By Carolyn Shapiro
Public radio station WAER dates to 1947 as an entity of Syracuse University, one of the oldest non-commercial radio stations still broadcasting in the United States — largely on the initiative and contributions of students.
In summer 2021, WAER officially moved under the umbrella of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse. The change made sense: The station had long provided a hands-on training ground for about 100 Syracuse students — most in the Newhouse School — each semester.
“The station has always had a dual mission,” said Chris Bolt, WAER’s general manager. “We have a mission to entertain, enlighten and engage the community, like (any) radio station. And then we have a dual mission of professional development opportunities for students.”
More than 100 students work with the station every semester, about 60 of them in sports reporting. It’s a demanding program that requires extensive training before they earn approval to get on the air. Those that emerge cover the college’s nationally popular football, basketball and lacrosse games for broadcast. They also put together short news pieces on Syracuse sports to air during National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered” evening broadcasts, and they can provide commentary after games and work on a sports podcast.
The other cohort at WAER cover news—– everything from deeply reported stories that professional staff would produce to daily news coverage, and behind-the-scenes social media posting or web editing. “Some students stay multiple semesters and really hone their journalism," Bolt said.
On the news side, some graduate students do specific reporting internships for course credit. A few students serve in paid positions to help with digital content and multi-platform distribution. But in most cases, students volunteer to work at WAER without pay and in their spare time – not for a class or class credit or for pay — Bolt among them
Before climbing the ranks of staff to his current position, he started at WAER 32 years ago as a Newhouse student volunteer. “I lived at WAER,” he said.
Students work on their own stories in the newsroom with support from staff, Bolt said. On the news side, WAER has five staff members, including a news director and two full-time producers and a fulltime announcer-reporter — one who also hosts local broadcasts of NPR’s “Morning Edition” and one who hosts NPR’s “All Things Considered” and does some reporting.
Faculty member Ashley Kang recently joined WAER as a content producer to launch an education beat. Before that, she had overseen The Stand, an online and print publication covering the South Side community of Syracuse. The Stand launched at Newhouse in 2006 when now-retired professor Steve Davis wanted to encourage students in his urban affairs reporting class to look for stories in a neighborhood neglected by traditional media.
Kang took over The Stand operation in 2009. Four to six students covered beats for the publication, which updated weekly online and came out in a print magazine with feature stories eight times a year.
“We would have those urban affairs reporting classes where students would work the whole semester on covering the community,” Kang said. “We did housing issues and segregation in the city. We did pieces on police and community relations. We did different topics and would go real deep on that.”
Kang put out her final issue of The Stand in December. Its future at Newhouse is unclear, but Kang will continue to work with student journalists to focus on community perspectives in the WAER newscasts, she said. She also will produce “Syracuse Speaks,” a monthly public-affairs show.
Bolt said he’d like to carry on the concept of The Stand, perhaps as an entity of WAER.
As with The Stand, students’ contributions at WAER are a crucial component of its value, Bolt said. In any given week, he explained, coverage of a meeting, an interview with an official or a good enterprise story out in the community might not get produced without the students’ help.
“There’s no question that it’s resources added,” he said. “It’s absolutely expanded our ability to cover the community.”
Even though support of the students’ learning process often creates extra work for WAER staff, they are “down with that mission,” Bolt said. So are many WAER subscribers who donate to its operation.
“Supporters even support the station because it's providing the service of teaching journalists,” Bolt said. “And since both business sponsors and individuals appreciate the news approach of public radio, they really appreciate that we're training people within that.”
For more information:
Chris Bolt, WAER, General Manager, cabolt@syr.edu