CHRIS BECK TALKS TO TRACEE HUTCHISON

Tracee Hutchison has worked in broadcasting on radio and television, for the ABC and for commercial networks, locally, nationally and internationally. Now she says she has found her home in a slightly shabby radio station in Fitzroy. Triple R is her community. Hutchison says that the subscriber-based station is a cultural icon and intrinsic to what makes Melbourne special. As program manager since June 2002 she has received several inquiries a day from people wanting to break into broadcasting. The programs that get noticed assert a combination of energy and passion and also pitch an idea that isn't already on air.

You have quite a few people who have been presenting shows for more than 20 years. Should someone else have a go? Isn't community about getting a chance to make radio as well as listen to it?

I have to say that I am not going to take someone like Stephen Walker, who has been an extraordinary influence and broadcaster, off air because he has been at the station 23 years. Or (folk music presenter) Rick Vengeance, who has been there from the beginning (in 1976 as RMT-FM). It's always a balance. We also lose people to other places like Triple J. Our objectives are not necessarily the same objectives as say (student station) SYN FM, which is about turning over people quickly and giving great access to people between 12 and 25. Our listener ship is much broader than that, as well. Our subscriber base goes right up to people in their 80s.

As well as overseeing programming, Hutchison hosts the weekly current affairs show The Word with guest including people from the Big Issue, Friends of the Earth, the Asylum Seekers Resource Centre.

"I talk about only the issues I'm really passionate about and I only talk to people I want to talk to," she says, "I guess it's a show for bleeding heart lefties in lots of ways."

Are there any bleeding heart righties on Triple R?

Andrew Bolt sometimes turns up as a guest on The Spin (a show about media/public relations). Not really, I think it is fair to say that Triple R philosophically sits very much to the left of centre.

Shouldn't a community station cater for the whole of the community?

Well, I think we do. When I say it sits to the left of centre I don't necessarily think that that is about political persuasion. It's kind of more a mind-set. The stuff that people get served up to on a daily basis very much sits to the middle or the right. So our objective is actually to be alternative to what's (otherwise) available. So we will present views that are to the left because they are not being reflected elsewhere. You've got 3AW churning out right-wing crap day after day. You've got mainstream commercial music stations churning out mainstream stuff. To be an alternative means you have to be different to what's already there. The people who want to sprout right-wing views have got plenty of outlets to do that.

You call it a community radio station.

For a certain kind of community.

Hutchison has worked in radio and television for 20 years on shows including Getaway, SBS's Nomad (which discovered silverchair), and as a reporter on Today Tonight. Listening to Triple R as a teenager was one of the moulding forces of her career. The other was her first love. She met Rob Hirst, from the band Midnight Oil, when she 19 and embarked on a relationship. "This world opened up to me," she says, "It was an incredibly politicising time for me being around that band in the early '80s. They were at the height of their ferocity. That and the philosophies that were being espoused by Triple R and Triple J shaped very much the kind of person that I developed into. That line from (the Midnight Oil song) Power and the Passion, `Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees', had a huge bearing on my attitude to work."

Hutchison left her job after she went on strike at Triple J in 1990 over censorship of the song F the Police by NWA. She was a whistleblower at ABC-TV in 1994, outing the production company that received money for favourable stories about their products and services featuring on a show she worked on. The troubled producer left several unreturned messages for ABC management and board requesting some action. With no indication of anyone addressing the situation within the ABC, the issue came to a head with her appearance on Channel Nine's Sunday program, which led to a Senate inquiry. It was the beginning of the end for ABC boss David Hill. Her actions led to stress, health problems, difficulties with some workmates and pressure on her marriage, which later ended. It is still an emotional subject for Hutchison to revisit. "No one ever blows the whistle and comes out unscathed - but my conscience was clear, even if my private life crumbled around it."

During the next piece of conversation the now happily ensconced program manager at Triple R ("I don't have to watch my back") flooded tears that suggest there is still a legacy of the stand she took.

It was just a few products. Was it worth it?

It's more than that. We are extraordinarily privileged to have a national broadcaster that can be the bastion of independence and be the yardstick for editorial independence. We are extremely blessed to live in a democracy that pays for that to exist. I wanted to defend that. I didn't want to feel like I was contributing to compromising that.

Did you have your relationship to think of?

It was also a pretty traumatic time for my then husband - who was very much against my decision to go public. It was part of why it was so extremely difficult. Ultimately he was the one who had to try and pick up the pieces and it took a lot out of us. I have no doubt it played a significant part in the breakdown of my marriage. You have a value system and an ethical system and I knew that I couldn't have lived with myself (if I had kept quiet).

The Word airs on Thursdays at 9am.

For information about the Triple R relocation campaign ring 9419 2066. Sourced from The Age