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KKFI 90.1 FM Kansas City Community Radio
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A locally produced program where activist groups in the Kansas City area present interviews, commentary, editorials, and other thought provoking content on a weekly basis.

  1. FEB 25

    Concerns about media, especially in Germany

    Communications professor Stephan Russ-Mohl shares concerns about media, especially in Germany. He is interviewed by Spencer Graves. Russ-Mohl is a prolific journalist, researcher and professor emeritus at the University of Lugano in the Italian-speaking portion of Switzerland. He specializing in quality assurance and quality management in mass media focusing primarily but not exclusively on Germany. Between 1985 and 2001 he was primarily based at the Free University of Berlin. Between 2002 and 2018 he served primarily on the faculty at the University of Lugano. He has also had sabbaticals at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and at Stanford in the US and at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. He has published primarily in German but some in English, and some of his work has been translated into many other languages. In a 2023 book on "Deep Journalism", Russ-Mohl and co-editor Sebastian Turner described four categories of media based on people's willingness to pay:1 Job-related information, where people pay to improve their abilities at work. Consumer markets, where people pay to help them get more value from what they buy. Entertainment. Politics and public life, where willingness to pay is low, because most individuals are "rationally ignorant",2 as their ability to influence public policy is limited. He has also written with Susanne Fengler about "The (Behavioral) Economics of Media Accountability".3 In this, they describe "the journalist as Homo oeconomicus, citing Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman, and others in behavioral economics. In 2024 he published a chapter on "Strengths and Weaknesses of Corona Coverage"4 in a book on Corona and the mass media.5 Shortly after the 2024 US presidential election, he discussed, "The media power of billionaires".6 Ten months after Trump's second inauguration, he noted that, "Donald Trump manages to dominate the global media landscape even in his second term", then asked "How does he do it? And what should journalists do about it?"7 Bibliography Anthony Downs (1957), An Economic Theory of Democracy, Wikidata Q482418 Anthony Downs (1957), An Economic Theory of Democracy, Wikidata Q482418 Fengler et al., eds. (2014). Journalists and Media Accountability: An International Study of News People in the Digital Age (in en). Peter Lang. Wikidata Q138414279. ISBN 978-1-4331-2281-1. Dennis Gräf and Martin Hennig, eds. (23 October 2024). Corona und mediale Öffentlichkeiten (in de). Springer Science+Business Media. Wikidata Q138414760. ISBN ‎ 978-3658455033. Stephan Russ-Mohl; Susanne Fengler (2014). The (Behavioral) Economics of Media Accountability (in en). 213-230. Wikidata Q138414323. ISBN 978-1-4331-2281-1. Stephan Russ-Mohl (2024a). "7". Stärken und Schwächen der Berichterstattung über Corona (in en) (published 23 October 2024). Wikidata Q138414659. ISBN ‎ 978-3658455033. Stephan Russ-Mohl (2024b). "Die Medienmacht der Milliardäre". Die Furche. 29 November 2024. Wikidata Q138416714. ISSN 0016-299X. Stephan Russ-Mohl (13 November 2025). "Wie Trump alle Kanäle dominiert". Die Furche. Wikidata Q138416801. ISSN 0016-299X. Sebastian Turner and Stephan Russ-Mohl, eds. (1 June 2023). Deep Journalism: Domänenkompetenz als redaktioneller Erfolgsfaktor (in de). Herbert von Halem Verlag. Wikidata Q138414099. ISBN 978-3-86962-659-8. _______ Turner and Russ-Mohl (2023). Downs (1957). Russ-Mohl and Fengler (2014). Russ-Mohl (2024a). Gräf and Hennig (2024). Russ-Mohl (2024b). Russ-Mohl (2025). Copyright 2026 Stephan Russ-Mohl and Spencer Graves, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 international license.

    24 min

  2. FEB 16

    Northeast Kansas City, Northeast News, and "No Kings 3", March 28

    Bryan Stalder discusses Northeast Kansas City and Northeast News with Radio Active Magazine regular Spencer Graves, and Bill Clause invites y'all to attend a "No Kings 3" rally near you March 28  No Kings 3 March 28: For more information email Diane Bulan Northeast Kansas City and Northeast News Stadler is an illustrator and designer active with the Northeast Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and the Northeast News and former president of the Indian Mound Neighborhood Association. He describes Northeast Kansas City and his vision for that part of the KC metro area.

    30 min

  3. FEB 9

    Underserved serve themselves with low-power FM

    Paul Bame, a volunteer broadcast engineer with the Prometheus Radio Project, discusses Prometheus activities including how underserved communities serve themselves with low-power FM. He is interviewed by Spencer Graves. The Prometheus Radio Project was founded in 1998 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by supporters of the unlicensed "Radio Mutiny" station after the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) shut down their station. Their mission statement says, "The Prometheus Radio Project builds participatory radio as a tool for social justice organizing and a voice for community expression. To that end, we demystify media policy and technology, advocate for a more just media system, and help grassroots organizations build communications infrastructure to strengthen their communities and movements." In 2003 they initiated Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC, a series of lawsuits that made it harder for the FCC to relax media outlet ownership regulations. The Prometheus Radio Project has been a leader in helping communities create new low-power FM stations. This includes helping them through the application process, obtaining the equipment and getting the station on the air. They call the final step a "radio barnraising", where humans from diverse locations come together to build a studio, raise an antenna mast, and achieve first broadcast in three days. The name comes from the rural "Barn raising" tradition. The Wikipedia article on "Prometheus Radio Project" lists eleven "community radio barnraisings" in the US from Spokane, Washington, to Immokalee, Florida, and from Oroville, California, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. They have also helped groups in Guatemala, Nepal, Colombia, Jordan, Kenya, and Tanzania get on the air. More details and a moderated discussion of issues raised in this interview are supported in the Wikiversity article on “Underserved serve themselves with low-power FM” with a video. Copyright 2026 Paul Bame and Spencer Graves, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 international license.

    29 min

  4. FEB 1

    The Micah Ministry helps unhoused

    Reverend Mindy Fugarino discusses her work with the Independence Boulevard Christian Church, and Lora McDonald invites you to on-line Pro-Democracy training February 11, 5-7 PM and February 20, 9-11 AM, organized in part by MORE2. Reverend Mindy  Reverend Mindy is the Senior Pastor for the Independence Boulevard Christian Church on the corner of Independence and Gladstone Avenues in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. That church is a Disciples of Christ congregation that has worshiped at that location since 1905. Her work includes leading The Micah Ministry, which supports unhoused and poor humans1 in Kansas City. Reverend Mindy is also Executive Director of Intersect KC, which shares the church building with several wonderful projects including Care Beyond the Boulevard, recently featured on this show. And she partners with various social-justice & trauma-informed organizations. This includes co-chairing our region’s Becoming Beloved Community (anti-racism / pro-reconciliation) team and the Missouri Poor People’s Campaign. Lora McDonald Lora McDonald is executive director of the Metropolitan Organization for Racial and Economic Equality, stylized MORE-squared, website MORE2.org. They are part of the Gamaliel Network with headquarters in Chicago. Gamaliel is partnering with 25 other national networks in promoting on-line Pro-Democracy training February 11, 5-7 PM and February 20, 9-11 AM. To register, go to MORE2.org, then click, "Events", then look in the calendar for either February 11 or 20 and click "Pro-Democ" or "Pro-Democracy" on whichever one you would like to attend. NOTE: You have to register to get the Zoom link for the event.  McDonald and Fugarino are interviewed by Spencer Graves. Copyright 2026 , Mindy Fugarino, Lora McDonald, and Spencer Graves, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 international license. _______ 1. In the US, corporations are people and money is speech. Corporations seem not inclined to seek the support of Reverend Mindy. She focuses on helping humans.

    28 min

  5. JAN 22

    Conservative media are different

    Anthony Nadler talks with Spencer Graves about how he claims that conservative media are different. He is a co-editor of (2020) News on the Right and author of (2016) Making the News Popular. He is also lead author of a 2025 article on, "The Left Needs Media That Competes — and Wins". The basic theme of his work is that conservative media tend to segment media markets more on style and cultural identity with "news" that tends to be less consistent with other media than media more often consumed by liberals / progressives. He says we need media that work harder to connect with working class humans and help their audience understand how policies pushed by so-called conservative politicians are more likely to benefit the ultra-wealthy at the expense of the bottom 99 percent. Nadler is a Communications professor at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, roughly 20 miles / 30 km northwest of Philadelphia. More details and a moderated discussion of issues raised in this interview are supported in the Wikiversity article on “Conservative media are different” with a video. Copyright 2026 Anthony Nadler and Spencer Graves, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 international license.

    29 min

  6. JAN 19

    PeaceWorks KC 2026

    PeaceWorks members Kristen Scheer and Ann Suellentrop discuss upcoming events and current trends around nuclear weapons and nuclear energy reactors. Feb 2nd at 5:30pm at All Souls UU Church PeaceWorks members will report back on the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability fall meeting in Las Vegas. Midwest Catholic Workers will gather April 24-27 with PeaceWorks members to protest at Kansas City’s nuclear bomb parts plant. Plans are also underway for events around the August 6th and 9th anniversaries of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. PeaceWorks is a long-time Kansas City peace organization affiliated with the national group, Peace Action. Join us to hear about upcoming events and current issues pertaining to Kansas City’s nuclear bomb parts plant and other related social justice issues. The federal government will hold public hearings this spring about their plan to produce new nuclear weapons over the next 50 years. When the dates are announced, this will be a chance for humans to weigh in on 2 trillion dollars of our tax money on these catastrophic weapons or on things needed for our real security, such as education, housing, health care, and sustainable jobs.

    29 min

  7. JAN 12

    Medill says you can help yourself by helping improve local media

    Professor Tim Franklin and Zach Metzger talk with Spencer Graves about how you can help yourself by helping improve local media. Franklin is the leader of the Local News Initiative and the Metro Media Lab in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, just north of Chicago on Lake Michigan. Metzger is Director of their State of Local News subproject of the Local News Initiative. Medill Local News Initiative News deserts are growing, and democracy is under siege. The Local News Initiative is working to document how this is happening and highlight organizations that are bucking this trend. Their work includes six distinct projects: 1. What drives people to pay for local journalism 2. Human-centered design for local news products 3. Local news accelerator 4. Understanding media markets 5. Medill news leaders project 2019 6. The State of Local News Project Key results from each of these six projects can be summarized as follows: 1. What drives people to pay for local journalism. Key findings of this project include the following: 1.1. Find your own unique strength; don't mimic others. 1.2. Intense news consumers are more likely to drop a subscription, possibly annoyed by ads. 1.3. News outlets should encourage regular visits over intense reading. 1.4. Readers who use ad blockers are more likely to stay. 1.5. Both customers and companies benefit when consumers connect a product to their life goals. 2. Human-centered design (2018-2019): A key product of this project supports "Timelines", which can attract audiences with a sequence of short (less than 20) slides with a strong chronological narrative. 3. Local news accelerator. This project included four sub-projects: 3.1. Shared services. 3.2. Six-month cohort program in which local news organizations develop a project core to their missions. 3.3. Day-long Chicago Local News Summit. 3.4. Week-long innovation and leadership academy. 4. Understanding media markets, which worked to correlate local news consumption with other demographics. 5. Medill news leaders project 2019, which conducted over 50 interviews with news industry leaders (completed in 2019). 6. The State of Local News Project: This project is extending Penny Abernathy's path-breaking inventory of news deserts in the US, with annual reports since 2016. They now have two decades of data on news deserts and dynamic change in the news industry in the US. Tim Franklin Franklin is the John M. Mutz Chair in Local News in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern. Franklin was appointed by Governor J.B. Pritzker to serve on the Illinois Local Journalism Task Force, a bipartisan group studying the local news crisis in the state and recommending potential policy solutions. He also serves as Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Local Media Foundation, the charitable trust affiliated with the Local Media Association, one of the largest local media trade associations in North America representing newspapers, TV stations, radio outlets, digital-only news sites and R&D organizations. He also serves on the board of the Alliance for Trust in Media and The Associated Press Standards Advisory Panel. He also recently served on the board of the Google News Creators Project. He has been at Medill since 2017. Between 2014 and 2017 he was president of the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he almost doubled their revenue in three years. More details and a moderated discussion of issues raised in this interview are supported in the Wikiversity article on “Medill says you can help yourself by helping improve local media” with a video. Copyright 2025 Tim Franklin and Spencer Graves, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 international license.

    29 min

  8. JAN 8

    Care Beyond the Boulevard and ML King

    Two topic for this episode: First Ira Harritt and Rev. Dr. Vernon Howard discuss local ML King Day events. Then Nurse practitioner Jaynell "KK" Assmann describes Care Beyond the Boulevard (CBB). Martin Luther King Day  Ira Harritt, Secretary of the Interfaith Council of Greater Kansas City, Summarizes an ML King events January 11 (Sunday). A video of that service is available online. Then Rev. Dr. Vernon Howard discusses the origins of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which had ML King as its first president. Dr. Howard also describes events for ML King day next Monday. Dr. Howard is president of the  Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City and pastor of St. Mark's church at 3800 Troost. They have a press conference scheduled there next Monday, January 19, ML King Day, at 5:30 PM, with a mass immediately after at 6 PM. Care Beyond the Boulevard Jaynell founded Care Beyond the Boulevard in 2017 as a volunteer-based mobile medical clinic operating from the back of a pickup truck delivering high-quality healthcare to the homeless and other patients who lacked access to these services. They have grown substantially since. Care Beyond the Boulevard holds roughly 40 regularly scheduled medical clinics at selected locations each month. They also operate "Carehouse" at 3150 Fiberglass Road, Kansas City, KS 66115, which helps unhoused patients with a high risk of relapse recover after discharge from an area hospital. And they have "street outreach days", where they take healthcare directly to humans under bridges, in parks, encampments, and places where those experiencing poverty and homelessness are accessing other services. They have a fundraiser scheduled for Sunday, February 22, in the Rumely Tractor Historic Event Space, 1222 W. 12th St, Kansas City, MO 64101 in the West Bottoms. They will be sharing "Stories From the Street". They are also looking for opportunities to set up an information booth, join health fairs, and speak at conferences: Email info@carebeyondtheboulevard.org or call 913.291.2273. Copyright 2026 Jaynell Assmann, Ira Harritt, and Spencer Graves, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 international license.

    27 min
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About

A locally produced program where activist groups in the Kansas City area present interviews, commentary, editorials, and other thought provoking content on a weekly basis.

Information

  • Creator
    KKFI 90.1 FM Kansas City Community Radio
  • Years Active
    2014 - 2026
  • Episodes
    447
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © KKFI 90.1 FM Kansas City Community Radio
  • Show Website
    Radio Active Magazine