To the Editor:
This is in response to the WRPI articles in the November 8 issue. Because WRPI is a Union recognized media organization it, like The Poly, is protected by the media statement. Though the club obviously has to abide by Executive Board legislation and finally applying for an exception to the 5 percent non-affiliated membership rule makes perfect sense, I sincerely hope that no one, especially a member of the Executive Board, is going to use this opportunity to attempt to censor WRPI by selectively removing only those non-affiliated members whose show content they disagree with.
While it’s true that non-affiliated members engineer most of the talk shows on WRPI, they are scheduled to occupy time slots that students and even many non-affiliated members with music shows don’t want. Talk shows tend to be scheduled in the morning when most students are asleep or during the day when most of the station’s student members have class. That’s not to say that any student reading this can’t get involved and get a morning show on WRPI—in fact I encourage it.
Finally, everyone needs to keep in mind that while WRPI is a Union Club and the Board of Trustees of the Institute holds our license we are also a 10,000 watt FM radio station with a 75 mile broadcast radius. With that power comes a certain degree of responsibility to serve our potential listeners—the thousands of people at RPI but also the hundreds of thousands of people in the greater New York Capital Region. I like to think the station does a good job of serving both groups, but recently I’ve heard a lot of whining from members of student government to the contrary. Perhaps instead of sitting in the Union talking about the lack of student oriented content on WRPI these individuals should attend WRPI’s training classes and become DJs—then they can broadcast whatever legal “student-oriented” content they want just like every other student DJ.
Robert Otlowski
CSCI ’06
