Alternative Radio is an internationally syndicated, one-hour, weekly radio program, featuring serious interviews with humanitarian and progressive

Progressivism

Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...

 thinkers. Begun in 1986, it evolved from a program that journalist

Journalism

Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...

 David Barsamian

David Barsamian

David Barsamian is an Armenian-American radio broadcaster, writer, and the founder and director of Alternative Radio, the Boulder, Colorado-based syndicated weekly talk program heard on some 125 radio stations in various countries....

 hosted on community radio station KGNU

KGNU

KGNU AM/FM is an independent radio, non-commercial radio, Community radio station for Boulder and Denver, Colorado, USA. KGNU is owned by Boulder Community Broadcast Association, Inc.-Programming and operations :...

-FM, in Boulder, Colorado

Boulder, Colorado

Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...

. AR is currently heard on more than 200 radio station

Radio station

Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...

s around the world. It is entirely self-funded through donations and sales of recordings of individual programs. All programs are archived; some are available for free download and the others for a $5.00 fee. CDs are also available.

Perhaps the best known of AR's programs have been Barsamian's series of interviews with dissident

Dissent

Dissent is a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or an entity...

 intellectual Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...

. Many of Barsamian's broadcast interviews have been published in book form. As of December 2009, archived program listings show about 400 individuals who have been either interviewed or were recorded lectures. Notable guests who have been interviewed include:

• Tariq Ali
  Tariq Ali
  Tariq Ali , , is a British Pakistani military historian, novelist, journalist, filmmaker, public intellectual, political campaigner, activist, and commentator...
  
  
• Jello Biafra
  Jello Biafra
  Jello Biafra is an American musician, spoken word artist and leading figure of the Green Party of the United States. Biafra first gained attention as the lead singer and songwriter for San Francisco punk rock band Dead Kennedys...
  
  
• Andrew Bacevich
  Andrew Bacevich
  Andrew J. Bacevich, Sr. is a professor of international relations at Boston University and a retired career officer in the United States Army...
  
  
• Lester Brown
• Robert Fisk
  Robert Fisk
  Robert Fisk is an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent. As Middle East correspondent of The Independent, he has primarily been based in Beirut for more than 30 years. He has published a number of books and has reported on the United States's war in Afghanistan and the same country's...
  
  
• George Galloway
  George Galloway
  George Galloway is a British politician, author, journalist and broadcaster who was a Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2010. He was formerly an MP for the Labour Party, first for Glasgow Hillhead and later for Glasgow Kelvin, before his expulsion from the party in October 2003, the same year...
  
  
• Amy Goodman
  Amy Goodman
  Amy Goodman is an American progressive broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author. Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, an independent global news program broadcast daily on radio, television and the internet.-Early life:Goodman was born in Bay Shore, New York...
  
  
• Seymour Hersh
  Seymour Hersh
  Seymour Myron Hersh is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters...
  
  
• Bill Moyers
  Bill Moyers
  Bill Moyers is an American journalist and public commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the United States President Lyndon B. Johnson Administration from 1965 to 1967. He worked as a news commentator on television for ten years. Moyers has had an extensive involvement with public...
  
  
• Arundhati Roy
  Arundhati Roy
  Arundhati Roy is an Indian novelist. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things, and has also written two screenplays and several collections of essays...
  
  
• Joseph Stiglitz
• Howard Zinn
  Howard Zinn
  Howard Zinn was an American historian, academic, author, playwright, and social activist. Before and during his tenure as a political science professor at Boston University from 1964-88 he wrote more than 20 books, which included his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United...
  
  

External links

• Alternative Radio website
• Alternative Radio (Australia) website
• "Leftoverture" by Michael Roberts, Westword, August 2000
• List of AR speakers in Alternative Radio archive