Monday, January 11, 2010

We need a truly European radio station!

The EP webstream doesn't work with my Mac, so I couldn't watch the Ashton and Piebalgs hearings in video. Ska Keller has been doing a live-ticker via Twitter, but I'm not a Twitter fan and a live-ticker is different from listening to the audition yourself.

In Germany or France, I would turn to the live-relay of a radio station. Both Germany and France have their own political radio stations; you get a live coverage of political events, party congresses and the like via radio.

What about the EU? Where's Radio EU? There are two consortiums, Euranet (which imho will suffer badly from Deutsche Welle dropping out) and the Association of European Radios, but there is no supranational European radio station. The only one coming close is EURadioNantes. But despite a lot of good content, EURadioNantes is a radio school, not an opinion maker.

We need a truly European radio station! We need a station that discusses policies critically, gives background information, finds interview partners and provides an overview over the actors and events in Brussels. The Commission, the Parliament and the Council all offer advanced workspaces for journalists; the Residence Palace is the perfect environment for the shaping of a supranational public sphere. All the location factors are met. So...where are the European radio stations?
Professional Brussels-based radios?
Brussels journalism school projects or student radios of the VUB or the ULB?
I don't see any.

It can't be that hard to organize a radio presence at the hearing of a Commissioner. After all it's possible to organize live commentaries and interviews at any random first-league football game in Europe...

4 comments:

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  3. fußball is ja wohl auch um längen wichtiger :D

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  4. weil sich im Fußball die Zukunft Europas entscheidet ;)

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