Smith edited the influential Guardian (U.S.) in the ’60s-’80s; Bacon authored ‘In the Fields of the North’; Hill is a pioneer of the gay movement and Shelor heads Queer Rights ATX.
Rag Radio host Thorne Dreyer with Suzy Shelor of Queer Rights ATX in the KOOP studios, July 8, 2017. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.
The following podcasts are from recent Rag Radio shows with host Thorne Dreyer. The syndicated Rag Radio program, produced in the studios of Austin’s cooperatively-run KOOP-FM, has an international audience and has become an influential platform for interviews with leading figures in politics, current events, literature, and cutting-edge culture.
♦ Jack A. Smith (1934-2017): Influential Left-Wing Journalist & Political Activist
Jack A. Smith died of complications of COPD in New Paltz, New York, on June 29, 2017. On Friday, July 21, we reprised our August 3, 2012 exclusive interview with Smith. Jack, our longtime friend and colleague, was one of the most important figures in progressive journalism in the 20th century. In his early life a radical pacifist who spent nine months in federal prison for refusing induction, Jack Smith edited The Guardian in the 1960s-1980s. The Guardian was the largest circulation independent left-wing paper in the United States. In his later years, Smith lived in the Hudson Valley, north of New York City, where he remained politically active, organizing demonstrations and publishing the monthly Hudson Valley Activist. Newsletter which had a circulation in the thousands.
See “The life and times of Jack A. Smith” by Thorne Dreyer at The Rag Blog.
Read the full show description and download the podcast of our August 3, 2012 Rag Radio show with Jack A. Smith, here — or listen to it here:
♦ Writer & Photojournalist David Bacon: ‘In the Fields of the North’
David Bacon is Thorne Dreyer’s guest. David’s acclaimed new book — totally bilingual — is In the Fields of the North: En los campos del norte. The book includes more than 300 photos and a series of personal narratives that bring a little known or understood universe to life. Bacon is a California-based writer, documentary photographer, and longtime union organizer who is the author of several books about migration and the plight of farmworkers. “In the Fields of the North is a landmark fusion of journalism and documentary photography.” — Paul Von Blum,Truthdig
Read the full show description and download the podcast of our July 14, 2017 Rag Radio interview with David Bacon here — or listen to it here:
♦ Pioneering Gay Activist Ray Hill & Suzy Shelor of Queer Rights ATX
Thorne Dreyer’s guests are pioneering Houston gay rights activist Ray Hill and Queer Rights ATX organizer Suzy Shelor. Also joining in is Taylor Jones of Queer Rights ATX. We discuss the state of the queer movement in the country and efforts, including those by the Texas legislature, to suppress it. We also talk about the Trump presidency and the grassroots resistance movement that has emerged in Austin and around the nation.
Read the full show description and download the podcast of our July 8, 2017 Rag Radio interview with Ray Hill and Suzy Shelor here — or listen to it here:
Rag Radio, a weekly hour-long syndicated radio program that has aired more than 300 original shows since September 2009, is produced and hosted by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer. Tracey Schulz is engineer and co-producer.
Rag Radio is produced in the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas, and is first broadcast live on KOOP every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CDT) and streamed live on the web. All Rag Radio shows are posted as podcasts at the Internet Archive.
Rag Radio can also be heard on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA., on KPFT-HD3 90.1, Pacifica radio in Houston, on KKRN 88.5-FM in Round Mountain, CA, and as a featured podcast at Veterans Today. Find details here.
After broadcast, all Rag Radio shows are posted as podcasts at the Internet Archive.
Rag Radio is produced in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive Internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.
Please contact us at ragradio@koop.org.
[Thorne Dreyer is an Austin-based writer, editor, broadcaster, and activist. A pioneering alternative journalist, Dreyer was a founding editor of the original Rag in 1966 Austin and Space City! in Houston, and managed KPFT-FM, Houston’s Pacifica radio station. Dreyer now edits The Rag Blog, hosts Rag Radio, and is a director of the New Journalism Project. Contact Dreyer at editor@theragblog.com.]
