WORT 89.9 FM Volunteer-Powered Listener-Sponsored Community Radio Because of You…Better Reporting Tools By Molly Stentz, News Director on one small disk. We put them in the hands of volunteers who venture out In 2015, WORT successfully expanded into the world and capture its sounds— our nightly news show, In Our Backyard. whether it is the Madison Mayor talking WORT is poised for more news growth in about the future of downtown, high 2016 and you’ve made it possible. school students shutting down a federal Radio news is different from many other highway in protest, or local skateboarders media forms in that we cannot rely on joyously breaking in the new skate park. printed statements and quotes from press The stories you hear on the news for a few Guide releases—and we wouldn’t want to. We fleeting minutes are the product of hours ’ bring you the sounds of the day. We of focused work and attention, multiplied brought you to the State Capitol when by years of perspective gained from thousands of Wisconsinites were gathered following local news, and a lifetime of a in protest—you heard the chants and the love for the communities we serve. We horns. (Ah, the horns….) We bring you bring together dedicated staff, volunteers, the stories of those affected by public studios, and equipment to make sure we policy decisions—in their own words can bring you the news across our city, and their own voices, with stammers and county, and state. We scour the city, scoop hesitation, jubilation or tears. it up and bring it back to our little studio Honest human expression. downtown, where we review it and play Audio recorders are the tools we use to you the highlights…or the lowlights, gather these sounds and nowadays, they depending on the story. are digital and able to record many hours (continued on p. 5) Listeners RADIO PILOT Vol. 23 No. 1 Winter 2016 Winter 2016 | WORT 89.9 FM (608) 256-2001 | page 1 WORT 89.9 FM 118 S. Bedford Street • Madison, WI 53703 phone (608) 256-2001 | facsimile (608) 256-3704 | web page www.wortfm.org | e-mail [email protected] WORT Board of Directors Mission Statement President ................. Steve Ringwood At-Large Members ........... Gil Halsted, Paul Novak, Aaron Perry, Vice President .............. Stuart Levitan WORT-FM is a non-commercial, Haywood Simmons, Treasurer .......................Jody McCann Jan Levine Thal, listener-sponsored, member- Secretary ................ Sandee Seiberlich Board Administrative controlled community radio station Staff Representative ......... Tim Schneider Assistant .................... Emma Cassidy broadcasting to south-central Wisconsin. WORT volunteers Community Advisory Board and staff shall provide quality Pam Alsum Dawn Egan Tom Jones Michael Simons Pam Dempsey Adelaide Fiske Grant Samuelsen Victoria Straughn programming and services to a broad spectrum of the community Paid Staff through: Music Program Information Technology Facilitator .................. Sybil Augustine Coordinator ...................Tom Christie • promotion of communication, News & Public Webmaster ................ Tim Schneider education, entertainment, and Affairs Facilitator ........... Molly Stentz Business & Events understanding by providing a Listener Sponsor Development Director .....Doug Holtz Development Director .Susan Sheldon forum for both the discussion Desktop Support Operations Technician ....................Ernest Brazell of public issues, and the Coordinator ...........Norman Stockwell News Assistant ..............Dylan Brogan expansion of musical and cultural Volunteer & Outreach Music Assistant/ Coordinator ................. Glenn Mitroff experience; Promos Coordinator ......Aaron Scholz Bookkeeper ..................Jerry Chernow • facilitation of community Chief Engineer ........Laura Gutknecht expression and provision of community access to the airwaves Board Meetings: Monthly board meetings are usually held on the third Wednesday of every month at for the purpose of sharing music, 7 pm at the WORT studios and are open to the public. culture, news and information; THE RADIO PILOT IS THE NEWSLETTER FOR • challenge of the cultural and WORT LISTENER SPONSOR MEMBERS AND IS PUBLISHED BY: intellectual assumptions of our Back Porch Radio Broadcasting, Inc. listeners through unique and 118 S. Bedford Street, Madison, WI 53703 diverse programming; (608) 256-2001 • orientation towards the audience Layout Artist: Carol Bracewell • Production Coordinator: Susan Sheldon Editor: Nancy Mae with concern for those under- represented by other media. Print circulation 3,500 • Published February 2016 WORT shall be committed to WORT’s mailing list is confidential and is never sold or loaned to anyone. radio programming with a human perspective, respecting all peoples Back Porch Radio Broadcasting, Incorporated and their environments. WORT is a 501(c)(3) organization. Your contributions are tax-deductible. page 2 | WORT 89.9 FM (608) 256-2001 | Winter 2016 Because of You…A Better Website and Podcasts You told us you couldn’t navigate our website This takes you to a page listing our current podcasts. (wortfm.org) very well from your smartphone or If you want to read about or listen to older versions of tablet. That it was difficult to find what you were a particular show, click on the black title at the top of looking for on our website. You wanted to subscribe the podcast (e.g., Sara’s Table) and you’ll be taken to a to podcasts of WORT shows. You wanted more page with past episodes and short summaries. information about local news and music. In addition to giving us this important feedback, you gave us one more thing: the financial support we needed to do something about it. With your support we hired a web director, Tim Schneider, and this past summer he joined WORT volunteers and staff from the IT department to get down to some serious techie business. They worked smart. They started with a solid foundation, a platform called WordPress. WordPress is Open Source, meaning that it is FREE and there are hundreds of developers constantly working on it; a community willing to answer common questions. It’s also an easy program to teach the many volunteers who write and post articles to our site. Don’t want to miss episodes? Subscribe and have They worked fast. They used pre-built features when it them delivered to your email: click the blue Podcast made sense, cutting down on the number of staff and button on the front page of our website. On the volunteer hours. The donation area of the website, podcast page, click one of the four icons to the right for instance, is a traditional eCommerce add-on of the show name. Each icon represents a different that was repurposed for donations. It took far fewer service that offers our podcasts for free. If you already hours to set this up than to build it from scratch. It have iTunes, just hit the Apple symbol and it takes allows WORT to process online donations faster and you directly to a list of our podcasts. Hit the blue without errors, giving you a much better experience subscribe button and you’re done! while saving staff and volunteer time. From great new features to streamlined functions, we They worked hard to offer you a new way to connect want your experience with our website to be as great to our content. They began with one podcast. as your WORT listening experience. Your support (A podcast is an audio series that you can subscribe helped us grow our online presence and reach places to). Our most popular podcasts are Radio Astronomy, beyond our traditional radio signal. We want to Mel & Floyd, Madison History Podcast, and This Is continue to improve. What can we do to make our What I Ate. website better? Send your suggestions or questions If you haven’t heard our podcasts, you can check them to Tim Schneider, [email protected], or call out on our website (wortfm.org). Find and click the (608) 256-2001. blue bar that says Podcasts on the WORT front page. Winter 2016 | WORT 89.9 FM (608) 256-2001 | page 3 Because of You…Better Reporting Tools (continued from page 1) In the past, because we had only two decent In addition, we are posting more daily news stories recorders, it required a lot of coordination to make on the WORT website under the guidance of our sure there would be one available when a reporter Web Director, Tim Schneider. This brings our stories needed it— an extra hurdle for reporters to clear on to thousands more listeners and viewers every day, top of everything else they were trying to accomplish including those who can’t tune in at 6 pm and the that day. Our recorders were nearly a decade old and growing number of people who like to get their news showing signs of wear: cracked screens, missing parts, online. It is satisfying for our reporters to see their buttons worn away. stories gain momentum and be of use to you. Thanks to generous donations from you, our Improving the quality and depth of our news listeners, we more than doubled our collection of has always been a top priority. Last year, your audio recorders in December. contributions allowed us to hire an Assistant News Director to work directly with volunteers producing Your donations allowed us to purchase broadcast- our nightly local news program. quality recorders that can capture a single human voice in the middle of a chaotic crowd. They record Thanks to your support, WORT is continuing at a fidelity you have come to expect on a modern to build a citizen news team that operates on a radio station, free of distracting hiss, tinny hollow professional level in the era of new technology. This “bathtub sounds,” or muddled fuzz. is no small challenge, but in the process we are teaching the next generation of journalists the skills they need to turn their passion into a career as well as increasing the breadth of knowledge of our seasoned community contributors.