Necessity is the mother of invention – almost a doctrine in free radios.
Freies Radio für Stuttgart regularly publishes the print magazine Modulator. In the early years, many free radios had similar print products. They are partly publicity for the diverse program, but also contain additional jounalitic content. Most radio print magazines have disappeared again – not so at Freies Radio für Stuttgart. Everyone is asking – how do you do it, in terms of staff, content, finances?
During an online session in July 2020, Boris let us in on the secret: The Drupal CMS of their website allows an XML export for Adobe Indesign, which is used for both the print magazine and a newsletter. Only broadcast series that have description stored for the current broadcast are included in the newsletter. This motivates the approximately 250 editors to fill the editorial system.
The hierarchical structure also helps to structure the publications: Several broadcast series can be assigned to an editorial team. Each series occupies a slot of the program scheme. For each individual broadcast a description with an article image and a playlist can be stored.
At the program scheme the descriptions of the broadcasting series are displayed by default. If descriptions for a single broadcast is available (broadcast details) these are displayed. The URLs for the article of the broadcast details are generated from the broadcast date. Thus, a broadcast on February 21, 2020 at 6 p.m. is given the URL https://www.freies-radio.de/sendungsdetails/202002211800. Dates are displayed both for the past and for the future.
The bimonthly print magazine Modulator therefore does not have the hectic editorial deadlines of publishers organized by civil society. There is no need to collect lot of missing articles from volunteers or to have them written by the public relations employee. The CMS helps to use the available resources and enables a collaborative production process that is optimally tailored to the volunteer structures of free radio.
