New Voices: 2006 Grantees: Monroe County Radio Project

2006 Grantees

Monroe County Radio Project

Maryanne Reed, Interim Dean,
WVU P.I. Reed School of Journalism
Morgantown, W.V.

CONTACT INFO

Monroe County Radio Project
P.O. Box 6010
West Virginia University
Morgantown, WV 26506
(304) 293-3505
E-mail

Web site

The project will create a news operation at WHFI-FM, a radio station licensed to the Monroe County School Board. Journalism students and faculty will train student and adult volunteer reporters to report and produce local news stories for a 15-minute daily newscast, regular monthly public affairs programming and a Web site with news and streaming audio.

Check back for future news and updates.

• End of Year Two: October 2008
• End of Year One: November 2007
• Spring 2007
• November 2006
• August 2006

Monroe County Radio Creates a Buzz

End of Year Two: October 2008

Once upon a time, the Monroe County School Board had a 5000-watt radio station called WHFI-FM. Few in the community listened to the station, which broadcast from the Monroe County Technical Center. In 2006, West Virginia University’s P.I. Reed School of Journalism took notice of this under-utilized community resource and offered to help, with an infusion of journalistic training and guidance from WVU students and faculty. They called it the Monroe County Radio Project.

The past two years have seen some ups and downs in this long-distance university-school-community partnership. But now, WHFI has racked up a nice list of bragging rights. The station has:

Produced and aired more than 140 local newscasts.
Launched a Web site, which includes audio files of the newscasts.
Expanded bi-weekly newscasts from 5 to 15 minutes.
Produced other local programs such as “The Best Bands You’ve Never Heard,“ which showcases local performers.
Covered and aired other community events
Generated additional revenue, including $4,800 in local business underwriting, $10,000 in sponsorship of sports broadcasts and $15,000 in federal and community foundation grants.
Developed partnerships with many local organizations and media.

“While we did not accomplish everything we set out to do in the original grant proposal, the Monroe County Radio project has been a success on a number of levels.“ says Maryanne Reed, the project director and dean at the journalism school.

“Most importantly, the project is a success because it has planted the seeds for future growth and development. When we started, WHFI was a station that played automated music and aired very little public affairs programming and no local news. Now the precedent has been established that WFHI is a news source—a place where individual citizens and groups have their issues and events covered and where local voices are heard on the radio,“ says Reed.

The station’s coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings in nearby Blacksburg helped establish its reputation as a source for local information. Reed says local residents who were unable to attend James Monroe High School’s graduation ceremony in June 2008 appreciated they could listen to the station’s live broadcast of this special event. Live broadcasts of high school football and basketball games are very popular. According to Reed, “When Monroe High School made it to the state football championship, the station carried the game in its entirety, allowing people who couldn’t make the six-hour drive to Wheeling the opportunity to experience the game nearly first-hand.“

Beyond the anecdotes, one solid piece of evidence that WHFI has become accepted as a news source in the community is that county has designated the station an “Emergency Broadcast Station.“ “In a very small, rural community, such a designation is vital,“ says Reed, “because it indicates that the radio station is the source of news and information during a weather disaster or other major crises.“

The community is not only listening to WHFI, they’re talking back. The station has noticed a dramatic increase in the number of phone calls from listeners commenting on stories and a spike in press releases and advisories from local organizations seeking coverage of their events. “There seems to be a ‘buzz’ in the community about the station and its programming,“ says Reed.

Reed is most proud of the WVU students’ involvement in the project. Over the two-year period, two teams of WVU journalism majors traveled to Monroe County to work with local students and adult volunteers. They taught them how to use Cool Edit software, coached them on what makes a story newsworthy, and how to write for radio. Reed says many of her students describe their experience with the Monroe County Radio Project as the highlight of their college career.

Above all, though, is the impact the project has had on the community. Reed says it has demonstrated to the citizens of Monroe County the radio station’s potential as a vehicle for citizen engagement. “The community is scattered across a wide geographic area, and it may not always been apparent to the residents that they share common interests and goals,“ says Reed. “The opportunity for the community to coalesce around certain issues, such as the impact of housing development on family farming, has been demonstrated to some extent through the coverage of these issues.“

Looking back on the past two years, Reed recommends that other citizen media projects really take the time to listen and learn about the local community, the key players and work hard to establish trust. At first, the university folks came to town with big ideas and a clear agenda, but found it hard to find local acceptance, buy in or enthusiasm.

“We learned that to build support for news, a station might need to provide residents with other types of programming, such as live coverage of sports and other milestone community events,“ reflects Reed. While journalists’ definition of “news” is based upon a public affairs model, many people have a broader interpretation of what is newsworthy and valuable to them.“

In the coming months, the school district will assume responsibility for managing the Monroe County Radio Project. In anticipation of that transition, Reed will try to secure a VISTA worker for WHFI who can offer professional support to keep it going strong. The district has committed to fund a half-time station manager and WHFI hopes to raise enough funds to make that manager full-time.

Monroe County Radio: The Long Distance Challenge

End of Year One: November 2007

The coordinators of the Monroe County Radio Project have learned that getting a regular radio news broadcast on the air is easier dreamed than done.

While they have achieved their primary goal of developing a news presence on community radio station WHFI-FM, multiple staff transitions and the university’s four-hour driving distance from the isolated rural county are proving to be barriers to stability for the project. WHFI broadcast regular local news programming nearly every week over a 10-month period through May 2007. Then it took a hiatus over the summer and it’s been difficult to get going again.

In its first year:

WHFI broadcast 82 original “Monroe County Today” newscasts, which included a mix of hard news, community calendars, and minute-long features about health, agriculture, cooking and careers.
WHFI reporters regularly covered public meetings, some of which had never before been covered by journalists, including County Commission, Board of Education and the Peterstown Town Council and Union Town Council meetings.
The WVU School of Journalism trained more than 20 high school students and community volunteers how to report, write and produce radio news stories. WVU students conducted two extensive training sessions in Monroe County and provided feedback throughout the school year. Some of the WVU students were enrolled in a course created to support the project, titled “Community Radio Journalism.“
WVU journalism students produced an average of two stories a month for WHFI about issues of importance to Monroe County residents.

Project Director Maryanne Reed, dean of WVU’s School of Journalism, said it was “satisfying to see some of our volunteer reporters grow as journalists.“ A high school junior eventually became the station’s primary news anchor. And a VISTA volunteer who traveled to Virginia Tech to cover the mass shootings produced an 18-minute special report on the tragedy.

The station launched a Web site, where Monroe County Today’s newscasts were posted three times a week until it paused production May 31, 2007 (coinciding with the end of the school year) because of staff losses on the local level. In the fall they started again, airing two productions a week. While the new Web site invites community members to offer story ideas, announcements, feedback, and gives visitors the opportunity to sign on as volunteer reporters, Reed says many county residents do not have high-speed Internet access, so the focus on radio broadcasting will continue to take priority.

As they sought to ramp up again this fall, the project has been plagued by difficulties communicating with the school district. They’ve also been unable to hire a VISTA volunteer. They did hire a West Virginia graduate as a part-time station manager and were airing two news programs per week.

Looking back, Reed says, “I think we were overly ambitious about what could realistically be accomplished in a single year. Research about community radio suggests that creating a viable community radio news operation can take several years—particularly when stations receive little public financing.“

Among other challenges was the geographical distance between campus and the station. That distance strained relationships, making it hard to build editorial trust. “At first, the news team in Monroe County viewed our written feedback as being highly critical and as a result, demoralizing,“ says Reed. “When we began giving the feedback in weekly phone conferences, there was more of a two-way exchange, and our suggestions were better received.“

Looking ahead, WVU still aims to help the station produce a sustainable 5-day- a-week news program. In order to get back on track, the university has hired WVU Instructor and former West Virginia Public Radio correspondent Emily Corio to train a new VISTA reporter and integrate WVU students into the production at WHFI. The University hopes the Monroe County Technical Center, which runs the station, will hire a new high school teacher to recruit and train high school volunteers. But the project will put greater emphasis on training adults from the community to become citizen reporters. A journalism master’s student has committed to creating a public awareness campaign to solicit community volunteers.

Community News Airs Amid Setbacks

Spring 2007

The Monroe County Radio Project has continued to produce the News at Noon broadcast three times a week for WHFI-FM, a community radio station owned and operated by the Monroe County School Board.

The project, however, has spent the spring dealing with some reporter setbacks.
A VISTA worker hired and trained to report news for the station and cover community meetings had to leave in January because of a serious illness. And two Monroe County high school students hired to produce regular features about the school and the community needed more oversight to generate regular stories.

High School teacher Mark Blevins and another VISTA worker Karen Geiss have scrambled to fill the shows. Meanwhile, the school district has assigned five Americorps workers to begin covering stories in the community, and West Virginia University journalism professors and students were working to get them trained in basic reporting techniques and the use of radio equipment.

This has caused the radio project to adjust short-term goals “to help WHFI-FM get through this crisis and stay on the air,“ said Maryanne Reed, project leader and dean of the P.I. Reed School of Journalism at West Virginia University. The ultimate goal is still to broadcast a news show five days a week and to produce content for a Web site.

Reed planned to return to Monroe County to recruit more VISTA volunteers and train them in basic news reporting and to oversee the project’s progress. The project is also working on launching a WHFI Web site and training two Americorps workers to update the site.

“The real struggle is to get people there,“ Reed said. The project was also planning a public relations campaign, developed by a WVU grad student, to find some more VISTA workers to report and produce news and boost listenership.

University facilitators are also boosting feedback to the project’s adult supervisors and student and volunteer reporters. In the meantime, WVU students will produce stories in Morgantown for airing on the station.

“We are making progress but learning the hard way that this process takes time, effort and patience and that we need to be more responsive to the needs of the people in Monroe County, rather than expect them to accommodate our goals and timetable,“ Reed said in her progress report.

Radio Program Expands to 15 Minutes,
Web Site To Launch in March

November 2006

Through the fall, the Monroe County Radio Project took steps toward expanding its local radio offerings. The community news program, “Monroe County Today,“ which airs on WHFI-FM three times a week, Tuesday through Thursday, increased from a five- to 10-minute segment to a full 15. The goal is to make it a five-day-a-week program and launch the project’s Web site by March 1.

Project Director Maryanne Reed, dean of West Virginia University’s Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism, reports that “the technical and editorial quality of the show has improved dramatically.“ The AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, who is the show’s primary reporter but had no previous journalism experience, has been covering town meetings and producing other hard-news pieces. High school students at Monroe County Technical Center, where WHFI is housed, have stepped up their involvement, voicing and producing features. “Monroe County Today” added new “franchises” to the report, including Business Spotlight, Coaches Corner, Health Minute, a cooking segment by a local restaurant and Future Farmers of America Minute.

Twelve WVU students also have chipped in; five of them have produced stories for the station on such topics as state elections, watershed protection and WVU activities. The project garnered local publicity in November when West Virginia Public Television aired an 11-minute story, produced by Reed, about the program.

“Monroe County Today” has filled a void as the only broadcast news coverage this community receives, Reed says. But she notes that progress has been slower than expected. The expansion of the program and Web site launch have been pushed back two months. The debut of a half-hour public affairs program, originally slated for January, is now set for the summer. “We believe the timetable we presented in the grant application was unrealistic, given the enormity of the project and its scope,“ Reed writes.

Another area that has required additional effort is attracting community-reporter volunteers. A WVU contingent will host a second training seminar in Monroe County this spring, targeting community members. Project leaders will also hire one part-time person, and perhaps more, to post content to the Web site.

Distance has been an issue. WVU is a four-hour drive from WHFI. WVU student and instructor feedback on the news program had been sent via e-mail only and came across as too critical and condescending to WHFI volunteers. Reed says the project leaders at WVU realize they need to visit in person more often. “We thought we could do a lot of this via e-mail, but it’s just not enough,“ Reed says. Without face-to-face visits, “it’s an abstraction. And we’re viewed as the experts from our ivory tower and not helping them really with their daily problems.“ Part of the goal of the spring training session, Reed says, is “to strengthen our relationship and to demonstrate our commitment.“

“Monroe County Today” Radio News Program Launches

August 2006

A short version of “Monroe County Today” hit the WHFI-FM airwaves officially on September 1. The 10-minute community news program airs three times a week, and it’s a major step forward for the Monroe County Radio Project, spearheaded by West Virginia University’s Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism.

WHFI’s newscast is one component of the WVU project, which will include a monthly public affairs show and a Web site with more news and audio from the station, housed in the Monroe County Technical Center, a vocational school. Mark Blevins, an area high school teacher and radio club advisor is the news director of “Monroe County Today,“ which by Jan. 2007 will air for 15 minutes five days a week. The show’s primary reporter is Danny Chiotos, an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, and the technical center’s principal is another coordinator of the initiative.

The project got off the ground through a summer community radio course at WVU taught by Emily Hughes Corio, an adjunct professor and West Virginia Public Radio correspondent. Corio’s five students looked at radio programming models around the country and produced radio news stories in order to get up to speed on their own audio skills. From June 11 to June 17, Corio, the students and Dean Maryanne Reed, the project director, traveled to WHFI - a four hours’ drive from the university - to host workshops with about 10 high school students in the radio club and community volunteers who will work for the news programs. The WVU group talked about reporting, interviewing and story production. Students then teamed up with volunteers to produce stories. The Monroe County school district bought new computers with Cool-Edit audio editing software, and the New Voices grant paid for mini-disk audio recorders.

During this visit, WVU students also held two community meetings in the county, asking for story ideas and interested volunteers. They conducted a survey in the area throughout the week on residents’ interests.

After the trip, Corio’s class put together a reporter training manual and a possible schedule for the 15-minute newscast, containing local stories, weather, a community calendar and various features such as “Envirominute” and “Ag Talk.“ Since “Monroe County Today” began airing, it has included segments on a local family using solar panels to power their home, recaps of county commission and school board meetings, and an interview with an area artist.

Dean Reed, Corio and the students have been critiquing newscasts and story scripts through e-mail and conference calls. (Four of the WVU students have continued with the project as volunteers and a new participant is earning college credit.) Some students are producing stories for WHFI and all are mentoring the high school students in Monroe County.

Reed and Corio say the Web site and public affairs program will launch by January. Some of the ideas for the half-hour program include a conversation with a local legislator, profiles of state or local organizations, a call-in show with members of the planning commission and a garden show.

They plan to have another training workshop in November. One thing Reed and Corio have learned is that they need plenty of community participation. “It’s just a tremendous feat to get the volunteers we have working on this,“ Reed says. “So what we’re trying to do is a get a stable product and then bring more people in.“

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