JUNIOR COLLEGE STUDENTS live a half life. Accelerating into two years the matriculation that takes four for bachelors candidates. Maybe that goes for experiencing life as well. Pack a lot in because in May 1971 it’s all over – that is if graduation is held amidst calls for strike, strike, strike.
Being broadcast journalism students we feel this obligation to move beyond keeping students informed about the length of the line at the Food Circus. We have available to us what looks like a radio studio for a small radio station. One that is seriously overstaffed. On the evening of the so-called Harvard Riots, the room with a single ancient teletype machine, nearly a dozen beat-up manual typewriters and a bunch of scratched up wooden desks that might have been props in a production of The Front Page, the regulars are there in force. Holding their breaths each time the phone rings and it is one of our two reporters on the scene in Harvard Square.
The Harvard Square riot follows a peaceful "Moratorium," Oct. 24, 1969
With a distinct absence from the room of anyone over the age of 22, it has never occurred to us to consider even for a moment that our radio station is broadcasting only into our college’s dormitories. The signal introduced into each building’s electrical system by way of a very low power transmitter. Lacking Arbitron ratings on our listening audience we don’t even know whether we have any listeners considering it’s possible to hear WBZ in one’s dental fillings. Classical music from WBUR, the new public radio station run by Boston University next door, can be heard in our stereos when the volume is turned low enough. Continue reading →