Feature Archives

After an eviction from their previous transmitter site, Free Radio Santa Cruz has found a new site and resumed broadcasting. The collectively run, anti-corporate, community supported station has been providing Santa Cruz with alternative programming to counter mainstream corporate and NPR stations since 1995. Uncle Dennis, a broadcast engineer for Free Radio Santa Cruz, is offering a class in radio engineering during the winter quarter of Free Skool Santa Cruz.

The Freedom of Information Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter, has sent a letter to the BART Board condemning the "wrongful treatment of journalists by BART police," including the arrest of an Indybay reporter, during the September 8, 2011 protest at Powell Station. The Committee requests "assurances that such actions will never be taken again, and new training for officers to ensure that their interactions with the press remain appropriate and lawful."

Free Radio Santa Cruz 101.1 FM, a pirate radio station celebrating 16 years of unlicensed broadcasting, was recently shutdown by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on August 12th when agents served a “notice of unlicensed radio operation” to the owner of the house from which the station had been broadcasting from for the last year. The commercial-free, community station continues to air on the internet 24/7 at freakradio.org while programmers search for a new home to host the transmitter and antennae.

In this eleventh installment in the series “Hidden in Plain Sight” Peter M writes about Maureen Gosling. Gosling is a documentary filmmaker who worked for many years with Les Blank of Flower Films. On her own she made the award-winning film Blossoms of Fire, which deals with a community in the Mexican Isthmus were women play a special role. She is currently working on a film about fabric hand-dyed by women in Mali that is becoming a cultural phenomenon.

Elizabeth Gonzalez is the subject of the tenth profile in this series by Indybay contributor Peter M. Gonzalez is a veteran of the innovative magazine and community service organization called Silicon Valley Debug. She now works with New America Media as a marketer to Spanish-speaking communities, promoting health and social welfare. She talks about changes she has been through over the years.

On February 22nd, Indybay reporter Mark Burdett filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court in a federal civil rights lawsuit stemming from his 2004 arrest for "jaywalking" while covering an antiwar protest in San Francisco. In October of 2010 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Burdett was lawfully arrested. The story was featured in a lighthearted manner on the February 23rd episode of The Colbert Report.

Geoffrey King is the subject of this ninth profile in a series by Peter M. King grew up in Vallejo, went to community college, then to Berkeley, and then to Stanford Law School. He is now a public interest attorney serving the community of media workers. He is also a self-taught professional photographer of social protest. He talks about representing a wronged Indybay reporter, and a night he spent photographing an Oscar Grant demonstration.