Healing Garden Journal

Radio Magic
Jim Harper Broadcasts Heart
On Southeast Michigan’s Magic 105.1FM

Jaimy Weiler

It seems that so often technology can end up separating us, distancing us physically…and just get us going so fast, in so many directions that we don’t really have time left to connect heart-to-heart. “How did we get so busy?” asks Jim Harper, host of southeast Michigan’s Magic 105.1FM’s Magic Morning Show, where heartfelt connection is offered out daily as standard fare...

Jim and his team use radio technology to increase connection person-to-person, advertisers-to-consumers, and community wide. His warmth, genuine kindness and natural generosity of spirit fills the morning airwaves as this show provides a ‘listening home’ for many people as they awaken into the day. “Technology is great as a tool, but not so great as a master.” he says. “As a master it can lead to a loss of deeper communication skills, human-to-human…”

A veteran of radio (he had his job first on the air at age 13 in Ypsilanti), Jim truly understands how to use the medium to promote connection rather than to disrupt it. The Magic Morning Show spends it’s airtime on many diverse community and heart-focused topics:

*open, informative interviews with political and community leaders,

*in-depth coverage of charity events and ways we each can be a part of life around us,

*local and state wide news delivered in such a way that we can hear, without drama and alarm, how the important issues that affect us all are progressing,

*important stories of real people reaching out in support of each other.

And finally, all these things are broadcast out, bundled in with great laughter, music, discussions, contests, knowledge play-offs and a healthy helping of good-natured jesting. Not to mention sports, traffic and of course, the weather!

The morning show crew are real people, being real, taking risks, laughing, working with what life brings us… Discussion abounds, with Jim and his team being genuinely respectful of one another. You can feel it. It uplifts. Their good-natured interactions broadcast heart and everyday wisdom that we can all use…you just might receive an answer to something you’ve been pondering. And even find yourself truly laughing out loud, or crying just a little at the compassionate act a listener called in to share… remembering that we all belong… we all belong to our communities.

Jim also understands the balance between economics and community service, and the show surely has its advertisements. However, they are advertisements often in the style of the old “True Value Hardware Store” ads, as Jim and others on the team read the ads themselves. You end up feeling informed about things you might like to buy/use rather than being sold in rush of volume and energy. They let us see that they are willing to publicly connect with and believe in the people and businesses in their broadcast community. Jim believes, as he puts it, that “making money and serving the community go hand-in-hand. So many people now feel like they just have to chase the money.” It’s not easy to walk that line of balance when so many of the media outlets now are owned by just a few corporations. “One of the limits of big technology/big business is the loss of personal touch, heart-to-heart,” says Jim as he navigates the line between ratings, revenue and keeping it real. Keeping his show a real show, for real people.

Jim and the rest of the Magic Morning Show, both on the air and behind the scenes, do their jobs so very well as they dance together, broadcasting magic out into the morning of our world… What are you broadcasting out into your world?

For more information on Magic Radio, the Magic Community or to blog with them, please visit their full and rich website, www.detroitmagic.com.

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