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Prometheus Radio Project
PO Box 42158
Philadelphia, PA 19101
(215) 727-9620
www.prometheusradio.org

flame filching, wave snatching, people-powered radio!

Who are these people?
And where did they get that funny name?
•Founded by activists in 1998 to fight for a more democratic media through media policy and grassroots advocacy campaigns Our primary focus is the cultivation of low power radio stations and their listeners as a constituency to fight for a better media future
•We serve as an LPFM information resource center offering legal, organizational, and technical support for non-commercial, community broadcasters
•We facilitate public participation in the FCC regulatory process, and we act as a public interest advocate on issues affecting community broadcasters
•We sponsor and produce educational tours, conferences, events and literature on low power radio and media democracy issues, and we promote community media as a tool to other free society movements

Accomplishments
•1998-99- Prometheus manages engineering studies and files formal public comments with the FCC arguing for the technical feasibility and democratic responsibility of a new community radio service
•January 2000- After nearly a quarter century of benign disinterest of the FCC, Prometheus is victorious, forcing the creation of LPFM and bringing radio broadcasting once again within reach of civil society groups across the country
•February ?nrn Partnering '.vith Marvhr.d-barsd £r;..;-rr,/Mi -•••,-/.•.ir-ion ?•-••: c-ur H:^. ru-jio barnruising event, WRYR becomes the first radio station ever to be operated by an environmental group
•March 2002- Prometheus Media Tank, Indymedia an d other partners stage a small but spirited "Angels of the Public Interest" event out front of FCC headquarters in Washington, DC, solidifying allegiances among activist groups working in various facets of nascent media democracy movement
•November 2002- Another in a series of "firsts", Prometheus partners with rural Louisiana-based KOCZ , becoming the first radio station to be owned and operated by a civil rights organization
•Feb-May 2003- Anticipating an FCC vote toward relaxed media ownership regulations, Prometheus helps build a broad-based, bipartisan coalition to raise public awareness over what industry groups and the FCC had presented as a "special interest" issue The onslaught of over 800,000 emails, letters & postcards becomes by far, the largest record of public comment in FCC history
•September 2003- With legal representation by our allies at Media Access Project, a stay is issued in the federal circuit court challenge that Prometheus initiated to halt the implementation of new FCC rules
governing media ownership that would have allowed for even more consolidation
•December 2003- We host our first ever bilingual radio barnraising with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a labor organization that fights the injustice of the modem slave trade and for the rights of farmworkers in rural Florida
•January 2004- Prometheus joins local group Esperanza Center to facilitate citizen participation in the first of six FCC Localism Task Force hearings in San Antonio, TX Together we negotiate with the FCC for Spanish translation of the proceeding, and help to get almost 500 individuals to testify
•July 2004- Calling the justification for the new FCC ownership rules "arbitrary and capricious", Prometheus is vindicated in our circuit court challenge as judges send the FCC back to the drawing board!

The Future...
•In 2004, we will host two radio barnraising events These events have received national media coverage on NPR, the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Free Speech Radio News, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Miami Herald, Mother Jones Magazine, The Nation, The Progressive and others. Publicity generated by our barnraising events helps raise the issues affecting these young outlets for grassroots media to prominence in the national political landscape
•The results of the MITRE study show that LPFM can go forward without causing harm to existing broadcasters Armed with this information, Prometheus is working to get legislation passed that would allow us to build hundreds more community radio stations in previously restricted urban areas
•Since our court decision was announced, Prometheus will now work with the FCC in crafting new media ownership regulations, to ensure that citizen testimony collected during the ongoing Localism'Task Force hearings is given due consideration
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•Many of our allies who work for grassroots media anticipate that the debate surrounding reform of FCC spectrum allocation policy will be the next theater that community media groups and corporate interests will do battle Prometheus must find ways to keep LPFM stations, progressive constituencies and the public at large educated on these very complex issues, to ensure that their interests are protected as this situation develops
•Last year, we attended an international community radio conference sponsored by AMARC, the World Federation of Community Broadcasters We were approached by representatives of over twenty groups from different countries seeking our help in getting their stations on the air In the upcoming year, we will expand our roster of technical volunteers to create an international exchange to help proliferate community radio around the world

Where did they get that funny name?
Prometheus was a demi-god in Greek Mythology The Gods kept humanity cold and blind at night by hoarding the knowledge of how to build fires Prometheus stole a torch and taught humanity how to make fire for itself For his defiant act, Prometheus was chained to a rock and and Zeus (the King of the Gods) had mean birds come and pick out his liver, which would grow back every night since Prometheus was immortal Very unpleasant business. The Prometheus myth is often interpreted as a parable for the democratization of technology- taking technology that was reserved for the powerful and putting it into the hands of the people.

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