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VIDEO: Wally Bowen of the Mountain Area Info Network

After a career in newspaper journalism and college public relations, Wally Bowen in the 1980s became an early pioneer in the field of media-literacy education. In the 1990s, he founded what has become Mountain Area Information Network, in Asheville, N.C., a non-profit online news service, low-power FM station and Internet Service Provider. In this one-hour interview with the Media Giraffe Project's Bill Densmore, Bowen explains the unique operation and why he's motivated to continue with it.

AUDIO: Wally Bowen of Mountain Area Information Network

It's hard for Wally Bowen to walk along the streets of downtown Asheville, N.C., without getting stopped by a listener, viewer, reader or political fellow traveler who has been touched by -- or volunteers for -- his Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN).

In the 1980s, Bowen left a job as a PR person for the University of North Carolina at Asheville and started a media-literacy advocacy group. In the 1990s he started one of the first-ever local online news services in MAIN. And now his not-profit operates a low-power FM station.

On April 2, 2008, Bowen talked with the Media Giraffe Project about his odyssey as a progressive media activist.  You can listen to streaming audio (60 minutes) by clicking on the carat on the bar below:

or download an MP3 podcast.