Pacifica Network Partners With Ukrainian Radio Network on Weekly News Series Featuring Stories From Inside Ukraine
Pacifica Network Partners With Ukrainian Radio Network on Weekly News Series Featuring Stories From Inside Ukraine.
- (1888PressRelease) June 21, 2022 - When the world’s largest radio broadcast tower was bombed in Kyiv by Russia, Kraina FM, a powerful commercial all-Ukrainian talk and music network, was knocked off the air. They regrouped and continue to broadcast from a secret location. When American community radio journalist Anne Levine learned about this, she jumped into action and began speaking with them. Upon hearing about Levine’s connection to a national media group in Ukraine, Pacifica Network staff jumped into action to develop an inter-network media collaboration to bring cutting edge reports from Ukraine to English-speaking listeners.
Levine, a radio host at Pacifica Affiliate Network’s member station WOMR Community Radio in Provincetown, Massachusetts, is the key to this collaboration. She says, “I came across an article published by the New Yorker on March 18 about Kraina FM. Since I have been a radio host of 15 years, their story lit a bonfire in my belly. When Russia began bombing Ukraine, it touched me personally because my own family roots go back to Ukraine. So I was looking for a way to respond to the bloodshed that is happening today in Ukraine.”
With persistence, Levine reached Kraina FM and a bond was formed. Quickly recognizing Levine’s exceptional accomplishment, Ursula Ruedenberg, Pacifica’s Affiliate Network Manager, worked with Levine to develop a half-hour 29-minute weekly show called Ukraine 2 4 2 (named after the 24th of February when bombing started). Levine serves as the Executive Producer and Host, and Pacifica staff provides the editing and production work. Ukraine 2 4 2 features cutting edge interviews with key people in Ukraine, arranged by Kraina FM exclusively for this collaboration.
Ursula Ruedenberg, Pacifica Affiliate Network Manager says, “When people are experiencing atrocities, there is always a desire on our part to find a way to report and get their voices on the air. It is very difficult to do this in war, so we are extraordinarily lucky, this time, to find a powerful and reliable media partner in Ukraine. It’s very exciting. Due to Anne Levine’s exceptional work, Kraina FM made her their US media liaison and they are now providing us with extraordinary interviews about how ordinary civilians, as well as a variety of professionals, are achieving functionality and understanding of this invasion.”
Ukraine 2 4 2 airs weekly on Levine’s home station, WOMR in Provincetown, Massachusetts and is distributed to Pacifica Networks member stations. Consistent with Pacifica’s mission, emphasis is on making information broadly available; thus Ukraine 2 4 2 is being offered for broadcast to any interested radio station outside the network as well. Access to the program is arranged by contacting Ursula Ruedenberg at ursula ( @ ) pacifica dot org or at 510-812-7989 dot
The interviews arranged by Kraina FM provide specific and often breaking information about what is happening, based on first-hand accounts and expert analyses from professionals in strategic positions. People interviewed have included:
- Kraina FM’s own staff, about use of radio in war.
- The chief of a surgical hospital in Western Ukraine who now treats war casualties at no cost.
- A U.S. Marine giving military advice on the front and assisting with supply chains.
- A Ukrainian analyst from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, assessing war crimes and chances for oversight.
- A model and Instagram influencer who is now one of the “Volunteers” who help refugees and orphaned children, rescue animals, and deliver medicine. She also described her family's experiences when caught in the sieges of Chernihiv and Mariupol and their eye-witness accounts of murder, abduction, and coercion into the Russian military.
- A wounded and blinded soldier from Mariupol, who escaped from occupied territory.
- A renowned and prize-winning YouTube producer who makes videos about life and the war in Ukraine for English-speaking audiences.
- A former US Marine who now provides first aid kits to the front and arranges civilian evacuations.
Pacifica Network seeks to further communication between people; thus, the US public is invited to call a hotline and record messages to Ukrainians, at 510-883-3115. Volunteer Ukrainians in the US translate these and Kraina FM broadcasts them in 26 Ukrainian cities.
Levine’s interviews are also available as podcasts at podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1623205985
PACIFICA AFFILIATE NETWORK
Pacifica’s tradition of unhampered access to the airwaves has allowed the network to play a uniquely focal role in American media and broken pivotal news stories and brought issues and artists to the spotlight that may have been overlooked. The Pacifica Affiliate Network distributes an extensive menu of radio content online, including one of the most extensive and important historical sound archives, the Pacifica Radio Archives. With a network of over 200 affiliate stations, they are energizing independent community radio through collaboration, interactivity and program exchange throughout the network. Pacifica Foundation established the concept of community radio in the United States when it created KPFA in 1949 in Berkeley, California. Today, Pacifica owns WBAI in New York City, WPFW in Washington DC, KPFT in Houston Texas, KPFK in Los Angeles, and KPFA in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information, visit pacificanetwork.org.
Media contact for the Pacifica Affiliate Network:
Ursula Ruedenberg /Pacifica Affiliate Network Manager
ursula ( @ ) pacifica dot org / 510-812-7989
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