Press - Daily Hampshire Gazette by
Suzanne Wilson, December 13, 2006
The following article appeared in the Daily
Hampshire Gazette on Tuesday, November 14th, 2006, written by
Suzanne Wilson.
Pakman's
politics: Community radio talk show host steeps himself in biased blogs
to shape his point of view
BY SUZANNE WILSON
 David
Pakman's first show on Valley Free Radio back in August 2005 didn't go
well.
"It was a disaster," recalls the
22-year-old host of "Midweek Politics," a talkfest that airs every other
Wednesday at 7 p.m. on the fledgling network. "It was basically me
talking for an hour and I was very nervous." Though he'd come in with
some planned topics, such as the latest public opinion polls about the
Iraq war, Pakman quickly realized a brutal truth about radio: An hour
can be a long time.
"It's a really long time," he said.
He wondered afterward - "Do I really
want to do this?" - but forged ahead by booking guests he could talk to
from the studio by phone. One of his first was a 21-year-old Texan with
libertarian politics who was making a bid in a conservative district for
a seat in the Texas Legislature. After hearing about him and reading
about him online, Pakman arranged an interview, which, he says, "didn't
go too well." Though his guest was interesting enough, Pakman kept him
on the phone for about 30 minutes, dissecting the minutiae of the
campaign. Way too long, he says now.
Reach increasing
But that was then. Pakman, who graduated
last spring from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a
degree in economics and communication, says he and his producer, Louis
Motamedi, now put on a far more professional show.
During the recent primary election
season, they landed interviews with the likes of Deval Patrick, Chris
Gabrieli and Christy Mihos.
Pakman came away from those interviews
with a newfound appreciation for the difficulties reporters face in
getting practiced politicians to answer questions. "It's not so easy,"
he says, "even when you press them."
Though VFR is picked up only in about a
12-mile radius of Northampton, about seven to 10 other small stations
around the country are airing "Midweek Politics," according to Pakman.
All, like VFR, are affiliates of Pacifica Radio, a network of
independently owned, non-commerical stations known for its leftist and
pacifist political views. To broaden his show's reach, Pakman emailed
about 90 affiliates to see if anyone was interested.
His first yes, he recalls, came from
Radio Free Moscow in Moscow, Idaho.
"I was thrilled," Pakman said, with the
disarming candor and enthusiasm that seems to be a personal trademark.
"I'm glad I stuck it out."
Valley Free Radio, a non-profit,
community-based station run by volunteers, is headquartered in the
basement of the Florence Community Center on Pine Street. The station's
programming, listed on its www.valleyfreeradio.org Web site, includes
music, news and commentary.
Besides "Midweek Politics," the
Wednesday lineup runs the gamut of such titles as Animal Shows, Global
Rhythms, the Amy & Mo Show, Democracy Now!, Corporate Watchdog Radio and
Mental Health News.
The station's rooms are small, the
furniture is comfy and scruffy, and the posters and bumper stickers on
the walls and file cabinets have a distinct leftie tilt, with messages
such as "Yes Union" and "Iraq Veterans Against the War."
Keeping current
On the evening of Nov. 29, Pakman and
Motamedi await the arrival of their guest, Bill Scher of Northampton.
Scher, 34, is a liberal blogger, author of "Wait! Don't Move to Canada:
A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back America," published earlier this
year by Rodale Inc., and a regular commentator on Air America Radio.
Pakman had jotted down a list of
questions and newsy topics. Motamedi had gathered audio clips, including
one from President Bush discussing sectarian violence in Iraq, which
would be used on the air to buttress the conversation.
The two huddle over their game plan and
then, Pakman, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, takes a few minutes to
talk.
He was born in Argentina, and the family
moved here 16 years ago, in 1989, when his father, a psychiatrist, came
to this country to work.
After graduating from Northampton High
School and from UMass, Pakman decided to pursue a master's in business
administration at Bentley College in Waltham; he currently commutes to
classes there each week.
His political interests were partly
shaped by having been raised in a Jewish family.
Though he describes himself as "more
liberal than conservative," Pakman says he's strongly pro-Israel, which
means he parts company on occasion with some on the left over the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
His teachers and courses at UMass got
him increasingly fascinated by politics and the media, he says.
He's not enrolled in either major party,
but, in the first presidential election in which he was old enough to
vote, he cast his ballot for Sen. John Kerry in 2004. Beyond that, he
always liked the idea of radio as a public forum. One hero: Howard
Stern.
"I've been a fan for a long time," he
says. "I think his is an honest show."
Pakman got his first radio experience at
WMUA, the campus station at UMass, where he volunteered "to do
whatever," which turned out to be sports. Though the gig gave him the
chance to learn some basics about broadcasting, he quickly realized that
reading scores at half-time during soccer games wasn't his calling. He
left after about two months.
It was during an internship at the Media
Education Foundation, a Northampton-based outfit that produces
educational videos on social and political topics, that Pakman saw a
flier looking for people interested in doing shows for Valley Free
Radio. MEF was the organization that initially applied for VFR's
license.
To keep up with the news, Pakman checks
in daily with various TV and online news sources - Fox News, CNN, MSNBC,
the Drudge Report, the Web sites of Ha-aretz, an Israeli newspaper, the
New York Times, the BBC.
"I don't regularly read just one
source," he says. Though he checked out Katie Couric's debut on the CBS
Evening News, Pakman, in keeping with what demographic surveys show
about his generation's viewing habits, says he generally finds little of
interest in the mainstream networks' broadcast.
Instead, he makes it a point to seek out
"the most biased sources I can" at both ends of the political spectrum
to familiarize himself with the left-right gamut of opinion, and, when a
particular topic in the news grabs his attention - NASA's recent
announcement that it plans to establish a base camp on the moon was one
- he pursues more information online.
The blogger
When Scher arrives, he settles onto a
couch in the waiting room, while Pakman and Motamedi disappear into the
studio for some final preparations.
Scher moved to Northampton about a year
ago with his wife who had gone to Smith College.
They had decided, he says, to leave New
York City, where he had worked in public relations, for a slower pace in
western Massachusetts. "And that's been fine by me," he says. After
moving here, Scher focused on finishing, and then publicizing, his book.
Scher, who grew up in suburban
Westchester County in New York, has a passion for politics that can
rival that of any political junkie. He speaks with an urgency born of
conviction, but leavened with a genial manner and a sense of humor.
He was a child who was reading the
newspapers earlier than the other kids on the block, he says, and today
that penchant seems only stronger.
He tunes in to Air America Radio daily,
listens to the news and pundits on MSNBC, and checks out CNN to glean
what he calls the "10 percent" of actual news that they present. He
checks out a slew of news Web sites and takes a spin through the
sprawling liberal blogosphere to see, as he puts it, "what's percolating
out there."
He launched his blog -
www.liberaloasis.com - in 2002, which brought him to the attention of
Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder of Air America, who began featuring him
as a commentator on their show.
On the air
When Pakman is ready, Scher takes a seat
in the studio across the table from him while Motamedi and his laptop
settle into the space between.
For the first chunk of the show, Pakman
asks Scher a series of questions about his book, in which Scher argues
that too many Democrats have played into Republican strategy by refusing
to stand for any principles. At this point, is it really feasible,
Pakman wonders, for Democrats to take back the "liberal" label that the
Republicans have so successfully made synonymous with high taxes and a
soft-on-terror foreign policy?
No question, the label has been "beaten
down, bloodied and bludgeoned," says Scher, showcasing his gift for
quotable sound bites. Given that it has become "a slur," reclaiming the
word, Scher says, will be a long-term process.
From there, the back and forth ventures
deeper into related topics: tax policies, health care, the environment,
Iraq, the role of the blogosphere in shaping opinion, Rep. Charles
Rangel's call for a return to the draft, domestic and foreign policy
issues looming for 2008.
They do some early handicapping of the
possible Republican contenders in the ﾴ08 presidential campaign - Rudy
Guiliani, Mitt Romney and John McCain. Scher, who is never quite
predictable, says he voted for McCain in 2000 because of the senator's
work on campaign finance reform. Asked later for his take on the buzz
currently surrounding Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, Scher calls him "a
work in progress." Obama, he says, tends to have "a knee jerk love of
compromise for sake of compromise. So we'll see. I have hope for him,
but I need to see more evidence."
Pakman then switches gears and brings up
Michael Richards' use of the n-word during a tirade at a Los Angeles
comedy club. He's curious about Scher's take: Is Richards a racist? Are
his apologies sincere? Scher seems to have been taken a bit off guard
but gamely offers up a few comments, comparing what seems to have been
Mel Gibson's "pattern" of anti-Semitism, to this isolated incident
involving Richards.
"Thanks for hanging out for the hour,"
says Pakman as the show wraps up. Scher returns the thank you, then,
once the sound is off, asks Pakman how it went. "Was I talking too fast?
I can do that." Pakman says it was fine.
Scher heads out to the parking lot,
along with the visiting reporter. He hadn't really been sure what to say
about Richards, he says.
But he mentions it with a smile and a
shrug that suggest that unexpected questions are all part of what you
deal with when you're out flogging your book.
Reached by phone a few days later,
Pakman says he's gearing up for his next broadcast which will feature
more on Iraq, and more on the run up to '08. He's pleased with how the
show has been going, he says, adding that he hopes he is creating a
following.
After all, he says, some people get
interested in politics when they just by chance hear something that
piques their curiosity. Perhaps his show, he said, "could be that
moment" for someone out there.
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