BBC Berkshire (Thanks Robin Hammam) has created a flood map for its listening/viewing area - above is a jpg and here is a link
The Template is a Google map - the blue icons are photos taken by viewers/listeners of what its like where they are.
Can your local radio or TV station respond to an emergency like this?
Here is Doc Searls on what he has learned from a trip to the UK:
Through the thirty-some years that NPR has been around, public radio has become more and more of an American BBC or about as close as we can get, given that the market and regulatory models are completely different. NPR and the other main public radio sources PRI, American Public Media (which would rather not go by APM) and PRX together comprise a mix that sounds to me like the domestic equivalents of BBC Radio Two, Three and Four. Scanning about the lower end of the UK FM band (where most U.S. public stations also live), that's the impression I got.
But I didn't realize how national public radio is in the U.S. until I listened to BBC local stations in London, Oxford and Birmingham. While it was nice to listen to local stuff on the Oxford and Birmingham stations, I didn't catch how well BBC local radio highlighted a hole in American public radio until I heard BBC London during and after the floods that hit last Friday. Reports of closures, floods and outages on the District and Circle tube lines were even more current than what I found on the services' own website (which isn't bad at all), especially since listeners called in with particulars about their districts and neighborhoods. It sounded like local radio in the U.S. before the whole commercial band went to hell in the '90s.
Much of the response to my proposal for lighting a fire for public radio in Santa Barbara centered on how local public radio does not "fit the NPR mold". In London the problem became clear to me: the names NPR, APM (sorry) and PRI contain "National", "American" and "International", respectively. Their scale and scope are nationwide, and wider. None are local.
What we need is LPR. A number of writers responding to my post pointed out that we have a kind of local public radio with KCSB, the excellent station at UCSB. I love KCSB. But it's an alternative station. It's not mainstream, nor should it be. It's mission is to provide "a forum for unpopular, controversial and/or neglected perspectives on important local, national and international issues". That's great. But what we need is to replace the local mainstream station that we lost when KTMS and KIST sold their souls, way back when. The News-Press' station on 1290 fills some of that role, but with almost zero live local news. (And no website, which is downright weird for a news station.) Commercial radio isn't going to step forward here. It's been too screwed up for too long. The public needs their own station. Here's how John Quimby put it on the Blogabarbara blog:
How ironic that in this modern communication age we're reduced to the kind of small town backwater local news coverage we might have expected decades ago. But of course back in the olden days we already had KDB and KTMS!
Tom Storke was licensed to operate KTMS in order to cover the county with local news. His application was, in part, a community response to the 1925 earthquake. He did it. KIST did it. Other local stations have done it. (Hey Dave, I listened to KCSB broadcast the IV riots and the burning of the bank.)
Where is our local news coverage now? I think it's time we asked to have it back.
BBC local radio is a great model.
I think that what is missing is not money but access to human talent. There are so few people working in stations or NPR for that matter for whom these tools and this kind of approach is part of their day to day reality.
I am becoming convinced that Media 2.0 is not something that we train for - it is something that we hire for and that we build a volunteer group for. Look at the influence of Andy Carvin at NPR! Now imagine 10 more full time Andy's and 100 volunteers - that would move the bar.
At KETC it has been our wonderful interns that have been so effective. At WOSU We are all praying for September when we can reach more students.
On Facebook there are a number of groups that are growing such as I Heart NPR. There are nearly 5,000 members from all over the country. This is up from about 2,000 3 months ago. Every city has members. Why don't we ask them for help?
When we had our final meeting for New Realities in may of 2006 - we showed a film of many of the participants in their early years in Public radio - all beards, long hair and no bras. Public radio was the new frontier.
Bring back the basement and bring back the kids inside public media and I think we will get there.
