Jul 15 2008
Uprising is 5 Years Old!
Five years ago to this day Uprising was born. On July 15, 2003, we broadcast the very first edition of this program featuring, among other things, an interview with Alfred McCoy about the revised edition of his historic book, The Politics of Heroin. It had been over a year since I began working at KPFK doing what was then simply called The Morning Show, a two-hour public affairs program that I had inherited from John Beaupre.
I had held a listener contest to help come up with a new name for the 1-hour incarnation of KPFK’s morning drive-time show and one listener came up with Uprising, which I instantly liked. My producer at the time, Harmony Rising put together the theme based on the song Off-White by the Austin-Texas based band 8 ½ Souvenirs. After Harmony, my new producer Thatcher Collins worked on the program until 2005. That April a young, very talented and fresh-out-of-college volunteer named Gabriel San Roman started interning with me. Six months later he applied for, and was hired as my new producer helping carry Uprising forward to today.
In the past five years we have accomplished much that I am proud of. We have added regular commentaries by Rahul Mahajan and Glen Ford. We have begun syndicating a weekly digest based on the daily show which is now aired by over a dozen stations nationwide, including Pacifica stations KPFA in Berkeley and KPFT in Houston. We have interviewed such well-known people as Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, Benazir Bhutto, Studs Terkel, Gore Vidal, and others. And we have given voice to local activists like Sherman Austin, Hamid Khan. Xiomara Corpeno, Larry Gross, Dortell Williams at Lancaster Prison, and many more. We have announced almost since the beginning, local peace vigils and spoken with the peace activists who organize them. We have added the 60 second Radical Day in History daily feature created by People’s Production House in New York. We have pulled off live broadcasts from remote locations in the community particularly college campuses. We have added a new weekly contest in collaboration with the Pacifica Radio Archives each Wednesday. We have hosted debates, long-form interviews, short series such as “Personal is Political,” and listener calls. We have created a web component of our work with a unique website that is updated everyday within an hour of the show’s end, with all our interviews available online, as well as archives of subversive thoughts, commentaries, weekly shows, and more recently, selected interview transcripts. And, we plan to grow even more with each passing year.
The challenge has been accomplishing all of this with only 2 paid staff. While we have had occasional interns to help us, by and large Gabriel and I have pulled off this amazing experiment each day, sometimes by the skin of our teeth. While we enjoy more full-time paid staff hours here at KPFK than any other locally produced program, just compare Uprising to our sister program produced nationally, Democracy Now, which enjoys 20 paid staff members, not counting Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. So, despite the occasional hiccup, and at the risk of sounding self-congratulatory, we are very proud of what we have accomplished.
Our editorial policy for the program has evolved over time, but continues to emphasize: critiques of power structures, avenues for local activism, discussions of strategies for change, diversity of topics and guests particularly with respect to gender, race, and sexual orientation, and a grounding in rational thinking and verifiable sources.
Our goals for the coming years include: locally producing our radical day in history segments, applying for grants to fund outreach staff as well as producers, launching more live remote broadcasts in our listening area communities, expanding our national syndication to more stations around the country and world, involving more volunteers, and upgrading our website.
We want to spend the last few minutes of this program hearing from you – what you have liked hearing, what you would like to hear, and any other feedback to commemorate our fifth anniversary. We ask for complements and constructive criticism – email us at mail@uprisingradio.org.
4 Responses to “Uprising is 5 Years Old!”
I LOVE THE UPRISING SHOW! ONE OF THE BEST SHOWS ON PACIFICA IT SHOULD BE ON ALL PACIFICAS IN MY OPINION CONGRATS ON 5 YEARS.
Sonali,
I look forward to listening to you daily, although I too often miss it (I ride a motorcycle when it’s running). But your very clear-speaking and sincere style come thru the airways. Thank you for your hard work for 5 years in bringing original, thoughtful subjects to my mind and thoughts. I was honored to see and hear you at my church a couple of years ago (UU Church of Long Beach). Thank you for your efforts in furthuring social justice and informing us.
I had always listened to KCRW/NPR until I went to the Pan African Film Festival and met a guy, that seemed quite politically radical, and was telling me to listen to KPFK. At the time, I was quite adamant with KCRW, though very passive with their approach, until one day I “tried” out KPFK. You were one of my first shows and, instantly, made me realize what I had been missing out on! I’ve been listening for the past year, have become a member and really thank you for your thought- provoking program.
You tell S. Terkel he don’t know social criticism!!!