For nearly seven years (between 1992 – 1998), if people had access to cable TV in the Grand Rapids area, they might have come across a show on GRTV called, Days of Our Lies.

The show was started by several community activists who had just come back from Central America and were interviewed on GRTV by the station manager. After that interview, the station manager suggested that these activists could have a regular time slot to produce a show about whatever they wanted to.

Beginning in August of 1992, these three activists kicked off an independent news and news analysis show that aired once a week for nearly seven years on GRTV.

The show used a Days of Our Lives intro, but when it got to the word lives, it said Days of Our Lies, with a Nine Inch Nails song that ran over a montage of images of national and international news.

Recently, someone sent us some of those early Days of Our Lies shows that have been uploaded to youtube, so we wanted to share them with people who follow this site. The audio isn’t great, but you get an idea of the show format and why it was important for those doing the show to provide independent news and news analysis at a time where little of that was happening.

Here are two examples from Days of Our Lives. The first one features regular news and news analysis, along with a video of Alfred McCoy talking about the US Drug War, since there was a Racism and the Drug War conference being held in Grand Rapids in September of 1992.

The second examples was from an early November 1992 show, just days before the 1992 election, where Days of Our Lies (DOOL) reporters went to a George Bush Sr rally in downtown Grand Rapids, to interview Bush supporters. These Bush supporters demonstrated the ridiculous and narrow-mindedness, which the DOOL reporters didn’t even need to comment on, since the Bush supporter comments spoke for themselves.

Over the years there were 9 different reporters and show producers. In 1994, Days of Our Lives won the Best Show on GRTV award.

Thanks to Mitchell Szczepanczyk for preserving these tapes of Days of Our Lives and for making some guest appearances on the show!!!