Summer 2013 Staff Transitions

 Summer 2013 Staff Transitions

This summer has been a transformative time for Prometheus. As we prepare community groups to become LPFM applicants, and eventually to become full-fledged community radio stations, our staff has grown to welcome new members into the Prometheus family. Our staff is prepared now more than ever to seize this opportunity to get radio into the hands of communities nationwide!

While we are thrilled to approach the LPFM filing window in October, we are sad to bid farewell to two staff members who have helped bring us to this victorious moment for community radio.  While Brandy Doyle (Policy Director) and Jeff Rousset (National Organizer) are transitioning off of our full-time staff, they will always be a part of the fight for community radio and will still have close ties to this grassroots movement.

Here are some reflections from our outgoing Policy Director Brandy Doyle and an introduction to our new Policy Director Sanjay Jolly:

"After four amazing years, I am writing to say thank you and farewell as I leave the Prometheus staff for new adventures. I am grateful to have worked with so many incredible leaders in the community radio movement, and excited for all that's ahead for Prometheus.

I joined Prometheus in the final years of the long battle to pass the Local Community Radio Act. As a media activist and a community radio reporter, the opportunity to work for a better media full-time was a dream come true. I had lobbied my own Congressman for the bill and testified about media consolidation at a 2007 FCC hearing in Tampa. Having attended a Prometheus station barnraising, I was inspired by Prometheus' tenacity and vision. Joining the staff in 2009, I learned so much from the skilled and dedicated advocates leading the fight.

Since then, I've had the incredible privilege to continue fighting with you for a more democratic media. With the Local Community Radio Act, we created a historic opportunity together. Pushing the FCC to implement the law with strong new rules and the first LPFM filing window since 2000, we turned that opportunity into a reality. 

Now Prometheus is helping hundreds of groups apply for stations, and the roster of these groups is humbling and inspiring. Over the next few years, Prometheus will work to get them on the air, and the stations we build together will transform all our communities. It's an exciting time, and Prometheus is ready.

Although I've left the staff and moved to Oakland, California, I won't be far away. I am serving as a community radio consultant with our allies at Color for Change, a powerful organization working to strengthen the political voice of Black America. Color of Change is supporting its members apply for low power stations this October, and I am honored to help. I will continue to be available to Prometheus as a consultant and a lifelong fan.

I also want to welcome Sanjay Jolly, who will pick up the torch as our new policy director. Sanjay earned his undergraduate degree from the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, and he brings strong advocacy and organizing skills to Prometheus.

Sanjay developed his commitment to community radio working in Guatemala, where indigenous communities depend on radio as the only source of news and information in their languages. Under a neoliberal spectrum policy with no legal access to the airwaves, they risk government raids to broadcast, asserting communication as a fundamental human right.

Sanjay has worked closely with a Guatemalan community radio association fighting for legal recognition of community radio, facing many of the same obstacles we do in the U.S. He's fluent in Spanish as well, adding to our Spanish-language capacity at Prometheus.

Sanjay has also done important organizing work here in the U.S., campaigning for the rights of undocumented students. Working with the Coalition for Tuition Equality and the ACLU of Michigan, he helped to pressure the University of Michigan to change its policies for undocumented students. Sanjay then helped to write the unversity's internal review on tuition and admissions policies for undocumented students.

With so much important work ahead for Prometheus, I'm excited that we have Sanjay to help lead the way. Please join us in welcoming him!

-Brandy"

Jeff Rousset has been our National Organizer for the last two years. Here are some thoughts he wanted to share with all of the friends, allies and partners he has come to know through his work with Prometheus:

"June was the final month of outreach in Prometheus' 15 year campaign to transform the media. That means my work here is done! July is my last month on staff at Prometheus.

It's been an honor and a privilege serving as the National Organizer at Prometheus for these last two years. I've talked with thousands of people from coast to coast about the one-time chance this year to grab a slice of the airwaves. I visited the Southeast, Southwest, and Northwest on tours to reclaim the media. I've had the chance of a lifetime to collaborate with incredible outreach partners and press outlets that I greatly admire to spread the fire of community radio across the land.

I have a tremendous amount of gratitude for all of you who made calls, organized meetings, sent emails, tweeted, posted on Facebook, and did so much more to make sure we can live in a more democratic country, with a media system that is not controlled by corporations, but powered by the people.

I also had the great privilege of working with the Prometheus team, which includes staff, board members, interns, and volunteers. I've learned so much from each of you about what it takes to win. Prometheans are among the most creative, intelligent, and committed folks I've ever had the pleasure to work with. The dedication to democracy doesn't just express itself through campaigns for media justice, but is woven throughout the entire fabric of the organization. Being a collective staff member was not always easy, but it was always worth it. And guess what - we did it!

More than six thousand individuals have told us they want to start community radio stations. Almost one thousand organizations have committed to apply for new broadcast licenses this October. Thanks to the persistent efforts over the last 15 years of everyone at Prometheus, and everyone who has supported this movement, the future of media can be radically different. Our relationship to media is transformed. We're not just consumers, we are also producers. We've not only spectators, all of us are important actors.

As the billionaire Koch brothers plan to buy some of the biggest newspapers in the country to push their right-wing agenda, government spy agencies like the NSA monitor everyone's online activities all the time, and racist corporate-controlled media criminalize communities of color, contributing to state-sanctioned crimes like the murder of Trayvon Martin and the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border, it's clear that we need to control our own media to build movements for social change.

Hundreds of new people-powered media outlets will go on air between 2014 - 2018. I can't wait for the next community radio barnraisings! From the bottom of my heart - so much love and thanks to everyone at Prometheus, and everyone who has supported this work.

Stay in touch! You can still reach me on Facebook, Twitter, or by emailing me at jeff.rousset [at] gmail.com.

Seize the airwaves! Power to the people!

-Jeff"

Additionally, Prometheus would like to welcome and thank our Outreach & Applicant Support Team and our Summer Interns who are working hard to get resources and information into the hands of community groups and LPFM applicants. We could not do as much as we do without their dedication and creativity. Thank you!

Outreach & Applicant Support Team:
Scott Pinkelman
Leah Girardo
Jacob Ertel
Julia Graber
Peter Hayakawa

Summer Interns:
Michael DeSarno, Get Radio Legal Research
Margaret DeWyngaert, Development & Communications
Sophie Hess, Get Radio Non Profit Policy
Kevin Skinker, Graphic Design
Gray Stanton, Field Research