Last Friday, the first Friday of the month of July 2024, my radio programme Muffin Talk didn’t air for the first time in over 10 years.
Since the first broadcast of Muffin Talk, on Friday, 11 April 2014 at 8.40am on Planet FM 104.6, an Auckland community radio station, I recorded more than 530 programmes. I interviewed people of all ages, of different backgrounds and religions, different cultures and levels of education. I interviewed religious sisters and brothers, priests and bishops, rabbis and imams – as well as lay people, and people who were not religiously affiliated. I interviewed Ministers of Parliament, professors, authors, counsellors, actors, artists, social entrepreneurs and activists. The list is long.
The diversity of my guests and topics has been amazing. Yet, there was one string that bound all interviews together: work for the Common Good.
All my guests brought good news to the channel. Whatever the challenges they were dealing with, they were working on solutions for the betterment of others and in doing so, for the betterment of society.
Many of these guests were motivated by their faith, others were motivated by people around them. People whose lives they touched in a positive way, and people who touched their lives. Sometimes it was just a spark, a crucial moment in their lives that made them the person they became.
By interviewing these wonderful people, I have been sharing their journeys and their messages of hope. Listeners were tuning in via radio or Internet.
However, times have changed. Technologies have changed. The radio has changed.
I have always loved listening to the radio. I used to have the radio on almost all day long. Whenever I didn’t have to concentrate on something important, I would tune in the radio. The radio was my company. I like listening to a good conversation, to joyful music and a wide range of different rhythms. I like the variety.
In the last few years, I have been struggling to find a good radio programme. Rather than being able to listen to a variety of tunes, feeling relatively well informed after hearing the main news on the hour and a short version of the news every half an hour, I have the impression that I can only get a diversity of music if I keep changing the channel, and the news consist of 50% sports news. In addition to this frustrating situation, I feel that the music is only interrupting the commercials – rather than the other way around.
The result is that I am mainly listening to the radio after 10pm. Then, there are less commercials – and the music seems to get better.
Today, I get the news from the Internet whenever I want. The news are not anymore the regular interruptions of my radio programme. I have to choose to watch them separately. I choose the music I feel like listening to. That’s ok – but how do I know what I don’t know? How do I discover new music, new information, different views or messages?
It seems like I have to make up my mind and then I am fed by what I like. I find this very limiting and isolating. While I still “shop around” and listen to different channels from different countries, I can only imagine how one’s world view becomes limited when one only listens to one broadcast. One political view, one side of the story, one type of music. How can you choose if you haven’t heard the other side? How can you understand others if you have never heard or met them?
Muffin Talk has been about giving different perspectives. Every guest has been treated with respect. I have never verbally attacked any of my guests or put them in awkward positions. I have listened, asked questions and have given them the opportunity to share their views. I might not have agreed with everything they said, but the programme was not about me. Every interview has opened a door to an approach to do something good. My intention has been to build bridges, widen horizons – and never to lose hope.
So, Muffin Talk is not broadcast on the radio anymore. Muffin Talk will continue on the Internet. It will be shorter and connected to playing lists which means that those who watch one video can continue watching other interviews with related contexts.
More than 100 recordings of Muffin Talk are already available online. I hope that there will be many more to come. Every recording is meant to inform the audience and give food for thought.
Previous recordings and current recordings are available on the website www.studyjoy.nz: https://www.studyjoy.nz/category/resources/video-clips/
If you don’t want to miss any new programmes, you can subscribe to the video channel or to the webfeed at https://www.studyjoy.nz/feeds/
Beate Matthies, 06 July 2024
