What radio does best: Local Radio in Times of Local Crisis
Image: Home page of WKCR radio website – screenshot
The campus radio station at Columbia University in New York City is providing another fine example of some of the imperatives of local radio. The radio station must not go off air. And when there’s a local crisis, covering the news for the local listener is critical.
I am hearing some remarkable radio news reporting from WKCR-FM. It’s live; it’s local. It’s unscripted, raw, compelling and it’s real. And the reporting I am hearing is being done by volunteers. According to its own post on X, WKCR has 18 reporters covering the ongoing events at Columbia.
It was a post by another media organization that drew my attention to WKCR today. I tried to go immediately to the radio station’s own website. But as shown in the image at the start of this piece, WKCR had reached its streaming capacity. The page suggests about 13-thousand users were online. Of course, FM has no limit on listening – beyond geographical range. I’m well outside that here in Toronto, but I found I was able to reach the station’s live programming by using radio.net
When I first tapped into the stream shortly before noon on May 1st, I heard two broadcasters reading screens from their phones, giving the listener a statement they had just learned about, issued by the president of the university. They followed that with discussion and analysis of some of the points in the statement, relating them to what they had heard and seen for themselves, and examining points against previous communication. And they talked about their efforts to cover the story of the mass arrests and police action in the previous hours — and the barriers they encountered. The reporters actually have other roles at the radio station: Maria Shaughnessy is Program Director of WKCR; Sarah Barlan is director of engineering.
As I write, Shaughnessy is launching another live show: re-capping the past 24 hours or so, with a studio full of round-table guests – student reporters who have been covering the story.
Since WKCR.org has archives including resources in audio, one imagines they’ll have many strong examples of their reporting and broadcasting from the past several days. I’ll be using several bits edited from their live coverage in my radio news classes at Humber College in Toronto in Fall 2024. In respect of their copyright, I won’t post any highlights here, but I encourage any reader to visit and re-visit their site in search of examples.
https://www.cc-seas.columbia.edu/wkcr
This is the link to the WKCR home page.
Here’s where the local radio in times of local crisis phenomenon comes into play. WKCR is a radio station on campus, run essentially by and for students of the campus and the nearby community. Their coverage in the hours during and following the police radio on Hamilton Hall is focused on what happens. The references are intensely local — buildings by name that students would recognize, streets named — details that would not be included in larger-scale reporting; for example, what is seen and heard on the tv news networks where the story is framed very differently. Local radio here is focused on local details of significance to a local listener.
Hearing these student – volunteer – radio reporters recounting what they did…where they went…what they were thinking…building up to and during the raid by police on the evening of April 30th, 2024 is fascinating. It’s recommended listening for anyone studying a program or course that involves live reporting.
The students I’m hearing on WKCR are demonstrating skills we include in first-year radio news classes. They’re not polished, no. But they’re remarkable for their ability to recount details of what they have been witnessing, for telling their own stories in their own words, and making it plain to the listener. They are demonstrating why everyone in the radio station needs to know something of these skills and why now just as ever — if not more than ever before — being able to observe, make sense and articulate what is happening is absolutely critical.
I’ll attempt to update this post with relevant media examples.
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