So it was about 3:30 PM Saturday and the family and I were gearing up to head out to the Santa Fe Brewing Company for the Media Consolidation Panel meeting, where members of Indie 101.5 and local media were going to discuss the “big box” intrusion into independent media outlets in Santa Fe. A friend of ours, who was already at the Brewing Company, called and said, "Um, just wanted to let you know that there's a tornado out here."

Pause. I asked, "What?" and he replied, "There’s a tornado! It's out near the racetrack and we're watching it. It's pretty small, but it's on the ground ... " Then I asked him how many beers he’d had.

I went outside to take a look, and sure enough—there it was, a small, skinny funnel cloud stretching from the ground to the clouds. Now, I'm from Oklahoma so my first thought was, "That's a puny looking tornado." But nonetheless, a tornado in Santa Fe County is a very rare event.

My second thought was, "Crap. This is going to affect the Media Consolidation Panel.” But we loaded up the family and headed out to the Brewing Company anyway. We got there to find Indie staff and other panelists and volunteers hurriedly moving the electronics from the patio to inside, which was a good thing as lightning was flaring. Once the panel discussion got going, the heavens opened up and it not only started to pour, but hail the size of half-dollars fell and covered the ground completely.

The noise of the rain and hail made it hard at times to hear what the panelists were saying, but it did not drown out the passion and vehemence of what everyone was expressing. It was moving to hear other people voicing the same concerns that we have about the potential homogenization of Santa Fe.

The times, they are a changing—but there is hope. We still have a voice, and we can make it be heard. We don’t have to sit by and let Santa Fe become “Everytown, USA.” If we lose all of our local media outlets to corporation conglomerates, then we lose the soul of our community. As I pointed out in my recent letter to the editor in the New Mexican, “homogenization and Santa Fe do not mix.”

A truly independent, local station should reflect the community it serves. It is the voice of the community, and it gives back to the community by advertising and promoting locally owned businesses—not Home Depot, McDonald’s, or Applebee’s. As someone on the panel pointed out, for the last sixty years Santa Fe has been tourist destination because it is unique and different. We need to preserve these aspects. A tourist doesn’t want to come to Santa Fe to hear ads on a “local” station promoting a Great Value Meal at a chain restaurant; a tourist wants to hear about great local restaurants to visit, gallery openings, or a band playing at a local cantina.

Someone else on the panel also pointed out that Hutton Broadcasting, which claims to be “local,” has most of their shareholders in Florida. How much do you think those Florida shareholders know about New Mexico, much less Santa Fe?

Hutton is only concerned about their bottom-line profit, not our community, not our local businesses, nor our music lovers. They claim they will support local nonprofits and businesses, but their track record says otherwise. They give a lot of lip service in the beginning, but time will show that the big corporate bucks from national advertisers will be more prominent than local advertisers.

After the panel discussion at the Brewing Company was over, the weather started to clear up, with some sunshine out to the west. I thought it a great metaphor for what we’d gone through during the panel discussion: it might be dark and dreary in this moment, but there is hope at the end.

If you’re concerned about the nation-wide trend of local radio options becoming ghosts in the face of corporate profit, make your concerns known to the FCC; visit keepindiealive.com and take a few minutes to send a letter to the FCC.

Indie 101.5 may not be able to hold on to its current signal, but it’s not going down without a fight. It will continue to stream live online, and the staff is searching other options for it to stay on the air. Keep in touch by visiting indie1015.com for further details.