Building Community By Richard S. Towne, KUNM General Manager Zounds! (KUNM-FM program guide), June 2007

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KUNM is well known as a community station and we talk all about community and community media, and serving community needs. Especially during our on-air campaigns when we’re asking you to give your financial support to KUNM so we can continue the community work.

I recently fielded a phone call from a listener who wanted to know what we meant when we talk about “building community.” The caller was sincere in wanting to understand the phrase and asked for an example of how KUNM helps to “build community.” Community can be defined in a hundred different ways – so I’ll share the example I gave our caller – about an effective contribution that KUNM is making to help build a community.

As a community broadcaster, KUNM played a small but critical role in building the community partnership described below. As a KUNM contributor, I want you to realize that you are giving us the ability to support partnerships – and build community. It’s the kind of activity we engage in every day, thanks to your support and our shared belief that community media can make a difference in the lives of the people we serve.

Once upon a time (actually last October), KUNM’s Program Director Marcos Martinez was contacted by Denis Doyon from the NM Media Literacy Project (NMMLP.org). NMMLP was sponsoring a project in partnership with the NM Department of Health. Together we wanted to build a statewide effort to help young people fight against the massive media influences that contribute to young people starting to smoke. The NM Media Literacy folks would be the first to tell you that 80% of recent Hollywood movies portray smoking, including half of all G-rated movies.

NM Department of Health (thestink.org) funded a contest designed and run by the Media Literacy Coalition to get middle school and high school students to create radio and TV ads aimed at preventing tobacco use among young people. The contest is called the “Talk Back to Big Tobacco! Script & Storyboard Contest.” Young people would write their own scripts to take back the media messages on smoking.

The prize? The four winning entries in radio and in TV receive $500 in cash. The scripts are being produced by youth media producers and will be BROADCAST on KUNM radio and on Community Cable Access Channel 27 TV in Albuquerque.

The results? Over 200 New Mexico youth (age 12-18) entered the contest, submitting 182 original scripts and storyboards for 30-second radio and TV spots. The winning radio entries will be hearing the winning spots on KUNM starting in late April …. (drum roll please!):

“Dead Serious” by the first period Drama class at South Valley Academy, Albuquerque (Ruby Bencomo, Alejandra Bueno, Paola Castillo, Pedro Chavez, James Dean, Jessica Gutierrez, Cody Herdren, Bailey Long, Abi Mendoza, Jorge Mendoza, Uriah Snowden and Brandon Von Gedda).

“El humo no discrimina” by Leopoldo Rosales and Merit Schumaker, Academy for Technology & the Classics, Santa Fe .

“Untitled” by Mariah Pepe, Jackson Middle School, Albuquerque.

“Untitled” by Sara Tuzel, Los Alamos High School, Los Alamos.

The Radio and TV spots will premiere at the Fame & Shame Awards at the KiMo Theatre in Albuquerque (April 14 at 4:00 p.m.) and will also be distributed to schools and tobacco prevention organizations around the state. The New Mexico Media Literacy Project and New Mexico Voices for Children are the presenters of the Fame & Shame Awards, claiming that “The fame goes to the New Mexico youth who have been nominated for the Youth Kicking Tobacco’s Butt Advocate of the Year Award. The shame belongs to the Hollywood celebrities who promote youth tobacco use by smoking on screen.”

Your support to KUNM helps us support this type of community building. For more information on this article: www.talkback.nmmlp.org, www.nmvoices.org, and www.the stink.org.

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