The Volunteer-Run Digital Radio Station Behind Some of the Most Essential Ferguson Coverage

If you’ve been watching the nightly unrest in Ferguson online,
chances are good that you’ve seen the stream
from KARG Argus Radio. And
even if you’ve haven’t watched it live, there’s a fair chance
you’ve come across some of its coverage. That
video I posted last week of police tear-gassing a neighborhood?
It came from KARG. That
viral footage of a cop yelling “You get that light off or
you’re getting shot [or was it ‘shelled’?] with this!” as he
pointed his gun at a cameraman? KARG. Even when there isn’t much
happening onscreen—just a stationary camera pointed at a mob of
cops in military gear—the stream can be mesmerizing: sort of a
violent, dystopian Warhol movie.

So it’s worth noting that this outlet offering some of the most
essential coverage of the conflict is a volunteer-run digital radio
station based in Maplewood, one of St. Louis’ many micro-towns.
The Huffington Post
profiles the operation:

“We’ve just been told by the St. Louis Police
Department to turn off our cameras,” said the voice on KARG Argus
Radio’s livestream broadcast. “We will not be turning off our
cameras. We will continue to broadcast, even if it is at our own
peril.”

That voice belonged to Mustafa Hussein, a political science student
who volunteers at the small, urban music station based in nearby
Maplewood.

Hussein told The Huffington Post that Argus Radio, which launched
online a year ago and is run by five volunteers, recently purchased
video equipment so it could livestream concerts. But the station
decided to use the equipment for the first time Wednesday to cover
the interaction between police and protesters, which it was worried
local affiliates would not continue to cover through the
night.

For several days, protesters in Ferguson have been demanding
answers to why a police officer shot and killed Brown last week.
The police response to protests intensified Wednesday night, with
heavily armed SWAT teams shooting tear gas and rubber bullets into
crowds.

Hussein filmed the confrontation, operating the camera alone on
foot even as he ran from the tear gas and projectiles. Some local
affiliates also provided streaming coverage online, but TV
satellite trucks did not have Hussein’s ability to maneuver around
police roadblocks. Hussein managed to get ground-level footage that
major cable networks didn’t have, and both CNN and MSNBC aired his
footage throughout the day Thursday.

Read the rest of the piece
here. Read me singing the praises of independent, volunteer-run
community radio stations
here.