Newswise — News on the war in Iraq often focuses on the latest body counts, with little time for context or connection to the Iraqi people. Since last spring, Swarthmore College students have tried to change that by producing the country's only student-run news radio program on the war.
War News Radio's latest show, called "Images of War," contains a portrait of a young Iraqi filmmaker, a profile of an Iraqi artist who paints the violence, an in-depth preview of the upcoming election, and an examination of what news photos Americans get to see in the mainstream media. Previous programs have discussed Iraqi history, exit strategies, and reconstruction efforts. People interviewed have included ordinary Iraqis reached on the Internet and by telephone, journalists in Iraq, experts from academia, soldiers and their parents, and, most recently, the CEO of the Iraqi Stock Exchange. The program, now approaching its one-year anniversary, is broadcast weekly over the Internet in streaming audio from http://www.warnewsradio.org.
"The program is important because it allows students to engage in politics and discovery in a different way than how we do it in classes and in coursework," says associate producer Reuben Heyman-Kantor '06, a political science major from New York City. "It allows us to explore a war that doesn't seem to affect the day-to-day lives of students on college campuses the way it might if there were a draft. And it allows us to take part in the national discussion."
War News Radio's ability to take part in that discussion is growing, thanks to recent efforts to expand its listening audience. The program is now included in the offerings of the Public Radio Exchange (www.prx.org) in high-quality broadcast format. In addition, sample programs are being sent to public radio stations across the country, and starting next semester, students at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., will join their efforts and form a bureau station. The program also got a boost when it was mentioned last month on the popular blog Talking Points Memo (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006901.php)
"War News Radio is a model for how the new media can be used to responsibly democratize access to information on critical concerns of the day," says veteran broadcast journalist Marty Goldensohn who, since June, has served as the students' mentor and adviser. "It uses the rigors of academic life to create a program about Iraq, its people, and politics. The process of researching and reporting stories places students on the world stage, engaging them in issues through direct contact with policy makers, academics, and ordinary people."
Students can earn academic credit for their work on the project, according to professor of history and faculty adviser Marjorie Murphy. "It ties history, political science, and media studies into one academic endeavor," she says. "The value is that we get to watch students become world citizens while they hone their writing, researching, and interviewing skills."
That work allows the students to effectively communicate the material they learn in their classes to a wider public and to translate academic thinking to non-academic contexts, says Timothy Burke, associate professor of history. "Ideally, that has a reciprocal effect on their academic work," he says. "It also helps them critically evaluate the nature of academic knowledge, both its strengths and its limitations. The program is also obviously a welcome addition to media coverage of the most important story of our times."
War News Radio is the brainchild of David Gelber, a 1963 Swarthmore graduate and current Swarthmore board member who is a producer for CBS's "60 Minutes." Gelber was inspired by a similar radio program on Vietnam that aired on Pacifica Radio in the early 1970s. One of the producers of that program was Paul Fischer, who is now Gelber's colleague at CBS.
War News Radio is one of several recent student initiatives that exemplify Swarthmore's mission to combine academic rigor with social responsibility. In fall 2004, students formed what is now the Genocide Intervention Network to prevent and stop genocide in Darfur. In what was hailed as a victory for free speech, two students that semester won a lawsuit against Diebold to halt the company's efforts to shut down any website that hosted or linked to documents detailing problems with the company's electronic voting machines.
Also in 2004, at the behest of students on the College's Committee for Socially Responsible Investing, Swarthmore successfully pressured two Fortune 500 companies to broaden their equal opportunity policies to bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The development mirrored the committee's successful action in 2003 with Lockheed Martin, which agreed to add sexual orientation to its non-discrimination policies after the College filed a shareholder resolution — the first in the country solely initiated by a college or university since the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s.
Located near Philadelphia, Swarthmore is a highly selective liberal arts college whose mission combines academic rigor with social responsibility. Swarthmore, with an enrollment of 1,450, is consistently ranked among the top liberal arts colleges in the country.
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