The feds call them “pirate radio.” Haitians call them “a bulletin board for the community.” According to an extensive piece by reporter Tiana Woodard in the Boston Globe (9/9) the FCC has issued at least 18 violations to pirate radio stations in Massachusetts since 2020, as part of an ongoing effort by the agency to snuff out unlicensed, low-power FM stations, which the agency said can clog the airwaves during emergencies or play over other licensed, commercial stations. Two-thirds of those infractions, according to a Globe review of an FCC database, were issued to unlicensed Haitian radio stations, which for years have served the country’s third-largest Haitian community outside of the Caribbean country – a population that continues to grow as the state contends with new waves of migrants. Facing fines to the tune of thousands of dollars each, some stations – run by operators with limited financial resources – have left the radio airwaves entirely, choosing to instead take their shows digital with the hopes their listeners will follow. The evolving landscape of Haitian radio in Boston has left many concerned that listeners of these shows – many of whom are older with little internet access, don’t speak fluent English or are recently arrived migrants. These actions have triggered a wave of concern and pushback by community leaders. “They need people to guide them,” said Patricia Sanon, owner of the Pathway Access Services, an interpretation, translation, and immigration services business in Brockton. “They need the right radio station to provide such information to them so they can navigate the system.” She added: “But they don’t have that.” For decades, the FCC has tried to remove unlicensed radio hosts from the airwaves with little success. Operators such as those in Boston would get letters asking them to stop broadcasting, but there was little enforcement to back those warnings; the agency had limited manpower to go after several violators. When the Preventing Illegal Radio Abuse Through Enforcement Act, or PIRATE, became federal law in 2020, the FCC received funding to pursue offenders and issue penalties that are more than 13 times than previously allowed by law. “They’re using these huge fines again as a cudgel, like a stick, to say, ‘Look, we’re really going to get you with these $2 million fines,’” said David Goren, a longtime radio journalist and creator of the Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map, a digital archive of unlicensed shows in the New York borough. An FCC spokesperson said pirate radio can pose public safety concerns, like intercepting emergency alerts or air traffic control. Since the law went into effect, the FCC has issued 115 infractions to pirate radio broadcasts nationwide, according to the agency’s website. Massachusetts is second only to New York, which has 41. To see the entire Boston Globe story, please click here
