Move over Charlie Sykes, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s own Kyle Duerstein, broadcasts his own radio blog every Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.

He began his radio broadcast at the start of the fall semester, after being inspired by his critical opinion writing class’ syllabus, in which a radio blog is part of the class. He is a broadcast journalism major.

“I want to become a radio commentator so why wait until I do the radio blog in class. At least I will get a good grade,” Duerstein said.

Duerstein signed up at Blog Talk Radio to begin his Panther Talk radio program, in which he focuses on issues concerning UWM campus. However, he is not devoted to only doing UWM, his last show was on College Republicans filing a complaint about Wisconsin sending out emails to students based on financial need to stand with Gov Doyle while he makes his speech.

As former legislative affairs director for Samantha Prahl, Duerstein has knowledge on many bylaws and other Student Association (SA) proceedings. He was also deputy commissioner for the spring 2006 election before Prahl asked him to join her staff.

However, since the St. Francis native does not want a career in politics, he happily tapes the SA Senate meetings for Web broadcasts to keep up with the new happenings of SA.

Duerstein’s radio program is usually 30 minutes in length. The SA Speaker of the Senate Daniel Bahr makes frequent call-ins to the show.

Duerstein is happy that his listeners are increasing with each passing week. The growing numbers is just by word of mouth. Duerstein does not do any advertisements or have a Facebook group people join to find out about his show.

“I want to spark debate. I want people to listen to my opinions and call in when they disagree with me. I know I am not always right,” Duerstein said.

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