'This Way Out' - Gay Radio Show May Die for Lack of Funding Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - "Lyn Gerry" October 24, 2001 For immediate release Contact: Greg Gordon +1+818+986-4106 TWOradio@aol.com International Gay Radio Show May Be Silenced Cash Crunch Could Halt Production in November Los Angeles - Funding woes may force "This Way Out", the thirteen-year-old gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender non-profit radio program heard around the world, to pull the plug as soon as the end of November. According to Coordinating Producer Greg Gordon, the show needs to raise about $5,000 in the next four to six weeks and at least $5,000 more by the end of the year in order to continue production through early 2002. By then he believes more long-term funding can be secured. The financial crisis has been building for several months. Recent grant applications to foundations, the programs traditional funding base, were rejected, and an online fundraising campaign featuring appeals by lesbian-feminist humorist Kate Clinton and iconic author Patricia Nell Warren ("The Front Runner" trilogy) only brought in relatively-small private donations. "Thankfully those individual contributions, and some modest local fundraising events here in Los Angeles and in New York got us through the summer," said Gordon, "This Way Out"s only paid staffmember. Although the program has always been provided to community radio stations free of charge, a voluntary "carriage fee" contribution from WORT in Madison, Wisconsin also helped tide the show over until Fall. However at that point the cash flow dried up. Gordon said that, "A major foundation grant we thought we had a very good chance of getting in September has fallen through. There are some promising new possibilities we're working on, but staying on the air long enough for those potential funding sources to bear fruit, so to speak, is now our biggest challenge." As Patricia Nell Warren wrote in her appeal, "Radio is a wonderful medium, with grassroots power to reach people directly and personally in places where TV and the Internet still don't go, to inform them and entertain them. Indeed, radio is so strategically important in public opinion-building that the religious right used it mightily to bootstrap themselves into national power; today the RR still puts major money into radio, both in the U.S. and internationally... "...(but) we suffer from an overwhelming obsession with movies and TV, and don't provide much support for our own radio media... while we're so busy trying to get Dr. Laura off the air, our apathy towards gay radio is helping move our own shows into oblivion." Who will suffer most from "This Way Out"s demise? = Brad, a 15-year-old gay teen in California: "Many people at school and home suspect I am gay. I get the regular teases and name calling from people, but I just ignore them. I listen to your program every week with my earphones on so nobody will hear me listening." = Linda a 17-year-old lesbian in Missouri: "I thought I was alone and attempted suicide. The Lesbian and Gay Hotline in St. Louis recommended that I listen to your radio show. I loved it! It's like finding an oasis in the middle of the desert!" = Neal, a listener in Salt Lake City: "I'm a 44-year-old married male just confronting my homosexuality. I can't tell you what a moral boost your program is for me. I look forward to it every week. It's better than church." = Kevin, a non-gay Pennsylvania teenager: "I heard tonights 'This Way Out' for the first time ever. I'm not gay, but have gay friends; I'll tell them about this program. Keep up the good work." Thats the kind of impact over 700 weekly editions of "This Way Out" have had since 1988. What will Brad and Linda and Neal and tens of thousands of gay and non-gay listeners from Winnepeg to Woomera do if their "oasis" suddenly dries up? Donations to "This Way Out" -- administered through their 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporate name of Overnight Productions -- are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law, and can be made online via PayPal at the programs Web site, www.thiswayout.org, or postal mailed to P.O. Box 38327, Los Angeles, CA 90038. -30- [Note to editors: For a list of stations that broadcast "This Way Out" in your area please contact us. "This Way Out" can also be heard online on PlanetOut (www.planetout.com) in the Multimedia/Radio section.] ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytsxp-10.29.01-21:01:43-25941