Alan S. Chartock

Alan S. Chartock
Occupation(s)	CEO, WAMC
Spouse	Roselle Chartock

Alan Seth Chartock (born July 25, 1941 in New York City) is the president and chief executive officer (since 1981) of WAMC/Northeast Public Radio, a National Public Radio affiliate. He is also a Professor Emeritus of political science and communications, at the State University of New York (SUNY) and executive publisher and project director for the Legislative Gazette, a weekly, student-run newspaper covering New York State government that began in 1978 as a joint project between SUNY New Paltz and SUNY Albany. The Gazette under Chartock (and Glenn Doty, a former managing editor for the Times Herald-Record), helped to train hundreds of prospective journalists, many of whom took up journalism as a career.

Chartock hosts the weekly Capitol Connection series, heard on public radio stations around New York. The program, for almost twelve years, highlighted interviews with Governor Mario Cuomo and now continues with conversations with state political leaders. His syndicated column on politics appears in newspapers throughout New York state, and a second column, I Publius, runs in the Berkshire Eagle newspaper each Saturday.

Background

Prior to being hired by SUNY, Chartock worked in the state legislature for Manfred Ohrenstein, a powerful Manhattan Democrat. Chartock is a graduate of Hunter College (BA '63), received his MA from American University and Ph.D. from New York University. Chartock is married to Roselle K. Chartock, an author and professor of education at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams. The couple resides in Great Barrington, Massachusetts and has two grown children, Sarah and Jonas Chartock. Chartock's identical twin, Dr. Lewis C. Chartock, is president and CEO of MERS/Missouri Goodwill Industries.

Radio personality

Chartock appears on many of WAMC's radio programs:

• He is host of The Capitol Connection[1], a weekly program of interviews with New York State politicians.
• Chartock appears each week on The Media Project[2], a show in which he and other local journalism professionals discuss topical media issues.
• Chartock regularly hosts the call-in talk show Vox Pop[3] (especially on "Medical Mondays").
• He holds the title of Political Observer at WAMC. In this capacity, Chartock can be heard on news programs including The Legislative Gazette[4], Midday Magazine[5], and Northeast Report[6].
• Chartock hosts the "Congressional Corner," a daily interview segment of The RoundTable[7]. *Finally, he hosts the morning portions of WAMC's regular fund drives.

Chartock increased his on-air presence after retiring from his university teaching duties several years ago.

Awards

Chartock has won numerous awards at SUNY, including the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching and the SUNY Council of University Affairs and Development Award for Educational achievement. He was one of the first recipients of the SUNY Award for Excellence. In 2007, Chartock was chosen to receive the 2006 Alumni Association Award for Distinguished Teacher from the SUNY New Paltz Alumni Association.

He is the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate for public service from the Sage Colleges and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Western New England College.

Views of WAMC news and political commentary

Chartock's Political views

Chartock says he is concerned about governmental restrictions on free speech. He is dismayed by what he calls the proliferation of corporate run radio stations, which he believes express extreme right-wing views without giving opposing viewpoints.

According to Gadi Dechter of CityPaper.com, Chartock "publishes a blog on WAMC’s web site that has recently featured sharp attacks on the Republican Party, the Bush administration, and "neocons" in general."

Criticism of Chartock's Programming

NPR's official news policy states that its affiliate stations should be "fair, unbiased, accurate, honest, and respectful of the people that are covered."

A Washington-based NPR news producer, who requested anonymity, criticized Chartock, saying s/he was "driving through upstate New York and listening to the local public radio station, and there was this guy on the air ranting. He was talking about the war in Iraq and how wrong it was and how we’re being held hostage as a country by this right-wing administration." The NPR producer assumed he had tuned into a Pacifica radio station, one of a small network of community stations that broadcast left-of-center advocacy-journalism programs. "But then I nearly couldn’t believe it when this guy said, 'In just a few moments we'll be returning to NPR's All Things Considered.'" What the NPR producer was hearing was a pledge drive hosted by Alan Chartock.

"If you took a photo of me in the car," said the NPR producer, "my jaw would have been on the floor. It really freaked me out. As a producer, I want NPR to be viewed as middle-of-the-road. I want people to think that NPR is fair. But when someone like Chartock gets on the air, it makes us look like a left-of-center organization, just as we believe Fox (cable news) is a right-wing organization because they mix commentary with news. And I guarantee you that Joe Listener out there is not making a distinction between the crazy local guy and the reasonable national organization."

Chartock responded that WAMC is politically balanced by including editorials from as many conservative commentators as liberals.

Blogger/columnist Bill Shein's satirical "radio drama", "Fund Drive,""Fund Drive". offer two other critiques of Chartock and WAMC. One fictive caller asks, "Why does WAMC air the same content on 12 stations that cover all or part of seven states? I don’t want local news from Burlington, Vermont or other places hundreds of miles away. Isn’t that what Clear Channel does?" A second caller asks why there aren't more diverse voices on WAMC, to which the (fictional) Chartock replies "Look, we offer many different voices on programs like “The Media Project,” which I host, as well as “The Capitol Connection,” which I host, and “The Legislative Gazette,” which includes my commentary. Not to mention “Congressional Corner,” which I host. And as political and media commentator for “The Roundtable,” I often suggest that media should have more voices."

Support for Chartock's programming

Stephen Yasko, manager of WTMD (89.7 FM), an NPR member station in Towson, MD which plays mostly adult-alternative music, contends that any quality-control challenges which might be created by NPR’s decentralized nature are outweighed by the advantage of unique local programming.

“Public radio stations reflect the values and texture of the communities they serve,” says Yasko, who has also worked in the NPR member services department. “If NPR or any national organization had too much control or input into every station’s local personality, then you would lose the very thing that makes us what we are. So if Alan Chartock is what Albany and upstate New York created and what works for them, that’s a beautiful thing, no matter what some outsiders might say.”

Under Chartock's leadership, WAMC has grown into a network of fourteen stations serving portions of seven New England and Middle Atlantic States, bringing news, information and cultural programming to what WAMC reports is an audience of nearly 400,000 monthly listeners (though that figure is not officially certified by Arbitron nor by any other audience ratings service). The station's most recent fund drive (as of March 2007) raised over $700,000 in just over four days.

See also

• WAMC
• The Media Project

References

• Books written by Chartock
  • Chartock, Alan S. (1995). Me and Mario Cuomo: conversations in candor. New York: Barricade Books. ISBN 1-56980-062-6. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  • Chartock, Alan S. (1974). The Midtown Project. New York: (Publisher unknown). (ISBN unknown). {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  • Chartock, Alan S. (1970). Strengthening the Wisconsin Legislature (An Eagleton study and report). New Jersey: Published for the Eagleton Institute of Politics by Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-0612-3. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)

External links

• Alan S. Chartock's Web site
• Alan S. Chartock's biography
• Alan S. Chartock's Blog
• Current photo of Alan S. Chartock
• WAMC Northeast Public Radio Network—A tax-exempt, educational broadcaster for which Alan S. Chartock is currently chief executive
• WAMC Northeast PIRATE Network—A Web site containing articles generally critical of Chartock and his management of radio station WAMC.