Campaign Audio from PRX

Victory speeches are up courtesy of NPR.  Free and annotated just like you like them.  Clinton here.  Obama here.

Every couple of weeks John Dankosky pre-produces his daily talk show and goes in late to work. Last Friday on a gorgeous spring day he did just that. While zipping through the meandering hills of northwest Connecticut on his way to work, WNPR’s news director and talk show host phoned PRX to talk about the show that aired that morning. He had on the Syrian ambassador, Imad Moustapha.

“He was in Connecticut connecting with local listeners and I didn’t feel any compulsion to do anything other than talk about international issues,” Dankosky said.

His show, “Where We Live,” is a local call in talk show that stretches the word local. While he makes sure that every show has some connection to Connecticut (Ambassador Moustapha was there on a lecture tour) Dankosky dismisses the idea that “local” listeners care only about “local issues.”

“In actuality if you go up to them on the street they’ll say they care about the Iraq war, the economy, they care about this presidential election. Pretty far down the list is this school budget in West Hartford.”

He pauses.

“People really care about these connections on national and international issues.”

Two years ago WNPR switched from Classical/News to News/Talk. Creating his show was an important part of the switch. Dankosky started with a fragmented crew who pull shifts elsewhere in the station. It wasn’t until recently that his senior producer, Catie Talarski, came on full time. “Where We Live” also steals a technical director and part time producer from other duties.

But a huge asset, Dankosky says, is his newsroom, a half dozen of “the best reporters in public radio” who feed show ideas and appear on the show to provide informed insight on current affairs.

In fact, most of the show’s topics center around stories generated from the newsroom. But then there are the shows on fair trade or the shows he does after each major presidential contest where he snatches pundits from local universities and recently grabbed sound from the PRX election archive.

“It’s trying to have a conversation each day that has some impact locally but also broadening out the larger issues. It’s a combination of local officials talking about very Connecticut-centric things and national authors and other folks trying to put things in larger context.”

Dankosky says part of WNPR’s motive for creating this blend of local, national, and international is to prepare for the day when–according to Dankosky–networks market directly to Connecticut listeners through the web and satellite.

“We have to make things that are all our own. Something that has this local and global connection that people here are really going to like because if we don’t have that then we’re irrelevant. We have to do that.”

But this fear that networks would eventually bypass member stations hasn’t forced Dankosky to join the din of other talk shows clamoring over the typical national fodder. He has so far avoided talking about Jeremiah Wright, for example. Instead, this election year has focused on local news makers talking about national issues. For instance, they have invited all of Connecticut’s federal candidates to their studio to take questions from callers on a range of national and international topics.

Here, Dankosky is happy, weaving a new dimension to local news that always looks global.

Readers and fans can listen to the full interview with John Dankosky in the flash player below. You can hear his show here.

A really interesting story came out of West Virginia this morning, one that will play well in a lot of states watching primaries in North Carolina and Indiana.

Reporter Anna Sale visits a barber shop in Man, WV and asks who people will vote for and why. The answers she gets are blunt and (sometimes) worrisome, but Sale holds the yoke firm to give an unvarnished portrait of current political thought in Appalachia.

Any station covering the election at all next week will want to air this piece. Production is top notch and works easily into ME & ATC cutaways. It’s available on PRX here.  We also have other pieces and on race and politics.  Check ‘em out here.

West Virginians go to the poles on the 13th.

In order to add context to the debate of over Obama, Wright, and race PRX has annotated Wright’s speech to the NAACP in Detroit, his Q&A at the National Press Club, and Obama’s press confrece in Winston-Salem, NC.

So far the national media has been devoid of context so we are offering everything raw but still in a usable way. I urge stations to resist going after the usual sound bites, much will be lost if you do. If you listen to as much as you can I think you will find Wright to be clear-minded and very funny at times.

So far I have seen very little MSM discussion on this. Shame on us.

Wright believes this controversy and criticism against him is actually an attack against the black church. Here, Obama artfully/despicably dodges by saying that the black church is one of “struggle” and that instead of “black liberation theology” he uses “social gospel.”

Just looking at polling data (and to some degree the tactics of the other campaigns) race will be a deciding issue. I hope local stations can raise the timbre of the discussion. Question local religious scholars, black church leaders, and others in the black community. Find out how much race will actually matter in your state come November.

Also, we have WHYY’s now famous interview with Bill Clinton on “the race card”

Again, everything in the PRX archive is available free to public media producers. If you want a tour of our collection or story ideas, get in touch.

I’m way behind the curve today, but PRX has Obama’s press conference today where he (again) qualified his position on Jeremiah Wright.  It’s here.

We have Wright’s appearance at the National Press club yesterday here.

And here are some other pieces on African American Issues

Awash in Democrats we are.

They’re everywhere. Running from state to state aggrandizing thier politics. Majority leader Harry Reid locked the Senate doors this week so he can push his Democratic agenda. And well-whipped congressional Republicans have been forced to parry a cavalcade of scandals and financing woes. All of this adds up to a steady hum of left-leaning policy ideas: tax the rich, free trade is killing Main Street, and universal everything for everyone.

But then we have McCain and his economy speech last week in Pittsburgh. Take a listen, it may just shock your ears to hear something other than non-liberal thinking. Said out loud. In public. To applause.

Flash above and you can download and license here.

Clinton’s victory speech in Philadelphia is ready on PRX here.

Obama’s concession in Evansville is here.

Everything is annotated and of course free. Happy broadcasting!

NPR just sent audio from Clinton outside a polling station. Flash above, here’s the link: http://www.prx.org/pieces/25340

She talks about getting tough on Iran, going negative in PA, campaign debt, and why Obama can’t “close the deal”.

The WSJ has it that John McCain is getting around campaign finance limits by creating state victory funds in key states this election year: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, California, Ohio and Florida. This means contributors can effectively increase their contribution to McCain from $4,600 to $70,00.

Hope stations in the key states run something on it. To help out here’s some FREE resources on money in politics:

• A collection of sound bites from each of the candidates
• An extended interview with Jules Whitcover
  • (Whitcover wrote the book No Way to Pick A President: How Money and Hired Have Debased American Elections).
• Here’s a super fast way to get local data on money in politics
• A feature (4:45) on the history of money in politics
• Everything we have so far

The candidates have so far spent most of their time on the coasts and barely addressing issues central to the heartland. So I wanted to spotlight an excellent interview from Montana Public Radio’s Sally Mauk. She grabbed Clinton after a rally and in 8 minutes asked three key questions for Western states: coal, forest management, and tribal issues.

Coal is her most salient position–trying to blend energy independence, economic concerns, with the environmental core of the Democratic party. In the interview Clinton says, yes, she supports a moratorium on new coal plants. In another interview with West Virgina Public Radio, Clinton ducks and dodges questions of mountaintop removal.

Don’t know for sure, but I wonder how friendly Clinton is to coal staters. But I bet newsrooms out there can find the answer. Go to coal mines, steel plants, environmentalists, and everyday energy users and ask them the questions Clinton wouldn’t answer.

And if you do a story, post it to PRX! Here’s some other resources to help out:

• Here’s a uber-quick gloss of coal in the US
• Here’s an interview Clinton did with (liberal-leaning) Salon.com about the environmental impact of coal
• Here’s Clinton delivering her energy policy
• And here’s McCain’s energy policy
• (sorry, no Obama. But if you have it, post it!)