JUMBLED JUSTICE RADIO: REFLECTIONS ON AN ACADEMIC’S
YEAR OF PLANNING AND HOSTING A WEEKLY BROADCAST
Keith N. Haley
Tiffin, University
Tiffin, Ohio
Article is copyrighted. All rights pertain.
The article was originally presented as a paper at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences March 11 – March 15, 2008 Cincinnati, OH
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
The Motive
As a reader you have every right to ask. Why in the world would a criminal justice faculty member want to host a weekly radio show? It is not as if a full-time professor and program chair and occasional writer did not have enough to do already. Several reasons come to mind. First, I grew up listening to radio and was always fascinated with the ubiquity of the medium and the quality of the news and entertainment shows as well as the voice distinctions of the broadcasters and radio actors. Secondly, I had attempted to do precisely the same thing in the mid 1990’s at a time when the World Wide Web was far less accessible for many and the streaming audio capability was extremely limited, but still fascinating to me that I could broadcast to a maximum of 50 listeners from the desktop of my computer. Being an early adopter of technology, I had to try it. I also bought the first Honda motorcycle model ever imported into the U.S. in 1964. HP, Compaq, Microsoft, Toshiba, Sony, Palm, Apple, and many other corporations are glad I am one of their customers. I did get my first computer in the early 1970’s and, like many, could not do much with it. Thirdly, I like meeting, talking, working, and writing with professionals in my field throughout the U.S. and the world. I am by nature inquisitive. Radio expands that opportunity substantially now that anyone can broadcast worldwide.
Finally, the educational potential for radio is limitless and now any person, group, or organization with only a computer and an Internet connection can broadcast live many hours a week in streaming audio worldwide to an unlimited number of listeners and the cost is: ABSOLUTELY FREE on the Blog Talk Radio (BTR) network. I mention this every week to my listeners and guests. I am still astounded by it. Now more than 60,000 shows exist on the network residing in approximately 66 different genres. These can all be found at
www.blogtalkradio.com Show hosts and guest range from the renowned in entertainment, writing, and politics to the obscure including some on shows that frankly have little to say. But the technology works as well for them.
Blog Talk Radio Network
Blog Talk Radio now has broadcast and archived for replay by anybody more than 60,000 radio programs worldwide that I mentioned above. In February of 2008, the shows were classified in 66 different categories or genre with Entertainment; Religion; Sports; Politics; and Music occupying the top 5 classifications. My own Jumbled Justice Radio Show exists in the Politics genre.
BTR was founded in the fall of 2006 by Alan Levy and Bob Cherish to be a leading social radio network. Alan Levy had an ailing father who eventually passed away, but before his father’s passing he developed a blog site on the World Wide Web that allowed the family and friends of his father to stay updated on his father’s condition. From this blog about his father, Levy came up with the idea of a live interactive social broadcasting tool. The near instant success was remarkable as described in BTR’s own words, “Within months of the site’s official launch, blog talk radio housed thousands of hosts and hundreds of thousands of listeners and users flocked from every corner of the globe and shows covered every imaginable topic, quickly drawing notable guests and hosts including election candidates, best-selling authors, and owners of leading companies and websites in the world.”
BTR just began a revenue sharing program based on the amount of advertising each show attracts. BTR gives each host 50% of all the advertising revenue their show attracts. In addition, small audio adverts are placed at the beginning of each replay of shows archived on the Internet. The ads are unobtrusive and allow the hard working and popular hosts to make some profit for their efforts.
There is little doubt that blog talk radio has revolutionized social media networking and radio broadcasting. To reiterate, broadcast radio proudly states, “for the first time in history, anyone from anywhere in the world, as long as they have access to a phone and an Internet connection, can broadcast their voices internationally.”
Jumbled Justice Radio
I began my first radio show in the fall of 2006, shortly after the beginning of BTR. At the time I was teaching a small class of very inspiring graduate students who were also interested in authoring together a book of original essays about strange and unusual developments in criminal justice. We eventually published a book called Strange but Real: Perspectives on Odd Issues in Criminal Justice. In that class was the retired assistant director of the Ohio Department of rehabilitation and corrections. For the past several years he had been consulting for the US State Department to the government of Haiti on the matter of improving their prison system.
As I wrestled with ideas for my first radio show, I thought that this gentleman, Ron Edwards, would be an excellent guest to tell us about what was going on in Haiti in the way of improving the prisons. He was an excellent guest and there were callers to the radio show including the director of media relations for the president of Haiti. The jumbled justice radio show was off and running. I have done a 60 minute radio show on Thursday nights ever since the fall of 2006. Over that period of time I have had guests from every aspect of the criminal justice system including: a United States Marshal; a railroad corporation police chief; an expert polygraph operator; police department recruiters, two directors of juvenile court services, halfway house directors, a state director of the Minuteman, one of the nation’s top crime analysts, the chief of police of the largest university in America, president of the National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice, a detective who helped break to the BTK killer case in Wichita, and a longtime head of a state department for youth services, and the director of training for the law enforcement watercraft division of a state department of natural resources, etc. etc. I have also featured authors on many subjects including policewomen in Bahrain, the police in Bosnia, stalking and cyber stalking law, the police and the homeless, illegal immigration and the law enforcement responsibility, and numerous others. By February, 2008, I had hosted 71 radio shows. While the work can sometimes be exhausting, the opportunity to meet and talk with so many criminal justice professionals and scholars has been outstanding. One listener called the show the NPR of criminal justice and I accept that as a compliment.
My show is broken up into several elements: an In the News segment where I and others comment on major criminal justice developments in the news; Book Talk segment where we occasionally review or comment on new books; Listener Calls; and a Featured Guest and Topic. In introducing the show and in commenting on some of the news stories I use three of the best computer voices available. I purchased all three of them. My spiritual and technical advisor for the show is named Audrey. She speaks with a British accent and is so good that I still have listeners who think she is a real person. I don’t tell them otherwise. Audrey is joined by Mike and Emily who also comment on the news and do some reading for me. We also try to infuse comedy on a regular basis throughout the show. In fact, I’ve done an entire show on the “Police Going Green,” a spoof on the current planet sustainability movement.
A Primer on Blog Talk Radio Technology
It might be helpful to the reader to explain how a BTR show actually works. It will not take much space to do that since the technology and how to use it is relatively easy. First, you have to sign up as a show host, which literally is done in 3 minutes and you are immediately transformed into a worldwide Internet broadcaster. The instructions on how to host a show are simple and short. You broadcast over your cell phone or landline phone.
Days, weeks, or a month ahead of time a host may reserve the times and calendar days for as many as 4 shows in advance. On very rare occasions, twice in my case, were the times already taken and I broadcast during prime time at 9 pm – 10 pm on Thursdays. One of those times I was traveling and the later time of 10 pm that was available actually worked out better for me. Note you can broadcast from anywhere with your cell phone and a computer to manage your BTR switchboard if you have stored sound bites to play and are taking guest and other callers to the show. If the show is only you making a presentation all you need is the cell phone.
I have an introduction theme song (Johnny Cash’s I’ve Been Everywhere Man) and a closing song (Vera Lynn’s We’ll Meet Again) as well as introductory and intermittent sound bytes I play during the show, so I need to connect to the BTR website and access my switchboard which is very easy to use and reliable where one click allows me to start or stop the audio sound bytes. Several of the audio sound bytes that I use each week on the show are the Johnny Cash song; the introduction to the show by Audrey, my spiritual and technical advisor for the show (who is one of the top AT&T computer voices with a British accent); recorded applause; a blonde joke done by Audrey; recorded applause; a public service announcement; whatever special sound bytes I need for the current show; and the closing song by Vera Lynn. I use the two other computer voices, Emily and Mike, to help me read news stories that I and my guests comment on. It is not hard to think Audrey is a real person since her voice is perfect. She will say with the proper inflection anything you type after using TextAloud to make a recording. I also use her for making audio instructions for my online students. Occasionally I will upload an entire old radio show with criminal justice historical significance that can be found on archive.org, a marvelous source for classroom or online learning experiences or for pure enjoyment.
The host calls into the BTR switchboard at 5-10 minutes before show start time and logs in. Your show starts automatically at the start time and there is a computer voice that gives you periodic countdown notices minute by minute.Your guest can call in at a designated time and all the host does is click on the phone receiver symbol next to the guest’s phone number. You activate a caller to the show the very same way. Your switchboard will hold as many as five callers at the same time and all of the callers can hear the show from their phones and speak with each other. If you a want to disconnect somebody, all you do as the host is click on the hang-up symbol on the switchboard. The sound quality is outstanding. One of the genius aspects of BTR is that it uses telecom technology and not the Internet per se and this allows for a superior sound product. You can watch the countdown clock on your switchboard so you always know how close you are to the end of the show.
Within ten minutes after the show, it is archived for replay or downloading on the BTR site. I now have all of my shows archived on the BTR site and they can be used for classes or others can hear the shows that they missed in the live broadcast should they choose to.
The Educational Purpose and Value of the Jumbled Justice Radio Show
For the educator, the act of hosting a show on BTR has several clear benefits. I suppose, first of all, the always learning and researching teacher can get some revenue for the results of their research that can be reported in a number of ways on their shows. Secondly, the host educators can attract an intellectual and popular following outside of the classrooms and virtual venues they currently teach in. Thirdly, and perhaps most important, the host teacher can, in fact, produce shows that are classes on a particular subject that can be broadcast to students and other listeners or the shows can be used for a class at a later date since all of the shows can be listened to on the World Wide Web minutes after a show is completed or the show can be downloaded on to a computer, mp3 player, or disk allowing students and others to listen to a show at their leisure. Finally, an entire course could be produced and archived on BTR for current and future use. This also allows for guest speakers who only have to call into the show from a landline or cell phone. The 71 shows that I have done could just as easily be seen as a seminar series involving many criminal justice topics. You can get to the upcoming and litany of archived Jumbled Justice shows by going to
www.blogtalkradio.com/keithhaley or look for Jumbled Justice at the main BTR site at
www.blogtalkradio.com Since a host may do 14 hours a week of broadcasting, the space is available to do a full 3 credit hour course delivered over the BTR radio network.
METHODOLOGY
The purposes of this paper are below:
1. To describe the value of the Blog Talk Radio network to educators and others in delivering educational content to students and non-student listeners;
2. To report and discuss the results of a subject and guest content analysis of the 71 Jumbled Justice Radio shows, to include the subjects of the shows; positions held by guests; books that were featured and discussed; and the sources for locating guests and topics for the radio shows.
3. To identify special problems, issues, and features of planning and hosting a live radio show in streaming audio on the Internet.
RESULTS
It can be daunting at times to know that you have a full hour of content to deliver in a few days over the Blog Talk Radio network. On only one occasion in the past 18months was I not able to deliver a show because of technical connection problems. I was very disappointed that this happened and truly missed my opportunity to host a show that week. No matter whether I was in Seattle at the ACJS meeting or on the Appalachian Trail in 4 different states, I was able to broadcast my show live in streaming audio worldwide. I have had guests present from their offices, from a ferry boat, on vacation, or wherever since all they need is a cell phone. At this ACJS conference I will host my third show dealing with the homeless and the police and my featured guest will be on the other end of the state. I have had listener calls from both within the U.S. and outside the nation.
Jumbled Justice Show Topics
Variety is “the spice of life” when it comes to hosting an enjoyable radio show every week. In topic selection I try to change it up regularly so the listeners will come back next week and I will have an archived show that I can use as a learning resource for some class I am teaching. With that in mind, I did shows on the Haitian prison system; policewomen in Bahrain; railroad policing; investigative hypnosis; the polygraph; police and justice in Bosnia; campus sexual assault; mental health courts; juvenile justice; surveillance cameras; history of the gun and gun shows; the deaf and the criminal justice system; sex offender restrictions; railroad crossing deaths; African Americans in criminal justice; police recruiting; federal probation; police and the homeless and on and on.
Table 1 below provides a month-by-month account of the number of Jumbled Justice Radio shows that have aired from October 19, of 2006, through February 28, 2008.
Table 1. Number of Jumbled Justice Radio Shows by Month
Month # Shows
February 2008 4
January 2008 5
December 2007 3
November 2007 5
October 2007 4
September 2007 4
August 2007 5
July 2007 4
June 2007 4
May 2007 5
April 2007 4
March 2007 5
February 2007 4
January 2007 4
December 2006 4
November 2006 5
October 2006 2
TOTAL 71
Seventy-one Jumbled Justice radio shows have aired from October 19, 2006 through February 28, 2008. As is the case with a classroom presentation that is delivered well, about 3-5 hours of planning go are necessary to prepare a show once the topic and/or guest have been selected. I tend to over prepare so for many of the shows it took more time than that. In the very early shows, the preset audio segments were harder to prepare, but over the ensuing months BTR made that easier by allowing audio segments to be uploaded to the host switchboard.
Table 2 below identifies the featured show topics broken down into several categories with the largest number of shows in the category of Special Issues dealing with such matters as illegal immigration, accidents and deaths at railroad crossing, sexual assault on campus, public and private video surveillance, etc.
Table 2. Featured Show Topics by Category
Category # Shows
Special Issues 26
Law Enforcement 21
Old Time Radio 11
CJ Technology 6
Corrections 3
Juvenile Justice 3
Court 1
TOTAL 71
Twenty-six Special Issues was the most frequent category of shows hosted on the Jumbled Justice Radio show out of the 71 total shows. Only one show dealt specifically with court related content.
Table 3 below identifies the subjects and the guests of the shows that are identified as Special Issues
Table 3. Special Issue Show Topics
Topic
Illegal Immigration
Police and the Homeless
Presidential Candidates Views on Crime and Immigration
Big City Crime
Illegal Immigration: China and U.S.
Railroad Crossing Safety: Issues and Answers
Criminal Justice News Update and Discussion
Sexual Assault on Campus
Book: Strange but Real: Perspectives on Odd Issues in Criminal Justice
Criminal Justice Goes Green: Saving the Planet
Court Decisions concerning Police Scent Dog Evidence
The America First Political Party
Citizens for Legal Communities: Illegal Immigration
National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice
Life and Times of Adjunct Faculty
Gangster Rap
Stalking and Cyberstalking Law
Juvenile Court
The Ohio Minutemen
The Encyclopedia of International Security
Regulating the Use of Biological and Hazardous Materials in Universities
The Haitian Prison System
The Deaf and the Criminal Justice System
Concealed Carry Laws for Firearms
Gun Shows
Table 3 indeed does identify a variety of special show topics and guests related to criminal justice and public safety. Some of the more unusual topics that are not well covered, if at all, on mainstream radio and television are the Minutemen and their role in border security; stalking and cyberstalking; African-Americans in criminal justice; the deaf and the criminal justice system; biological and hazardous materials in universities; and police scent dog evidence, to name only several.
Table 4. Law Enforcement Show Topics
Topic and Guest
The United States Marshal Service – Professor Dr. Allen Smith, U.S. Marshal Retired, Tiffin University
Railroad Policing in America – Larry Schuck, Special Agent in Charge, Norfolk Southern Railroad
Federal and State Cooperation on Immigration Issues – Dr. Charles Williams, Homeland Security (retired)
Police Taser Training – Det. Kevin Cavanaugh, Kettering, Ohio Police Department
Criminal Justice in Serbia and Bosnia – Dr. Michael Palmiotto, Wichita State University
Watercraft Police Officers – Karen Muench, Watercraft Division, Ohio Department of Natural Resources
Private Security in Eastern Europe – Professor Keith Haley, Tiffin University
Women Police in Bahrain – Dr. Stacy Strobl, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Investigative Forensic Hypnosis – Detective Joe Niehaus, Kettering, Ohio Police Department
Police Officer Recruiting – Detective Ray Milburn, Dallas, Texas Police Department
Truth and Deception: The Polygraph in Policing – Lt. Bruce Robertson, Centerville, Ohio Police Department and Detective Bob Greene, Kettering, Ohio Police Department
Campus Policing – Chief Paul Denton, Ohio State University Police Department
Police Physical Fitness – Professor Keith Haley, author of the book Three Bowl Diet, Tiffin University
Crime Analysis – Sgt. Mark Stallo, Dallas, Texas Police Department, author of 4 books on crime analysis
*Several shows and guests were on for two weeks.
Table 4 above identifies a wide variety of topics and guest found in the 21 shows categorized as Law Enforcement. A sample of those shows included crime analysis; campus policing; investigative forensic hypnosis; women police in Bahrain; railroad policing; watercraft law enforcement; and police physical fitness, to name some.
DISCUSSION
The Quest for Guests
Week after week, Thursdays seem to approach very rapidly and suddenly it is show time and your featured guest has not been selected. The task looms prominent in your mind. There are three ways to handle the problem. First, the guest can always be you, the host. That becomes an alluring idea for two reasons. First, you begin to like the microphone over time and being able to talk out into the abyss without really knowing who is listening, but believing they are there, is mystifying in some ways. In other words, the microphone grows on you, and right or wrong, you think you have a lot to say.
Secondly, there are always colleagues and associates in criminal justice that are interesting people, working in academia or the field of practice or both. I have used my share of them as guests on the radio show and their specialties have included policing, crime analysis, federal law enforcement, federal probation, state corrections, and US Justice Department consultants, and academics doing research in foreign lands to name just a few. At last year’s meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences I invited a scholar who had done research on policewomen in Bahrain. It was an interesting show and she began her part of the broadcast on a ferry boat on Puget Sound. Blog Talk Radio allows you to broadcast from anywhere as long as you have a cell phone. Tonight, when I finish the presentation of my paper at the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences meeting in Cincinnati, my guest on the radio show will be Professor Michael Lewis presenting his extensive research on the police and the homeless. This will be a repeat appearance for him since he is just recently returned from Dallas, Texas with new data.
Thirdly, there is the utter delight of meeting a stranger who is truly an expert in some aspect of criminal Justice. I have booked these experts by means of referrals from previous guests, professional colleague volunteers who have contacted me, and by choosing an expert I know of and calling them up cold turkey and inviting them to be a guest on the radio show. These are guests who have some out of the ordinary position in criminal justice or related to the practice of criminal justice. Examples of this type of contact are a state watercraft officer and a railroad police chief.
In short, a major task in planning any radio show of this nature is to find interesting guests and, of course, there is a sea of potential guests to choose from along with the opportunity to meet strangers from all over the world who can contribute to your listeners' knowledge of criminal justice practice. Guests of this nature have been a gun historian, parents of missing and murdered children, a computer forensics expert who was key in the resolution of the BT K killer case, the head of a new national political party, and an expert in setting up police video surveillance systems in various cities in the United States.
Some guests have been in the following category. There is so much open-source audio recordings of new shows, old-time radio shows, and other specialty recordings and the shows can be uploaded to the BTR network switchboard and used during your own radio show. I have been fascinated with the opportunity to use, if I choose, literally hundreds of old-time radio detective shows in which the detective can be a forensics expert, a Scotland Yard detective, a New York City cop, or a near infinite number of private investigators. These shows are all available on
www.archive.org Once these shows have been uploaded, they are ready to play in high fidelity audio at the click of your mouse. Those shows have included Jack Webb in Dragnet, Arthur Train, New York County District Attorney, and the Lizzie Borden murder case. Another wonderful audio source is
www.librivox.org where thousands of audio books are available published as far back as a century ago. One of the most delightful shows I have done from this source was Harry Houdini’s book The Right Way to Do Wrong (1906), which is an examination into the details of committing theft, burglary, pick pocketing, and other crimes. Having now read this book, I believe that Houdini was the world’s first crime profiler. Police chiefs all over the world sought out the advice of Harry Houdini. I had no knowledge of that until I read listened to the book.
Live and Archived Shows as Classroom and Online Teaching Resources
One of the items that plagues the life of a teacher at any level is being able to keep the course interesting. Even with all of the resources that accompany well-done textbooks in this modern era, a college and university faculty member occasionally feels as if they things are bogging down and students are losing their motivation to learn and stay interested in the class. Movies, guest speakers, and special classroom exercises are ways to inspire the class.
Now we have available the archived BTR shows and particularly those from the Jumbled Justice Radio show. For online students I or any faculty member can make one of the shows required listening before having participation in a discussion thread on the topic. For example, students could listen to the show on police recruiting with Dallas detective Ray Milburn and some of the problems involved before engaging in a discussion thread on the subject online. This show lets them get a fresh perspective on current recruiting problems and issues. There are dozens of other examples of shows that can be used in either seated or online classes. A professor can also used the show technology to record well planned lectures that are archived and ready for replay in seated or online classes if they choose to do so, and the sound quality is excellent. All they need is to be signed up for a show and have a cell phone and a computer, although the computer is not absolutely necessary unless you want to take listener calls for that show. It could not be easier. There is no need for the ITS section of your school to set up a lecture recording. Several professors have told me that they are using some of my archived shows and I am very pleased to accommodate them. The shows are there on the web for playing, downloading and saving, and for educational use.
Special Features of the Jumbled Justice Radio Show
I have listened to other shows on the BTR network, and they run from truly the ridiculous to the sublime. Frankly, some are awful and involve no planning of content at all. The host and guest get on the air and simply chat, often about nothing of interest, I suspect, to anybody. I do know that in any successful media broadcast, instilling positive expectations is a necessary ingredient in the formula for success. Consequently, I have essentially the same show segments each week:
(1) In the News – a discussion of current criminal justice news by me and guests or callers, or with my audio staff figures Audrey, Emily, and Mike; (2) Book Talk – occasionally books are reviewed that I have read or books mentioned that are written by the guest for that night of the show; (3) Featured Topic and Guest - the heart of the show and the longest segment where guests make their presentation or are interviewed lasting anywhere from 35- 45 minutes; (4) Listener Calls - in this segment callers may call in during the news portion of the show or during the time the featured topic and guest are being broadcast. Listener calls sometimes bring pleasant surprises and let you know who is listening. On the night I was discussing Gangster Rap based on an article and book chapter I wrote entitled “Ice-T, No Sugar: Law Enforcement and Political Reactions to the Gangster Rap ‘Cop Killer’” two current major rap promoters called into the show and stayed on for the duration, enlightening the conversation.
The first audio segment that the listener hears on the show when it starts is Johnny Cash singing “I’ve Been Everywhere Man.” A song that includes in its lyrics the names of more than 90 cities and states and Cash is known to sing it from memory. I use that song to signify the breadth and variety of our radio show topics. Moreover, I am of Southern Appalachian Migrant heritage so it appeals to me and the listeners seem to like it. I always cut off Johnny at about Dayton, Ohio (after two verses) where I served for nearly 5 years as a police officer in the 1960’s. After the Johnny Cash song, Audrey England (my personal assistant and the best AT&T computer voice) introduces me and gives the listeners some basic instructions. She is given to exaggeration in her introduction of me and my credentials. But I typed it and she says anything I will type. As I said, I still have some listeners who think she is a real person. Mike and Emily also assist me in reading and commenting on news articles. I use them inside the program TextAloud. which lets the owner make audio lists of anything you want to say, including a change of voice at anytime. In other words, you can have all three of them talking with each other as if in a real conversation. That gives me a virtual radio staff of four when in reality it is only me.
In planning this show for over 18 months you end up racking your brain for new ideas and show segments. It also makes you listen to other radio shows with an intensity you had not done before. I don’t steal show ideas from others, but I pay attention more to the way the show is organized and broadcast. One of the unique things that I decided to do was have a closing song also on the theme that we will meet again. Consequently, I play each week at the sign-off time for the show Vera Lynne’s World War II song “We’ll Meet Again.” It is beautiful and sad as it describes soldiers saying goodbye and going off to war with the thought that they must keep the faith that they will meet again with their loved ones. The song works for this show.
Publishing Potential from the Jumbled Justice Radio Show
I have published books, only one of which is a best-seller of sorts within criminal justice, about every way you can do it. I have self-published books in hard copy that have sold in the thousands and in digital form, and I have one in digital form on the new Amazon Kindle eBook reader. I have published with one of the world’s largest publishers in hard back form and I have had one book translated into the Romanian language. I have never done an audio book.
I have a Sony Reader for eBooks and audio and I have become an audio book enthusiast. Now I have the content already prepared to publish an audio book that students can use to understand some of the special issues and areas of practice in criminal justice. They can also hear some real people who work in the field. And where does the content for that audio book come from? You guessed it. The content of the audio book will come from the archived Jumbled Justice Radio shows. It is a natural and logical step. Then from a CD, mp3 player, or their computer students can listen to about 20-30 of these selected shows and use the audio book in conjunction with an Introduction to Criminal Justice class. I plan at this time to make the cost of the book free. My next step will be to use the free and open source software called Audacity to record the book. It gives the author detailed instructions and all of the technology necessary to produce an audio book.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Blog Talk Radio has the potential to be a major learning resource for criminal justice students and faculty. At no cost whatsoever, any person, interest group, or organization can broadcast live in streaming audio worldwide to an unlimited number of listeners who hear the show on Windows Media Player. No opportunity such as this has existed for the education community in the past. Colleges and universities, academic departments, and individual professors in criminal justice and criminology can invite guests from around the world to speak on and discuss significant criminal justice topics and issues with only the cell phone and a computer. Moreover the shows can be done remotely, alleviating the need to be tied to a broadcast studio or technology laden classroom. When a particular show is completed it is archived at the hosts BTR show website where anyone can download or listen to the show. Along with the show itself, notes and other information can be posted on the show host’s BTR website.
From October of 2006 until February of 2008, Professor Keith Haley has broadcast 71 Jumbled Justice Radio shows on dozens of topics and with dozens of live and archived audio guests. The shows are in the following categories: 26 Criminal Justice Issues; 21 Law Enforcement; 6 Technology; 3 Juvenile Justice; 3 corrections; and 1 Court. The topics and guests have covered a broad range of subjects such as illegal immigration, the history of the gun, the polygraph, forensic investigative hypnosis, campus policing, restrictions on sex offenders, government and private video surveillance, and on and on. All are now available for use by other faculty and students since they are archived at the Jumbled Justice Radio site.
In both the seated and online learning environments, competent faculty are interested in enriching their courses with a variety of expert speakers and interesting topics. Most often that is restricted by time and distance. Now literally the world is fertile ground to find speakers on an infinite variety of topics since all that is needed for that speaker and host is a cell phone (actually it can be done also with Google Talk and Windows Messenger) and a computer to put together an outstanding show. Any supplemental audio clips can also be uploaded to the BTR show host’s website. Again, the shows can be heard live or replayed and downloaded at no charge and listened to later. The Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences panel where I am presenting this paper would be an excellent example of a 75 minute show that could be broadcast and archived for future use.
“Publish or perish” is still alive in many universities and colleges. If not that rigid, many faculty still want and need to publish. With Blog Talk Radio a faculty member could assemble a series of expert speakers on one topic over a period of weeks and months and have them appear singularly or in small groups on the faculty member’s radio show. Moreover, the faculty member could have a variety of guests and topics over months and several years and divide the titles of the shows into several sections and have all of the ingredients of an audio book. That book could be on women in policing with show presentations from 20-30 women or it could be on offender rehabilitation with each of 20-30 guests talking about a particular treatment modalities. Next step would be the preparation of an audio book using the free and open source software called Audacity. It gives the author detailed instructions and all of the technology necessary to produce an audio book.
Alan Levy and the Blog Talk Radio network have provided the academic and professional criminal justice communities a literal golden opportunity to capture some significant content, speakers, and discussions as well as broadcast interesting shows to our students and others around the world. My recommendation would be to use this free radio network and enrich the content and quality of criminal justice education.
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