to the daily lives of those who listen to us.

Even people during Katrina forgot radio's power to affect their lives: Some raced into abandoned stores and stole TVs while FEMA gave out radios for free and probably saved lives because of it.

What did radio bring those people stuck in the aftermath if they had a radio? Basic. Information. Someone was there. Maybe the news wasn't good, but it was SOMETHING.

As broadcasters committed to bringing people the Word, which is meant to be life-giving bread, it's our responsibility to safeguard that local connection. We have to be the answer and direction when the storms come to those in our own communities. There is no Internet news service or station, TV channel, blog or newspaper that can do with absolute immediacy what radio does in your own market at ANY given time. Sometimes we only really discover that when it starts raining. When it starts raining very hard.

Billy