Lynn Samuels, 69; began talk career at Pacifica’s WBAI

Progressive radio talk-show host Lynn Samuels, 69, who began her career on public radio, was found dead in her Queens, N.Y., apartment on Christmas Eve, the New York Daily News reported. When Samuels didn’t show up for her Sirius XM show Dec. 24, reps for the satellite radio company had asked the police to investigate. Samuels began her radio career in 1979 at Pacifica Radio’s WBAI in New York City. In the 1980s she moved to WABC Radio.

Dyson show prepares for second pubradio launch

Baltimore’s WEAA has begun piloting the Michael Eric Dyson Show, a midday talk show that is being reincarnated for a second try at pubradio syndication. CPB awarded $505,000 to WEAA last fall to create a new public radio home for Dyson after an earlier production by the African American Public Radio Consortium folded (Current, Oct. 13). After Dyson and the consortium parted ways, the group created a new program last fall, Upfront with Tony Cox, but it has suspended production to raise money, according to the show’s website. Dyson is a Georgetown University sociology professor, author and social critic who frequently appears on television talk shows.

Dyson to try again for pubradio stardom

Two daily public radio programs for African American audiences have risen from the ashes of News and Notes, a talk show that NPR cancelled in March. But acrimony over plans, funding and personalities involved in the midday programs has split the African American Public Radio Consortium, a key station constituency for any broadcast aimed at black listeners.

Terry Gross: engaged with subject and listeners

Terry Gross is interviewing the actor Dustin Hoffman. He is about to launch what is probably a set piece about his work with Mike Nichols on The Graduate, an obligatory story in most of his interviews. She knows this, having set up the subject. She also knows it is a story the audience may have heard before. He explains that Nichols offered him three pieces of advice.

A radio woman’s tale: reclaiming her voice

All of these years, Diane Rehm’s voice: the vehicle for ordinary sentences she enunciates so emphatically that they carry their utmost weight. But creaky on the edges, hitting snags. It’s a voice reliably there at midmorning on her NPR talk show, familiar; listeners love it. Except for the inevitable detractors, who say they find Rehm grating, or schoolmarmish. Love or hate that voice, it’s illuminating to learn that a physical problem contributes to Rehm’s on-air distinctiveness.