Those of us at RadioWright LLC (me) have had a busy week — among other things, we are preparing a new article for Transom and editing narrative podcast episodes that will soon be out in the world. But it’s also been a busy week of epic battles for the soul of audio journalism. Some new documentaries offer a bit of historical context. Links to those are below.

But first…

Decide yourself if radio’s gonna stay

When R.E.M. released its first single Radio Free Europe back in 1981, Soviet premiere Leonid Brezhnev was on the brink of death, the Solidarity union movement had had its first strike in Communist Poland, and the soft-rock duo Air Supply were at the top of the US charts. The band R.E.M. came from the future. No one could understand what Michael Stipe was singing, but his chorus — Radio Free Europe, Radio…? That came in loud and clear. Kind of like tuning into a distant signal and hearing words with meaning.

So of course I was excited that R.E.M. just remixed the song as a fundraiser for the actual Radio Free Europe. RFE is in a court battle to keep its allocated US government funding — along with Radio Free Asia and Voice of America — after the administration took a hatchet to the US Agency for Global Media. The new head-hatchet, Kari Lake, calls the agency she runs [?] “irretrievably broken” and “a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer.” 

Countering this rudeness, R.E.M. points out that reporters for Radio Free Europe “cover some of the world’s most repressive regimes often at great personal cost.” And guess who else stands with R.E.M.? The European Union. Sweden’s foreign minister has been leading the charge to get the EU to fund Radio Free Europe.

As a half-Swedish American, this makes me proud — even if the initiative is currently bogged down in EU squabbling. Go Sweden! 🇸🇪

And yet. I hate to talk to my ancestral homies like this. But Sweden, you can and need to do a lot more. Your American friends are not OK. Please consider my argument about how to help, because when it comes to radio and podcasting, Konungariket Sverige is ever so slightly part of the problem.

Straight off the boat

My great-grandparents fled the dark Swedish hinterland when it was considered among the poorest regions of Europe. In fact, things were so bad that the Swedish Parliament commissioned a 20-volume report on how fix the country before everyone left. My ancestors spent their last kroner on weird phonetic phrasebooks, then took a long journey across the world to a place where they could make sausage and mill old-growth forests in peace.

The joke was on them, of course. Because their descendants are now unable to enjoy the fruits of democratic socialism. The Swedish taxpayer did not fund my birth, nor my braces, my education, my prenatal care, or childcare. No pension for me either, probably. Not even fresh lingonberries. As a distant American cousin, I am far away, neither a giant rot nor burden to the Swedish state.

I do like to visit sometimes. It’s nice to be in a place that normalizes plump, chatty ladies. Anyway, let’s talk geopolitics.

Sweden, you scrapped neutrality and joined NATO for a good reason. You saw what became of your large neighbor Russia, which destroyed its independent media, then its civil society, in order that a few people at the top could become obscenely wealthy without opposition. But those people were not content to mind their own business. They got paranoid and bored, expansionist and violent. And it all started by first crushing the journalists, the witnesses.

That’s where we are in the US right now. The government has started by trying to defund our fragile public media system, which the Trump administration accuses of “liberal bias.” As radio historian Josh Shepperd writes, the true victims of federal cuts will be small local stations, which rely on government funding to stay on the air. Meanwhile, a separate sledgehammer has shattered the National Endowment for the Humanities, which funded unique audio documentary shops such as Radio Diaries. The money will go instead, our President has decreed, to a sculpture park called the Garden of Heroes. As in Stalin’s time, only “realistic” works will be allowed.

This situation is really bad. It took a century to build independent, educational public broadcasting in this country, and it’s always struggled. But you can help it survive this blow — and probably more quickly than it will take to get the EU to fund Radio Free Europe. 

Hej! I’m talking about underwriting

Sweden, here’s what I ask: please nudge all your multinationals to buy underwriting spots on local public radio and TV stations around the US. Community and college and tribal stations too, if they can. These small outfits are sometimes all that’s left of the local news infrastructure in America after newspapers folded. Without them and their tiny staffs, the voters will be even less informed and their politicians less accountable.

I know it’s ugly, in the European context, that our public broadcasting even has advertising (and we must not call it advertising lest we incur the wrath of a Trump-head pin-wearing regulator named Brendan Carr who is investigating/harassing local stations about their underwriting scripts).

Don’t be afraid. Swedish companies will not break the rules or get anyone in trouble. Plus they should know public media consumers are their target demographic. If anyone would pay $20 (plus tax, plus shipping, plus maybe tariffs) for a unique Ekelund woven dish towel, it’s an NPR fan. Lord knows viewers of Masterpiece could use some retail therapy at FACE Stockholm outposts worldwide. Our kids love H&M. Just show us you care!

This campaign needs to happen now, because the blows keep coming. Our system is not integrated or bureaucratic. No red tape. Your merchants can start anywhere: Michigan. Montana. Boston. 

And yes, I am very sorry things have gotten to this point with our governance. Especially the thing with Greenland. We’ll try to do better next time, if there is a next time. But think for a minute, how much worse will the next election be with weakened public media in Iowa? Or New Hampshire? WBHM needs your help right now in Alabama. This isn’t charity. You’re underwriting.

Lead by example, businesses of Sweden, and maybe even your frenemy Norway — whose sovereign wealth fund owns 1.5% of the world’s assets — will follow suit. Maybe Germany and France, too. We already like your stuff and want to take expensive vacations in your lands. We promise to leave! Just do your part now to keep Radio Free USA alive.

Wait, though —  there’s one company in Sweden that needs to do extra.

Yeah, I’m talking about Spotify. Technically Spotify is based in Luxembourg, but we know the mega-streamer was founded by Swedes and boasts about life in Sweden (when not being grumpy about labor laws in Sweden). A long time ago, Spotify inflated the US podcast market by buying up production companies, many staffed by veterans of the public radio system. Like emigres from an Arctic farm filled with rocks, those public radio people had never seen money before. Then a few years later, Spotify hung them out to dry. OK, whatever. As I imagine the Vikings once said, “Why would you ever trust a Viking?” ¹  

But let’s turn to the national security of Sweden. Because Spotify’s new podcasting strategy, after dumping the journalists, is basically just to give this guy a ton of money. And it’s a profitable strategy. No doubt, we can all be amused by a comedian’s conversations with powerful men who wish to undermine science and destroy empathy. Edgy, yet kind of funny how he gets people to show their asses!

Now imagine a future interview, perhaps with someone the host has endorsed for higher office. This guest suddenly floats an idea: We’re gonna make Sweden the 53rd state. You know, first we gotta do Canada and Greenland. But I’ve always liked the Swedes. Beautiful country. How will the host react to this dangerous idea? Will he call it ridiculous and shut it down? No, because it’s funny. Most likely his reaction will be, “Whoah. How would that work exactly?”

That will be followed by a half-hour-long digression on the Skarsgårds, some notes on sour skull gummies, maybe some light porn innuendo — and then finally a joke, one that’s weirdly specific, about replacing the centuries-old Swedish Naval base in Karlskrona with a mixed-martial arts stadium. Because 53rd states don’t have their own navies.

Are you still laughing? No, Sweden. You’re alarmed that I’m even making a joke about that kind of hypothetical joke. Jokes about national defense are not funny in Sweden — yet if you can imagine that unfunny conversation happening on the number-one, Spotify-subsidized podcast, that means your guy Ek is not doing everything he can to protect the Fatherland from FIMI, foreign information manipulations and interference. 

What leverage do you have with Spotify? I don’t know — I’m not Swedish, remember? I do know that Swedish authorities can hover the fist of stål when they want to. Twenty years ago, they raided the offices of file-sharing entity The Pirate Bay, thus setting in motion the circumstances that led to Spotify’s early success.

However, I am suggesting something much more clever and nice, as befits the national character: Reparations. Spotify has money, mainly from the tears of musicians, and it loves AI. To offset its own FIMI, Spotify must be persuaded to use AI to identify all podcasts, anywhere in the world, that credit investigative reporters, editors and/or fact-checkers as part of their teams. Then, assuming these productions have ad breaks, Spotify needs to buy up all their available back-catalog ad spots. It should also sponsor current and upcoming seasons. As an industry leader, it will be strengthening audio productions that actually pay people to care about verifiable facts. Consider it a few ration packets scattered down over the journalistic wasteland the company left behind.

(Swedish Acast and PodX, you’re off the hook as far as I’m concerned, but feel free to toss some rations over as well and earn USA karma points!)

Buy the sky and sell the sky

My suggested underwriting blitzes won’t put an end to FIMI and the under-funding of journalism. But you know who doesn’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good? The Russian Federation. In fact, they’ve skipped right over perfect and straight to “enemy of the good.” Anyway, this ad-buying experiment wouldn’t cost the prosperous merchants of Europe much. Don’t give up on us. Help Hansa this mess before it’s too late. Skol!

I did promise a some listening links at the end of my rant, so here they are. On the Media’s Peabody-winning series The Divided Dial is back for a second season! In Season One, reporter Katie Thornton explored the history of ideological battles over the US airwaves. (This episode in particular is all you need to understand the neverending “liberal bias” game.) Season Two goes global, by talking about shortwave radio. I got a preview of an episode in progress, and it’s great listening.

Next, do check out the just-concluded documentary series from CUNY TV, Audio Maverick. Producer Sarah Montague takes a massive radio archive at CUNY and uses it to tell the story of how American radio invented itself. Yours truly has a cameo in the final episode.

🇸🇪 🇸🇪 🇸🇪 ²

1  Julia Barton was not one of these Spotify acquisitions, but she did give notes on this episode of StartUp Podcast’s first season at Gimlet — an editorial service for which she was paid $0. Coincidentally that was also the exact amount in her bank account at the time!

2  The header photo on this post is of the old Garpen Lighthouse, which had to be replaced in 1934 after its base “cracked due to frost.” And thanks also to my mom Susan Valley Scheib for preserving Swedish family artifacts and lore. Happy Mother’s Day!