KBGA launches live call-in show
to examine local problems

By Brad Fjeldheim
J-School Web reporter

A student radio program at the University of Montana is bringing UM students and Missoula residents together to discuss and resolve problems facing their community.

“Footbridge Forum” is a new program by the School of Journalism’s broadcast department and KBGA, the university's student-run radio station. The program brings together a panel of Missoula residents—half UM students and half non-students—to talk on live radio.

“It’s an experimental radio project with the ultimate goal to see if we can capture meaningful problems on the radio,” said Program Director Denise Dowling, a broadcast professor in the School of Journalism. “In my time here there has never been anything like it.”

A broadcast student moderates the discussion and takes live phone calls from listeners. Community members can interject opinions at any time during the show.

The idea is to get people discussing the topics, get all viewpoints on the table and help people realize how they can help solve problems in their community, Dowling said.

There are a lot of shows with people arguing, but true deliberation is rare on the radio, she said.

Students do all the production, advertising, contacts and booking of the University Center Theatre, where the show originates.

Crystal Ligori, a senior broadcast student, moderated and helped produce the first airing of the program on Dec. 8.

“It is something that is amazing to have on my resume,” Ligori said. “I was the first moderator of one of the first public deliberation forums on the radio." Ligori is executive producer of the three shows scheduled this semester; three junior broadcast students will do most of the promotional work.

“For our first time I couldn’t have asked for it to go better,” she said. Response was positive, but there are some wrinkles to iron out before the next show, Ligori said.

Thad Getman, a senior majoring in sociology, was a member of the discussion panel for the first show. He said he enjoyed it, but thought too many topics were discussed.

The discussion varied from subjects like traffic problems to Missoula wages, but there will be a set topic in the future, Dowling said. The producers will use hot topics from the first show for more specific topics in the next three.

“We decided we shouldn’t be deciding what people were concerned about, so the first show was wide open,” she said.

The next show, which will air on March 1, will focus on the transient nature of university students and its impact on students’ relationships with the community.

The first forum made it clear that participants and listeners think about
Missoula and the university as separate communities, Dowling said. The forum's producers would like to delve into that perception more deeply to determine why that is, whether it presents problems, and what can be done to resolve those problems.

The range of topics is not the only thing that will change. The discussion panel for the March 1 show will have six people instead of 10 because there wasn’t enough time for everyone’s opinion on the first show, Dowling said.

“Choosing the panel was the most difficult thing we had to do,” she said. Producers wanted a freshman, an upperclassman and a minority student — people they knew would represent different student groups on campus. Community members were chosen the same way.

“We wanted a wide range of viewpoints and yet we didn’t want to be stereotypical in the way people were represented,” Dowling said.

Broadcast student Aaron Flint hatched the idea for the “Footbridge Forum” more than a year ago. When Flint was elected ASUM president last year, he wasn’t able to do both ASUM and the radio show, so he passed the production duties on to Ligori and former broadcast student Danielle Cross.

The show is an experiment, and feedback will bring changes. Surveys from listeners and participants are being studied for ways to improve future shows.

“We didn’t know what to expect that first show and we really don’t have any idea what to expect from these subsequent shows,” Dowling said.