NPR Illinois celebrates 50 years | News

Its two-word mission is simple: Explain Illinois. It’s something that Springfield-based National Public Radio Illinois has been doing for 50 years, and accomplishing that mission is a multifaceted, innovative and fiscally capricious effort fueled by public and private support.

NPR Illinois delivers a combination of locally produced programs and syndicated National Public Radio shows such as All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Fresh Air. The station covers local topics in unique ways through programs such as Community Voices and State Week, and recently launched the J-Corps citizen journalist initiative where regular people report on issues in their communities.

A 50th anniversary exhibit and programming will commemorate NPR Illinois’ milestone year. But with the imminent withdrawal of government support for public media around the country, will NPR Illinois still be broadcasting for the next 50 weeks, let alone the next 50 years?

“It will make things tighter, but we’ll be OK as a radio station,” said NPR Illinois general manager Randy Eccles. “We’ve been pretty clear that our mission is to keep people informed, and it seems there is a real desire for that in this current atmosphere. Cuts will hurt, but the funding we get comes primarily from listeners.”

As a public radio station, NPR Illinois cannot sell commercial advertising. It depends on contributions from private donors, on-air sponsorships, and federal and state funding for its 24-hour-per-day operation.

The federal government piece of that funding pie, which accounts for 12% of NPR Illinois’ budget, has now been eliminated. On July 18, Congress approved President Donald Trump’s request to rescind $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, through which the nation’s public radio and television stations receive their federal monies.Another $8 billion in foreign aid was also part of the package that was clawed back, despite objections from several Republicans who argued against ceding Congress’s control over federal funding.

NPR Illinois began broadcasting in 1975 as WSSR Radio and operated on the campus of what was then named Sangamon State University. Its call letters changed to WSSU in 1989, and then to WUIS when Sangamon State merged with the University of Illinois system in 1995. The station was rebranded as NPR Illinois in 2015, and it remains on the University of Illinois Springfield campus.

“The university has been a big supporter. It’s their station, and they have hosted it for 50 years now here on campus,” Eccles said. “The support for things such as rent and power and the foundation have all been very good.”

NPR Illinois’ physical location seems secure, but how does the station continue to engage its listeners and donors while navigating the constantly shifting financial waters of public broadcasting?

“You can cover things down the middle.”

“It feels really good when people come up to me and say they heard about something on Community Voices,” said Beatrice “Bea” Bonner. “I’ve talked to ghost hunters all the way to restaurant owners. The show is getting information to people in our central Illinois community.”

Bonner is the editor and on-air cohost of Community Voices, one of NPR Illinois’ local programs. The daily show features in-depth interviews with everyday people about what they do. She has interviewed individuals such as artists, business owners, and even groups of live action role playing, or LARPing, participants who play board games such as Dungeons and Dragons in person while wearing costumes.

“The LARPing people I talked to went to Lincoln Park and played out those roles,” Bonner said. “I also interviewed people that came to SIU School of Medicine and portrayed people with certain diseases or ailments.”

Bonner earned her bachelor’s degree from UIS and joined NPR Illinois in 2017 as a membership and engagement coordinator in fundraising. But she really wanted to be on the air, and the pandemic provided an opportunity to bring physically separated people together through a radio program.

“I feel good that people are listening to the show, or they heard about an activity on our show and then they went to that activity,” Bonner said. “People are talking to people again because that’s something we missed during the pandemic.”

NPR Illinois just completed a pilot project called J-Corps, or Journalism Corps, aimed at finding citizens in traditionally uncovered areas who want to report on their communities. The project’s first participants were a mother and daughter duo, Amina and Hafsa Rahman, who did a series of stories on the Springfield Muslim community.

“There is a big wave of Islamophobia, unfortunately, that’s been ongoing for a while. It’s been my experience that there are a lot of communities in Illinois where Muslims are very welcome,” said Amina Rahman, the mother of the J-Corps duo, during a Community Voices interview about their experiences. “I wanted to show that picture to people who may not have large Muslim communities or who may not be familiar with the Muslim community, because it’s been my experience that people are very welcoming. Getting to know each other is a good way to combat that kind of negativity.”

Daughter Hafsa Rahman said the J-Corps experience “was also scary at first. It felt like we were jumping into something I didn’t have any experience with, recording and doing all these interviews, trying to figure out our story,” she said. “I’m glad I got to do it.”

J-Corps was made possible by a grant from Healing Illinois, an initiative of the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Field Foundation of Illinois that seeks to advance racial healing through storytelling and community collaborations. Illinois Times and Capitol News Illinois were also recipients in the most recent grant cycle.

On the other end of the journalism experience spectrum is NPR Illinois News Director Sean Crawford, who started at the station in 1994 while working toward his Public Affairs Reporting Program master’s degree at UIS. Crawford is just the second news director in NPR Illinois’ 50-year history, the first being Rich Bradley, who retired in 2009.

“We believe information should be available to everyone and we bring stories and voices to the air that otherwise might not be heard. That’s public radio’s mission,” Crawford said. “I’m a believer that people aren’t all that different. We just don’t listen enough to each other.”

Tight funding means that NPR Illinois operates with just two full-time and one part-time news reporters, and the Illinois Statehouse bureau that was once staffed by the Springfield station is now operated by WBEZ Radio, the Chicago Public Radio station. NPR Illinois and other public stations in the state pay a fee to access WBEZ’s coverage, so direct Statehouse reporting is not lost.

NPR Illinois cannot cover everything going on locally, but it strives to provide the most balanced reporting possible.

“Sometimes people think the fact that you’re covering a story about transgender people, or you’re covering a story about women’s rights or something, that there is somehow a liberal bent to it,” Crawford said. “I think you can cover things down the middle. As we are seeing more news silos, I think NPR tries to bring various views into the public conversation.”

The Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart that measures news reporting places NPR Illinois’ coverage as “more centrist than anything,” according to Eccles, the general manager. “We’ve had listeners call us and insist we’re being way too conservative in how we’re reporting things and others who say we’re way too liberal. That usually means we’re doing OK.”

“We really can’t get much smaller.”

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or CPB, is distinct from NPR and PBS. It is a private, nonprofit corporation authorized by Congress in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 to support public radio and television entities. Funding for CPB is established two years in advance through the annual federal appropriations process. That advance approval is intended to insulate funding from political pressures, according to the NPR Illinois website.

Twelve percent of NPR Illinois’ annual operating revenue, or approximately $240,000, comes from community service grants received through the CPB, and continuing these grant funds is what Congress recently voted to eliminate. The CPB also allows stations to reduce costs on satellite connections, music rights, professional development, and pays many of those reduced costs for the system.

The station is already planning for next fiscal year when $67,000 from the state of Illinois channeled through the University of Illinois’ budget probably will not be renewed. The current NPR Illinois budget is just under $2 million.

“We probably have the smallest staff we’ve ever had right now. We really can’t get much smaller,” Eccles said. “We hope to figure out how to find other funding so we can grow.”

At least Illinois isn’t in the same fiscal boat as Indiana, which recently eliminated all of its support for public media, Eccles added.

On the plus side, all public broadcast stations in the state divvy up $2 million per year in funding through the Illinois Arts Council, which accounts for about $20,000 to NPR Illinois, Eccles said. The local station also might get some money through the Illinois Emergency Management Agency to help strengthen its emergency alert system.

NPR Illinois pays a fee to the Public Broadcasting System to run popular national shows like Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Here and Now. Eccles said the Springfield station is still committed to those programs. But there are other special programs and podcasts that may not be affordable to many stations, especially the smaller ones, if government funding is eliminated.

“That does provide an opportunity to put on some other local programming, and that’s part of our backup plan,” Eccles said. “But it all takes money to produce. You need staff, and we are also looking at how we can do it with volunteers” like those used for the previously mentioned J-Corps community news program.

NPR Illinois advises people through its website to call their elected representatives and tell them to keep federal funding for the CPB. Website visitors are also encouraged to make donations to the station and to share that support commitment with friends and family.

Eccles said citizen support is all that stands between unbiased journalism and groups that seek to control what people see and hear.

“Lawsuits against CBS and ABC right now are a little concerning, as are the attempts to defund the CPB and the (Trump-ordered) Federal Communications Commission investigation into how we do our underwriting,” Eccles said. “This is a democracy and the best way people can participate in their government is to be informed with facts. We are one of the few media organizations with a public editor who responds to any questions or criticisms.”

“Replenish the soul.”

NPR Illinois recently completed its most successful fundraising drive in recent memory, with more than $150,000 coming in during the May pledge drive.

“We have donors who love us and love what we do and are willing to help fund what they appreciate,” said director of development Kate McKenzie. “But with the federal funding challenges, it’s hard, and it’s up to me and the people with me to go out and line up more sponsorships. It’ll be up to us to get out there and tell our story and talk about why it’s important to support us and what we do for the community.”

McKenzie is passionate about what she does. She was a print journalist and editor for many years who has worked in Springfield, northern Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana, and empathizes with donors who want to help NPR Illinois keep doing what it does best.

“One of the things I love about public media is you don’t have to convince your supporters why they should support you. They already know the value,” McKenzie said. “They turn to us for their news and weather and emergency alerts and what’s going on with their neighbors through Community Voices and our national programming.”

But the days of the on-air phonathon fundraisers are gone, replaced by methods that are more in keeping with the times.

“The station used to get money through on-the-air drives and people would call in with pledges to volunteers who answered the phones. Almost no one calls in with a gift anymore; everything’s online,” McKenzie said. “They might not even be listening live, they might be listening to podcasts. So it’s using social media or TikTok to get support for what we do.”

Eccles was once in McKenzie’s shoes. He started with NPR Illinois in 2008 as development director.

“We don’t have to do things to attract an audience like commercial stations do, but we have to make sure we deliver services that (the audience) wants to support,” Eccles said. “Fundraising allows us to have a newsroom that goes out and does reporting and newscasts. We are not trying to produce profit for stockholders or a corporation.”

David Farrell is a 50-year donor to NPR Illinois, and he and his wife, Laurie, started contributing to the station from the day they moved to Springfield.

“They have a very reasonable, straightforward, comprehensive approach to news, but they also still have a variety of other programs,” Farrell said. “They’ve had classical music, quiz programs and other entertaining things that have gone on for years. It’s an interesting, varied and dependable source of information, entertainment, and a large world view.”

Barb Ferrara began listening to what was then WSSR radio when she moved to Springfield from Washington, D.C., in 1976 since the station’s state government coverage was a good way for her to learn about Illinois. Ferrara became a donor in the early 1980s.

“I have continued to donate to the station because I am grateful for the connection to the world it provides and for its service in fostering understanding across different groups,” Ferrara said. “I have increased my donations to the station in recent years in appreciation of the staff’s and fellow donors’ continued exceptional efforts in the face of funding cuts, and to help make sure we celebrate the station’s 50th anniversary in ways that honor the station’s history and future.”

Ferrara said NPR Illinois is more than just a media organization.

“Since retiring, the pandemic, and worsening conflicts in our country, I’ve realized the importance of avoiding isolation, engaging more with others and pursuing habits that replenish the soul,” Ferrara said. “NPR Illinois, with its variety of programs covering the range of human experience, helps me do all that.”

“Remind people why NPR Illinois is important to them.”

NPR Illinois is marking its 50th anniversary with an exhibit that debuts at the Lincoln Public Library in downtown Springfield on Sept. 18 and will be on display through May 2026. The exhibit highlights the station’s history and contemporary issues in local journalism, specifically regarding public media.

There will also be a website where people can listen to old audio recordings, view photos and experience other aspects of the station’s five-decade existence.

“We hope the exhibit will reinvigorate community interest and remind people why NPR Illinois is important to them,” said Evie Rodenbaugh, 50th anniversary project manager. “It will also help them to consider other community resources that they might want to support, especially ones that have been around for a very long time. We are stakeholders in these community services.”

Lincoln Library will also host presentations where people can learn more about the station’s history. Oral histories are being recorded in which people with connections to the station share their memories, and the exhibit will travel to other communities inthe NPR Illinois listening area after May 2026.

The 50th anniversary project has been a labor of love for Rodenbaugh, a graduate assistant for the Sangamon Experience, the UIS museum.

“I have really enjoyed seeing the role of women in the station’s history, even from the very beginning,” Rodenbaugh said. “The first two part-time reporters were women, a majority of the volunteers were women, and we see that continually through the station’s history.”

Rodenbaugh hopes the collections for the exhibit will make their way to the university archives where they can be accessed by current and future generations.

“I was probably 13 years old when I first listened to This American Life and I was immediately hooked on public radio,” Rodenbaugh said. “I think that public radio does an excellent job of keeping people curious, making people want to take that next step and learn more.”