A heads up for any Christopher Lydon fans out there. After a 4 year haitus, Chris will be returning to the airwaves (4 days/week) with a new, one hour show.
More below the fold…
Titled “Open Source”, it will focus on journalism on the internets, media and blogging. Initially, it will originate from Boston’s WGBH studios and will eventually move to the studios of U Mass Lowell, the shows syndicator.
A few quotes and links for your purusal…
“Open Source” will be broadcast Monday through Thursday at 7 p.m. on WGBH in Boston and the university’s WUML (91.5 FM) and nationally syndicated by Public Radio International.
Lydon will also work with UMass-Lowell to design a new communications major, contribute to WUML programming, and help with a student-produced local radio program, according to the college. The student program will start in the next academic year.
7:00PM? Uh oh, Eric in the Evening fans won’t be happy.
From the initial press release:
Open Source aims to begin conversations on the Web each day and invite a worldwide audience to contribute topics, guests, and information that advances understanding of issues and ideas. Lydon says, “My ambition, with producer Mary McGrath, is to thread the seeming chaos of the Web into a coherent skein of ideas and argument. We want to launch the smartest, most various, wide-open, irresistible, and democratic conversation anyone’s ever been invited to join, in any format. The Internet transition we’re living through is a boundless opportunity. It extends the rim of the roundtable and the range of the give-and-take to the whole planet.”
LOWELL — In hiring well-known public-radio talkmeister Christopher Lydon for $12,500 a month, UMass Lowell says its getting much more than a locally produced radio program.
Not only will “Open Source” be heard across the country on other stations, Lydon and his longtime producer, Mary McGrath, will serve as consultants and instructors in creating a new UMass Lowell communications degree program, which will be centered around WUML.
“That’s a great buy. I don’t care what people say,” said Lou DiNatale, the UMass Lowell public affairs director, who is spearheading the university’s plan to expand its programming on WUML 91.5 FM. “We hope the radio program is a smash success, but we’re ready
to take Lydon as an instructor in the communications program, too.”
$12.5K per month? Not a bad chunk of change.
Lastly, extensive coverage from The Boston Phoenix:
IF CHRISTOPHER LYDON is feeling any schadenfreude this week, he’s not letting on. But who could blame him if he does? Just a little more than four years ago, he and producer Mary McGrath were fired by WBUR Radio (90.9 FM) general manager Jane Christo in the midst of a very public, very ugly contract dispute. Then, last fall, Christo resigned during an investigation into whether she had mismanaged the Boston University-owned station’s finances. Now Lydon and McGrath are back with a new program, a new place on the Boston dial (WGBH Radio, 89.7 FM), and a new, unlikely partner: UMass Lowell, which will eventually become their base of operations.
* *
“I hope the range of the listenership will basically be global. Through a very active Web site, we’ll be engaging people before, during, and after the program on each subject,” Lydon says, declaring himself to have “a blogger’s enthusiasm about this.” He adds: “We just want to make the show incredibly zesty and original and fresh…. We’re just happy to be cranking.” Says McGrath: “It’s an incredible opportunity for us, and we’re enormously grateful to everybody” — that is, PRI, WGBH, and UMass Lowell.
Oh, and one more thing. If you’re in the Boston area, Chris is giving a 90 minute talk next week at the Brookline Public Library as part of the Brookline Adult Education Program:
An exciting and rapidly expanding revolution aimed at the transformation of media is well underway. Concealed within the little miracle of minuscule electronic files, information is being globally distributed by the people, and for the people. The once vital production studios, broadcasting moguls, central distribution hubs, and major networks are now potentially less important to a journalist than a high speed Internet connection and MP3 files. Growth away from major market media has led to wonderful and experimental Internet news mediums like Slate, and Salon.com, and to unparalleled journalistic potential. But it has also left many questioning the standards of journalistic integrity, filtering and censorship, and the monitoring of trustworthy source material.
This evening, Christopher Lydon will discuss his own unique and extensive experience living and working on the brink of a new system of social expression and information. Christopher Lydon started his professional life writing about politics for The Boston Globe, moved through The New York Times, public television, and one of the smartest talk radio programs on the air, The Connection. He is currently pioneering the audio blog media format, by electronically distributing uncommonly interesting interviews and commentary in a form known as ³podcasting.² Join us as we discuss the fruits, as well as the faults, of the new electronic world citizenship that is radically transforming the manner by which information is reported, produced, and received.
Thanks to Boston Radio Watch for the links and for bring this to my attention.