Making Contact (radio program)
Encyclopedia
Making Contact
Making Contact is a 29-minute weekly magazine/documentary-style public affairs program heard on community and public radio stations in the USA, Canada, South Africa and Ireland.
It is produced by National Radio Project, which distributes public affairs and news programs to non-commercial radio stations without charge. National Radio Project also distributes program copies to educational institutions and community organizations. Making Contact features voices not normally heard on mainstream media. Issues covered include: climate justice, immigration, prison reform, reproductive justice, food politics, water issues, and many other topics. National Radio Project is based in Oakland, CA. Its stories span the entire U.S. and the globe. As of 2011, it is aired in 39 states on 139 stations.
In 2007, Making Contact was subscribed to by 180 radio stations.
Notable Guests have included:
Cornel West
- Author of numerous books and professor at the Center for African American Studies and Department of Religion at Princeton University
, here speaking at the Left Forum
Laura Flanders
- Author, host and founder of GRITtv
, here speaking at the Left Forum
Paul Mason
- Economics Editor for BBC’s Newsnight and author of Live Working, Die Fighting, here speaking at the Left Forum
Nawal El Saadawi
- Author activist and re-founder of the Egyptian Women’s Union interviewed about the role women played in the 2011 revolution that successfully brought down a regime.
Michelle Alexander
- Author of ‘The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness’ makes the case that the US’ criminal justice system policies can be traced directly back to slavery.
Robert Fisk
- Longtime Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk speaks about the power of words in shaping public opinion and public policy, and the tragic consequences of a press corps that toes official line: in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine.
Maria Hinojosa
- Mexican-American journalist Maria Hinojosa speaks about the United States’ loss of humanity in dealing with immigrants and immigration.
Chris Hedges
- Renowned author Chris Hedges describes a world in rapid economic, environmental, and spiritual decline.
Paul Loeb - Seattle author Paul Loeb speaks with two ordinary people turned activists profiled in his book “Soul of a Citizen”.
Joanna Macy
- Dr. Joanna Macy is a long-time peace, justice, and ecology activist.
Dahr Jamail
- Journalist and author Dahr Jamail speaks about the stresses on U.S. soldiers, on-going wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the growing refusal to serve among members of the US military.
Nadje Sadig Al-Ali
- Author and activist Nadje Al-Ali talks about the reality of women’s lives in Iraq.
Erica Fernandez - Erica Fernandez, environmental activist who helped prevent a liquefied natural gas plant from being built near her hometown of Oxnard, California speak at the 2008 Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California.
Arundhati Roy
- Renowned author and activist, Arundhati Roy, speaks about the future of Kashmir.
David Barsamian
- David Barsamian, author and Alternative Radio founder, producer and host, speaks on the future of Kashmir.
David Korten
- David Korten spoke to an audience at the First Congregational Church in Oakland, California, about why he thinks we’re on the cusp of a major shift from a world dominated by economic values to one that embraces human values.
Daniel Ellsberg
– On this edition, we hear from Ellsberg delivering a speech to anti-war activists at the Crawford Peace House in Texas. He reflects on civil disobedience advocating for people to blow the whistle and go to jail in order to save lives.
The Society for Professional Journalists (Northern California Chapter) gave Andrew Stelzer an awardfor Explanatory Journalism for his documentary about civilian oversight of the police called "Breaking Through the Blue Wall of Silence."
2009
The Society for Professional Journalists (Region 11) gave Making Contact correspondent Adelaide Chen a first place award for In-Depth Radio Reporting in the University category. Her documentary, "Neither Here nor There: Bhutanese Refugees in the U.S," was edited and produced by Making Contact's Pauline Bartolone.
The National Council on Crime and Delinquency gave Making Contact producers Andrew Stelzer, Pauline Bartolone and Tena Rubio a PASS (Prevention for A Safer Society) award for Andrew Stelzer's documentary "Breaking Through the Blue Wall of Silence."
2008, Executive Producer Tena Rubio won a National Association of Hispanic Journalists
' award in the Radio Reporting category for her Making Contact program, New Orleans Now: Immigrants, Labor and the Human Cost of Rebuilding an American City (Part 1)
2007, the National Radio Project won two “Excellence in Journalism” awards from the Society for Professional Journalists.
Tena Rubio for her New Orleans Now: Immigrants, Labor Rights and the Cost of Rebuilding an American City series.
Tena Rubio and a team of seven freelancer producers for Waves of Change, Rivers of Doubt, a one-hour special on water issues.
2006, The National Radio Project was awarded the Best Troublemakers on the Dial / Best Of The Bay by The San Francisco Bay Guardian
Democratic Media Award - Goodwriters
2005, PodSpider "5-Star Award" For the National Radio Project Podcast
Regulating Love 43-04 included a segment, "The Fight Over Gay Marriage" produced by Steven Valentino, which won first place - Excellence in Student Journalism Award, National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association
(NLGJA).
Journey to Justice: Carlos Mauricio’s Story 50-03 by Jon Watanabe, Silver Reel - "National Documentary" category, National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB).
2004, Democratic Media Award, Goodwriters
2003, Let’s Go to Mazar: A Chronicle of Life in Afghanistan after the War 27-02 by Pratap Chatterjee, Silver Reel - "National Public Affairs Programming" category, National Federation of Community Broadcasters
(NFCB).
Biowars: First, Do No Harm 06-02 by Monica Lopez and Stephanie Welch, Silver Reel - "National Documentary" category, National Federation of Community Broadcasters
(NFCB).
Making Contact is a 29-minute weekly magazine/documentary-style public affairs program heard on community and public radio stations in the USA, Canada, South Africa and Ireland.
It is produced by National Radio Project, which distributes public affairs and news programs to non-commercial radio stations without charge. National Radio Project also distributes program copies to educational institutions and community organizations. Making Contact features voices not normally heard on mainstream media. Issues covered include: climate justice, immigration, prison reform, reproductive justice, food politics, water issues, and many other topics. National Radio Project is based in Oakland, CA. Its stories span the entire U.S. and the globe. As of 2011, it is aired in 39 states on 139 stations.
History and Notable Guests
In 1994, a small group of community activists and journalists met in an Oakland café to discuss how to counter the new proliferation of “hate radio” a genre epitomized by Rush Limbaugh and others. The National Radio Project and its flagship radio series, Making Contact grew out of those discussions. On the National Radio Project website, show pages feature links to the people and groups heard on the show to encourage people to get involved.In 2007, Making Contact was subscribed to by 180 radio stations.
Notable Guests have included:
Cornel West
Cornel West
Cornel Ronald West is an American philosopher, author, critic, actor, civil rights activist and prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America....
- Author of numerous books and professor at the Center for African American Studies and Department of Religion at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, here speaking at the Left Forum
Laura Flanders
Laura Flanders
Laura Flanders is a British-American journalist who presents the current events show GRITtv, broadcast weekdays on Link and Free Speech TV....
- Author, host and founder of GRITtv
GRITtv
GRITtv is a television show hosted and founded by Laura Flanders. GRITtv is broadcast from New York City on Free Speech TV via Dish network and on public television stations nationwide, as well as online...
, here speaking at the Left Forum
Paul Mason
Paul Mason
Paul Mason may refer to:* Paul Mason , British television news correspondent* Paul Mason , American author* Paul Mason , British footballer* Paul Mason , Canadian canoeist and cartoonist...
- Economics Editor for BBC’s Newsnight and author of Live Working, Die Fighting, here speaking at the Left Forum
Nawal El Saadawi
Nawal El Saadawi
Nawal El Saadawi , born October 27, 1931, is an Egyptian feminist writer, activist, physician and psychiatrist. She has written many books on the subject of women in Islam, paying particular attention to the practice of female genital mutilation in her society....
- Author activist and re-founder of the Egyptian Women’s Union interviewed about the role women played in the 2011 revolution that successfully brought down a regime.
Michelle Alexander
Michelle Alexander
Michelle Alexander is an associate professor of law at Ohio State University and a civil rights advocate, who has litigated numerous class action discrimination cases and has worked on criminal justice reform issues...
- Author of ‘The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness’ makes the case that the US’ criminal justice system policies can be traced directly back to slavery.
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...
- Longtime Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk speaks about the power of words in shaping public opinion and public policy, and the tragic consequences of a press corps that toes official line: in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine.
Maria Hinojosa
Maria Hinojosa
Maria Hinojosa is a Mexican American broadcast journalist. She was Senior Correspondent for the PBS news magazine, NOW on PBS....
- Mexican-American journalist Maria Hinojosa speaks about the United States’ loss of humanity in dealing with immigrants and immigration.
Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges
Christopher Lynn Hedges is an American journalist, author, and war correspondent, specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and societies...
- Renowned author Chris Hedges describes a world in rapid economic, environmental, and spiritual decline.
Paul Loeb - Seattle author Paul Loeb speaks with two ordinary people turned activists profiled in his book “Soul of a Citizen”.
Joanna Macy
Joanna Macy
Joanna Rogers Macy, Ph.D , is an environmental activist, author, scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology.-Biography:...
- Dr. Joanna Macy is a long-time peace, justice, and ecology activist.
Dahr Jamail
Dahr Jamail
Dahr Jamail is an American journalist who is best known as one of the few unembedded journalists to report extensively from Iraq during the 2003 Iraq invasion. He spent eight months in Iraq, between 2003 to 2005, and presented his stories on his website, entitled Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches....
- Journalist and author Dahr Jamail speaks about the stresses on U.S. soldiers, on-going wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the growing refusal to serve among members of the US military.
Nadje Sadig Al-Ali
Nadje Sadig Al-Ali
Nadje Sadig Al-Ali is the author of Iraqi Women: Untold Stories From 1948 to the Present. and co-author with Nicola Pratt of What Kind of Liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq...
- Author and activist Nadje Al-Ali talks about the reality of women’s lives in Iraq.
Erica Fernandez - Erica Fernandez, environmental activist who helped prevent a liquefied natural gas plant from being built near her hometown of Oxnard, California speak at the 2008 Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California.
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...
- Renowned author and activist, Arundhati Roy, speaks about the future of Kashmir.
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....
- David Barsamian, author and Alternative Radio founder, producer and host, speaks on the future of Kashmir.
David Korten
David Korten
David C. Korten is an American economist, author, and former Professor of the Harvard Business School, political activist and prominent critic of corporate globalization, "by training and inclination a student of psychology and behavioral systems". His best-known publication is When Corporations...
- David Korten spoke to an audience at the First Congregational Church in Oakland, California, about why he thinks we’re on the cusp of a major shift from a world dominated by economic values to one that embraces human values.
Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg, PhD, is a former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War,...
– On this edition, we hear from Ellsberg delivering a speech to anti-war activists at the Crawford Peace House in Texas. He reflects on civil disobedience advocating for people to blow the whistle and go to jail in order to save lives.
Awards
2010The Society for Professional Journalists (Northern California Chapter) gave Andrew Stelzer an awardfor Explanatory Journalism for his documentary about civilian oversight of the police called "Breaking Through the Blue Wall of Silence."
2009
The Society for Professional Journalists (Region 11) gave Making Contact correspondent Adelaide Chen a first place award for In-Depth Radio Reporting in the University category. Her documentary, "Neither Here nor There: Bhutanese Refugees in the U.S," was edited and produced by Making Contact's Pauline Bartolone.
The National Council on Crime and Delinquency gave Making Contact producers Andrew Stelzer, Pauline Bartolone and Tena Rubio a PASS (Prevention for A Safer Society) award for Andrew Stelzer's documentary "Breaking Through the Blue Wall of Silence."
2008, Executive Producer Tena Rubio won a National Association of Hispanic Journalists
National Association of Hispanic Journalists
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists is a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the advancement of Hispanic journalists in the United States and Puerto Rico...
' award in the Radio Reporting category for her Making Contact program, New Orleans Now: Immigrants, Labor and the Human Cost of Rebuilding an American City (Part 1)
2007, the National Radio Project won two “Excellence in Journalism” awards from the Society for Professional Journalists.
Tena Rubio for her New Orleans Now: Immigrants, Labor Rights and the Cost of Rebuilding an American City series.
Tena Rubio and a team of seven freelancer producers for Waves of Change, Rivers of Doubt, a one-hour special on water issues.
2006, The National Radio Project was awarded the Best Troublemakers on the Dial / Best Of The Bay by The San Francisco Bay Guardian
San Francisco Bay Guardian
The San Francisco Bay Guardian is a free alternative newspaper published weekly in San Francisco, California. The paper is owned mostly by its publisher, Bruce B...
Democratic Media Award - Goodwriters
2005, PodSpider "5-Star Award" For the National Radio Project Podcast
Regulating Love 43-04 included a segment, "The Fight Over Gay Marriage" produced by Steven Valentino, which won first place - Excellence in Student Journalism Award, National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association
National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association
The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association is an American professional association dedicated to unbiased coverage of gay/lesbian issues in the media...
(NLGJA).
Journey to Justice: Carlos Mauricio’s Story 50-03 by Jon Watanabe, Silver Reel - "National Documentary" category, National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB).
2004, Democratic Media Award, Goodwriters
2003, Let’s Go to Mazar: A Chronicle of Life in Afghanistan after the War 27-02 by Pratap Chatterjee, Silver Reel - "National Public Affairs Programming" category, National Federation of Community Broadcasters
National Federation of Community Broadcasters
The National Federation of Community Broadcasters is a national membership organization of community-oriented, non-commercial radio stations, producers, and other organizations and individuals committed to community radio in the United States....
(NFCB).
Biowars: First, Do No Harm 06-02 by Monica Lopez and Stephanie Welch, Silver Reel - "National Documentary" category, National Federation of Community Broadcasters
National Federation of Community Broadcasters
The National Federation of Community Broadcasters is a national membership organization of community-oriented, non-commercial radio stations, producers, and other organizations and individuals committed to community radio in the United States....
(NFCB).