Maine Currents Special 3/17/20 Coronavirus: Community Response, Elections, WERU

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Studio Engineer: Joel Mann

This is the Elections 2020 edition of Maine Currents, so we start off with a discussion of how the coronavirus is impacting the campaigns and how it might affect the general election in November. We’ll also look at what Professor Amy Fried calls the “delegate math” following the Maine primaries. Later in the program station manager Matt Murphy pops to talk about the measures we’re taking here at the station to keep everyone safe and the station on the air. We also talk with Cass Clem, founder of a facebook group that’s helping community members help each other, and we open the phone lines to hear how listeners are coping with the crisis.

Guests:

Professor Amy Fried is the Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Maine. She also oversees the Maine Policy Scholar Program at UMaine, and has researched and written extensively about public opinion.

Ralph Chapman served 4 terms as the State Representative for Blue Hill and several surrounding towns in Hancock County. He served first as a Democrat, then as an Independent and finally as a Green party member.

WERU Station Mgr Matt Murphy

Cass Clem, founder of the Maine Coronavirus Community Support group that has popped up on facebook, and took off overnight with community members offering help to others, or coming to the page looking for assistance.

Maine People’s Alliance coronavirus response website (that was mentioned on the show).

About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices and Maine Currents, she also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and the First Place 2017 Radio News Award from the Maine Association of Broadcasters.

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The Nature of Phenology 3/14/20: Chipmunks

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark

There are twenty five species of chipmunks in the world, and all but one species is found in North America. The chipmunk species we have here in Maine is the eastern chipmunk, the biggest of all the chipmunks at up to eleven inches long and no heavier than a D-battery. February to April is the first of chipmunks’ two breeding seasons, so you may see them running around in pairs or making their characteristic “chipping” calls now.

Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com.

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Camden Conference 2020: Cyber Misinformation and the Press

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Broadcast Date: 3-13-20

Key Discussion Points:
-Role of digital information dumps in today’s cyberworld
-Threats to the civic structure of the country from “impostor news”
-Ways the Press can more effectively evaluate dumped information, e.g., WikiLeaks dump of Democratic emails in 2016

Guests:
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Professor, Annenberg School of Communications
Jeff Jarvis, Professor, Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, City University of New York
David Brancaccio, Host, Marketplace Morning Report, American Public Media

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