Local station helps journalism class

When WFHB began in 1993, it set out to be run unlike a typical for-profit radio station, said Chad Carrothers, interim general manager and IU alumnus.

The nonprofit radio station runs because of the dedication the volunteers have to the station.

Nine democratically elected members make up the board of directors. With three-year terms and only three full-time paid staff members, 200 volunteers of the Bloomington nonprofit radio station vote in three new members every year.

“This station’s license is owned by the volunteers,” Carrothers said.

The station continues to be “recognized for its excellence as a valued community resource,” according to www.wfhb.org.

While maintaining its mission of “open media access to all community members,” WFHB partnered with an IU service-learning class to aid IU associate professor Mike Conway’s goal of exposing his students to different media forms, of which WFHB is an award-winning example.

Carrothers kicked off WFHB’s daily local news in March 2003. In 2009, WFHB’s local news won first and third place by the Society of Professional Journalists.

“WFHB is much more public than for-profit radio because the public contributes to the news,” Carrothers said.

The glass wall between consumers of news and producers of news does not exist
at WFHB.

“We smash through that,” Carrothers said.

This past semester, the J460 Community Journalism class created podcasts about Bloomington’s social issues to be broadcast on WFHB this week, ending Friday.

Junior Eric Stearley’s first day at WFHB with the class was called “report day,” where he assumed he’d be learning basic procedures of news radio.

“I thought I’d be shadowing someone,” Stearley said. “Instead, it was ‘Here’s ten stories. Pick a story. Write a story. Have it done in three hours.’”

He said he realized that any one of the approximated 42,000 students enrolled at IU could walk into WFHB and write the news.

Conway said the class was created to give students the idea of citizen journalism as a model of how journalism can work in a community.

“Thirty years ago, there wasn’t a good way to be a citizen journalist,” he said.  
With media becoming accessible to non-journalist citizens across the globe, Conway said he believes media is changing.

“To be successful, you have to be the best,” he said. “The best photographer, the best writer. You have to ask ‘What can I bring to the table?’”