Todd Mundt - The Iowa Story - A Story for all Public Radio?

Ignorance is surely a form of bliss. Before September of 2005 I knew nothing about and I knew no one in public radio. Like all people who are both ignorant and disconnected, I did not care except in some weak and intellectual way about public broadcasting in America. All I knew was that I quite like WGBH TV, which is on our cable feed on PEI, and that I was getting tired of their never ending appeals to my guilt to support it.

But then I got a call from Jackie Nixon and my life changed.

As I traveled the country and met so many people, I fell in love. I fell in love with an idea. The idea is that public radio could become a vital force for the renewal of society and of democracy in America. I fell in love also with a community. I had no idea that such a wonderful and vibrant group of people existed as do in Public radio.

That's my problem. When I knew nothing and no one, I did not care. But now I do. Like any true friend I worry about my friend. Will she make the right decisions. Will she be OK?

I fear that I have become the archetypal "Jewish Mother" often fretting and carping. So I ask your indulgence. My fretting and carping is a product of my own lack of control. You do what you do. I sit in another country and worry.

But while I worry and I fret, I also am seeing signs that give me hope. I wonder if I had been looking in the wrong place for the first moves that would start to unlock the system?

Isaac Asimov gives me a hint.

His premise is that system change is impossible at the centre. In his great book Foundation published in 1951, he tells the story of Hari Seldon  who, knowing that the system was in terminal decline, sets out to establish a place for Renewal far away from the centre.

Silly me! Naively I had thought that change would begin in Washington.

But now I wonder. What about the edge of the public radio system?

What could we learn from the edge? What if I was to talk more to those that lived out there?  Whom could I call that could shed more light on the central blocks for progress - making a shift in relationships between stations and in speaking directly with the listeners?

So I called Todd Mundt in Des Moines. As he talked to me about Iowa, I could not help but to think of all of you.

Judge for yourself. Here is Todd in Trusted Space Media talking about the new role for local stations, about the challenge of inter station rivalry and the challenge of being radically transparent with listeners.