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51% Show #1192

FM: National Productions
DT: Friday May 18, 2012
RE: 51% Show #1192
 
STATIONS: If you have comments or suggestions, please contact Susan Barnett at SBARNETT@WAMC.ORG
 
We encourage stations to air the entire show in full, but you can also excerpt portions, with appropriate credit given upon notification of WAMC.
 
Here is this week's information on 51% #1192.
 
(SHOW THEME)
 
BILLBOARD – Susan Barnett (Music Out)

(:43)

The name Tavis Smiley is probably familiar to you – he’s the host of social issues-oriented talk shows on public radio and public television. He’s the founder of the Tavis Smiley Foundation, working to prepare the next generation for leadership. And he is now on a mission. Joined by his friend and co-host of a second radio show, Smiley and West, Smiley and Dr. Cornel West, who’s created a fair amount of controversy in his own right, are trying to shake America awake. They say that the gap between the haves and the have nots is far wider than we admit – that in fact half the population of the US is now either poor – or on the verge of poverty. One half. In their book, The Rich and the Rest of Us, Smiley and West lay out the issues, and talk about the need for national action. I spoke with them by phone during their national tour.

10:04  Tavis Smiley and Cornel West

Tavis Smiley is host of The Tavis Smiley Show on PBS and PRI - Public Radio International. With Cornel West, he hosts Smiley & West on PRI. Dr. Cornel West is an academic, philosopher, author and civil rights activist. The two of them have been doing a national tour discussing their new book, The Rich and the Rest of Us – A Poverty Manifesto.  Find out more attherichandtherestofus.com.

Coming up, we’ll go where the pay disparity between women and men is worse than the already not-impressive national average…you’ll be surprised where it is.  If you missed part of this show or want to hear it again, visit the 51% archives at wamc.org.  This week’s show is #1192.

 (12:07)

Women’s role in the national economy has been a running theme of this year’s election season. And well it should be – when the recession first hit, women, who traditionally make less, were holding the family finances together as their husbands lost their jobs. And now the recession’s hit them. It’s a major factor in the shocking rise in American poverty. You might be surprised to find where the biggest wage gap exists in the US.  It’s in the nation’s heartland – Indiana.  West Martin of WFHB explores where women fit into Indiana’s economy.

7:24  Wage gap

That report comes to us courtesy WFHB.  For more, visit www.wfhb.org/news/dln

Finally, there are reports that TV’s viewership is slipping away; viewership for American Idol is down 30%.  Overall, TV’s target audience, 18-49 year olds, stayed away in droves for the first four weeks starting March 19.   Maybe it was the weather.  Or maybe it was a slew of new all alternatives.  The Internet has upended the music business, and now it’s doing the same to television. It’s a new frontier – and an appropriate place to air a web-Western. Allison Quantz has details.

2:32  Web western

That report came to us courtesy With Good Reason, a program out of Charlottesville, Virginia. Hear more at withgoodreasonradio.org.

(11:24)

That’s our show for this week. Thanks to Katie Britton for production assistance.  Our theme music is by Kevin Bartlett.

If you’d like to hear this show again, or visit the 51% archives, go to our website at WAMC.org. You can also find a regular column related to 51% at feminist.com. Thanks so much for joining us; we’ll be back next week with another edition of 51% The Women's Perspective.

(:20 pads out to 25:00)

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