I’ve been on-air for thousands of hours and am extremely comfortable hosting, anchoring, reporting, or producing live news, sports or entertainment coverage to millions of listeners. I have FCC-training and know the rules of broadcast.
I never wanted to be a radio star or a personality. I have an excellent voice and I wanted to use it, but not to sell stuff or manipulate people. That’s why I chose to support and work in community and pirate radio and not commercial radio. And why I was predominantly a newsman. People trusted and can trust me.
I worked off-and-on in broadcast radio for 30 years. I’ve cut magnetic tape with razor blades and worked with umpteen versions of digital editing software. I have mic’ed and engineered musicians and interviewees. I have conducted live reports from the field – in New York, Palestine, India, Taiwan and Portugal – and produced elections coverage from the smallest local elections to the Presidential race.
As senior management of the largest independent FM signal in the United States of America, I’ve also been an Executive with sole responsibility for a wide-ranging broadcast signal for hours at a time.
On a volunteer basis, I helped found at least three different independent community radio stations on two continents.
Chronology of my work in radio:
I was a dj, host, news anchor, reporter and helped co-found KTSB student radio at the University of Texas from 1986 to 1989. I also co-created, -wrote and -produced “Midnight News,” a comedy take on current events and news. This was 10 years before The Daily Show.
I was news and sports reporter and hosted the morning sports report on ICRT, Intercontinental Radio Taiwan in 1991. My morning sports segment – which ran live at drive time (8:50am) and taped (9:20 and 9:50am) – was a ten-minute sports report that covered events that had happened in Europe and the U.S. during the night. This was before digital and international television so, for many English-speaking people living on Taiwan, I was the first person to tell them about the 1991 NBA Finals and Jordan’s incredible move and the amazing 1991 World Series between the Twins and Braves. I also covered Taiwanese baseball and was among the very first to do so.
I was News Director and Executive Producer of News for Pacifica Radio at KPFK 90.7fm Los Angeles/98.7fm Santa Barbara from 2003 to 2005, covering the Iraq War, Election of Schwarzenegger via Recall of Gray Davis, the 2004 Presidential Race culminating in Bush vs. Kerry. I returned to KPFK briefly to report in Obama’s Iowa Caucus victory in 2008.
I helped restart 104.1 fm Berkeley Liberation Radio in 2008, and helped producers establish a temporary broadcast from the Republican National Convention in NYC in 2004.
Here are some clips from my time at KPFK, when my audience was as many as several million:
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Schwarzenegger’s Election for BBC Radio
Just moments after Arnold Schwarzenegger became Governor of California, for the first time, I was interviewed by British radio about it:
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Pacifica Radio Elections Coverage by MTK
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MTK on 90.7fm Los Angeles:
Midday News Report on Scheverdnadze and Khodorkovsky’s Demise
MTK interviewed people describing the first time they used a computer at:
Some interviews by MTK on live radio, Pacifica/KPFK 90.7fm Los Angeles:
Daniel Ellsberg:
Karin Lee, North Korea Policy Analyst :
The Late Great Peter Camejo 2004:
San Francisco Board of Supervisor’s President Matt Gonzalez on Eve of Mayoral Runoff v. Gavin Newsom 2003:
artist Eric Drooker, During Republican National Convention, 2004:
Alec Baldwin, Central Park During RNC Protests, 2004:
MTK produced Dreaming Our Future with volunteer, ACE, of Los Angeles:
which is interviews with actor Danny Trejo and youth conference attendees at Griffith Park in LA. This is the way it went out on the air at the end of the KPFK Evening News.
1st Interview with Norman Siegel as Candidate for Public Office 2001
M.T. Karthik 