Is Vocalo onto something good, or going down a dead end?

[Matt Fleeger]

I've been very interested in :Vocalo ever since the idea of it was first mentioned (through an essay from Torey Malatia) here at Current over 2 years ago.

The two articles about the station on the front page of the site are written from a fair and objective stance. Maybe a little too fair.

Personally, I really like the idea of :Vocalo. However, I think the product sounds terrible.

I don't want to go too far in making assumptions about reasons for this, but there are some trends that I believe are making this station sound so bad:

1. A conscious decision to hire staff with little or no radio experience or background.

2. An attempt to reach a diverse audience by pandering to them in an "LCD" manner.

3. “On-air” programming that is very difficult to listen to. The “worse-than-college-radio” stereotype is spot-on.

There are many interesting pieces on vocalo.org. However, much of the good material never makes it “On-air.” This means that if the user wants to access this content, they must dig on their own through the site.

Overall, I’m still rooting for :Vocalo. It’s one of the best ideas anyone has come up with in a while for public radio. I just wish it hadn’t been so poorly implemented to this point.

[Randy Kinkel]

No, and stop asking! troublemaker! ;-)

[jeanmari]

I see that wink Randy :)

Maybe I should pose a different question. In THEORY, why wouldn't someone in public media want to comment on the funding of Vocalo and its effects on those who pledge to WBEZ? No real opinion? Or, in theory, would it professionally hurt someone's career to comment? Just curious.

[jeanmari]

Thanks, Matt, for your candid and insightful reply. I should clarify that I'm not speaking up because I'd like to see Vocalo fail. I'm only concerned, as a previous WBEZ donor, that CPR either follow their original plan to completely separate WBEZ and Vocalo, OR completely merge them (pledge drives on both stations, acknowledgement on air at WBEZ of the existence of Vocalo so donors know what is going on, share staff and stories across both stations, etc.)

Or they should dial back the scope of Vocalo and make it a number of program hours and not it's own station.

No matter what the model is, donors need to be told about it on air and Vocalo needs to represent during pledge drives if they are going to use CPR money collected from WBEZ listeners. Anything else is unethical and disrespectful of WBEZ listeners.

The current situation entirely benefits Vocalo while hurting WBEZ. I think that WBEZ has served a very important purpose in Chicago in the past and that was to bring insightful, creative local news and stories to the city. To discuss topics in a more complex and nuanced manner than they were being addressed elsewhere. The number of donors and money given to WBEZ over the years would indicate that the listening public has thought so, as well. Recently, the diversity of programming and ability for WBEZ to deliver on this model has really been compromised by siphoning funds to Vocalo. Would some of Vocalo's pieces work on WBEZ? I think so. I think that there is a lot more potential for creating a news-community-social media hybrid that is financially sustainable on WBEZ then what exists now. But there is very little chance of that happening if WBEZ funds are being depleted by Vocalo and the poor people and financial management of that project.

(btw, the correspondence with Malatia that Matt is referring to can be found here: Correspondence with Malatia about Vocalo and WBEZ)

[Susan Barrett Price]

Just FYI, in the Winter 2008 member newsletter, Vocalo is listed as one of Chicago Public Radio's four stations. It is also mentioned in assorted ways in its official reports listed on CPRs web site. I believe my own pledge was to CPR, not to WBEZ.

[jeanmari]

Susan, I saw the newsletter and believe me, I believe that it is an INITIAL step in the right direction. I also believe that the Reader's coverage of the Vocalo/WBEZ mess forced Malatia's hand in this respect.

Unfortunately, the mentions on CPR's website aren't as helpful because you have to know that Vocalo exists in order to search the site and find those mentions. If you don't know that it exists, you won't find it.

Who we THINK we pledge to as listeners is unclear. As recently as my correspondence with Malatia in late fall, when pledge drives were run on WBEZ, any programs referred to as needing support were WBEZ programs. Staff was identified as WBEZ staff. Even when Wendy Turner was on air during a recent pledge drive, she did not identify herself as being with Vocalo. Currently, the separate domain names for CPR and WBEZ go to the exact same site, giving the reader the impression that they are inseparable. Donor letters for WBEZ went out on letterhead that does not mention Vocalo (though it mentions other stations). It is easy to see how the typical WBEZ donor would believe that their pledge goes to support the station that they are listening to during the pledge drive and are completely unaware of Vocalo, how it is being funded now, and the effect of that situation on the financial problems at WBEZ.

Most troubling to me is that, during the recent "emergency" pledge drive on WBEZ to address the shortfall, staff answering the phones were instructed NOT to talk about Vocalo EVEN IF THE CALLER ASKED about it. They were told to direct the caller to contact CPR management instead. This doesn't sound as if Malatia et al. is really interested in letting the WBEZ public take a good listen to where their pledge dollars are going.

By the way, to see how CPR is presenting WBEZ AS CPR (and not separate), you can go to either www.chicagopublicradio.org or www.wbez.org. Most interesting is this page right here.

http://www.wbez.org/AboutUs.aspx

[jeanmari]

More coverage of the donor situation regarding Vocalo and WBEZ. FYI.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/mag/article.pl?articleId=31335

http://blogs.chicagoreader.com/news-bites/2009/02/16/chicago-public...