Photo by David Blanchette
Evie Rodenbaugh is coordinating a 50th anniversary exhibit that will be on display at Lincoln Library beginning Sept. 18. It will highlight NPR Illinois’ history and contemporary issues in local journalism.
The NPR Illinois Community Advisory Board is a 20-member group that meets regularly to offer perspective to the station’s management team. The board reviews NPR Illinois’ programming goals, services and significant policy decisions, and helps to facilitate sustainability through fundraising, memberships, underwriting, grants and contracts.
Community Advisory Board members also serve as ambassadors on behalf of NPR Illinois at the local, state and federal levels.
Two of the advisory board members shared their thoughts about what NPR Illinois does and the challenges the station faces.
Christina Shutt, executive director, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
NPR Illinois is best at reporting accurate and meaningful stories which impact central Illinois and is actively engaged locally as a pillar of our community. In an era where local news faces so many threats, NPR Illinois continues to provide robust reporting on issues that are vitally important to Illinois.
Despite the fact that public media across the U.S. makes up only 0.01% of federal spending, Americans benefit tremendously from the essential services that public media provides. The threats to this funding will harm our community, especially in rural areas where public radio is often the only source of reliable news, weather and emergency alerts.
I think NPR Illinois has done a great job of showing it’s a vital service to policymakers. The real challenge I see is that we, as a local community, have to show up and let policymakers know that NPR Illinois is an essential pillar of our community. Americans have to stop thinking about public media as something that is nice to have and understand that it is an essential public service.
Federal funding represents about 12% of NPR Illinois’s budget, and if that gap is not filled by member support, I’m not sure how they continue to do robust reporting or even license music, especially for a station that is already operating on a shoestring budget. The future can be hopeful if central Illinois is willing to take a stand and support our local station. It’s not about donations, it’s about standing up for what we believe in – accurate, local, community-focused journalism.
Kent Redfield, professor emeritus of political science, University of Illinois Springfield
The leadership at NPR Illinois excels at recognizing, identifying, communicating with and nurturing their natural constituency. This involves developing local news and cultural content that complements and enhances the national content, community engagement and outreach, respectful and effective fundraising, and an active community advisory board.
The collapse of the local news and civic engagement traditionally provided by local newspapers and radio and TV stations to local communities over the last decade has created a significant decrease in the civic glue that holds rural communities and medium-sized cities together. In the face of this deficit, NPR Illinois has responded with an increased focus on their local news and cultural content that seeks to inform the community and connect citizens with their communities and with each other.
My understanding is that the threats from Congress and the executive branch to federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio would have a negative impact on their ability to produce content and provide support for local NPR and PBS station operations. The impact on NPR Illinois would not be immediately debilitating, but long-term may be a different story. The short-time outlook for direct help from the state is bleak.
NPR Illinois is focusing on its core mission with the limited resources that it has, making every effort to increase its resources, and making an invaluable contribution to the community and UIS. I think it is strongly positioned to maintain and, over time, enhance its current success.