It’s 17 degrees as I write this on this Monday morning in January, but I’m looking forward to summer when the political climate will be hot and sticky as the Democratic and Republican parties head south for their respective conventions in Charlotte and Tampa.  WKSU is again planning on covering both national conventions as we did four years ago, offering the Ohio perspective to how the conventions will shape the political climate here in the buckeye state.

I’m struck by how things change and how much they stay the same, because WKSU may be the only radio station in Ohio actually traveling to the conventions (which is somewhat ironic, since public radio does not benefit financially from the election season – like our commercial colleagues, who are barraged with political ads from candidates). With the presidential election, 33 seats in the Senate, all seats in the House, and 11 governor’s offices up for grabs in 2012, it will be a robust year for political advertisement. However, WKSU does not accept ads from political parties, so there is no cash cow waiting for us as the elections near. Despite this reality, we nevertheless will still go forward with covering the conventions.

The only way WKSU can see our way there is with help from our generous sponsors and supporters. I hope that once again our team will find those organizations that want to support WKSU in our efforts to cover what will surely be historical events, again with a distinctly Ohio perspective. Our reporters will be working night and day to bring you up to speed on the developments within both political parties – as only public media can do with in-depth, insightful coverage that keeps you informed and makes you an part of an informed electorate.

So, even though the events of August and September seem very far away, I hope that you or your organization will see your way to lending your support so WKSU can go about doing the work that we have won so many awards for in the past.

As always, thanks for listening, and stay warm.

Al Bartholet

Well, it’s that time of the year when already those New Year’s resolutions are beginning to not be as clear as they were as we ended 2011. So far, winter has been elusive, but as a native of Northeast Ohio, I caution the staff not to act as if we have escaped winter – because often just the mention of a mild season will bring a blizzard.  When that snow falls and you need weather info and school closing info, all you need to do is visit our web site for a complete list of closings. I wish the internet was around when I was a youngster. I would have spent more planning what I was going to do on a snow day than wishing, hoping and praying for a miracle.

So best wishes for the new year and stay tuned to WKSU.

I would like to thank everyone who pledged during WKSU’s Hunger Challenge. The campaign, now in its 16th year, had modest beginnings – raising all of $8,000 for the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank. Today, with the participation of not only the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank, but the Cleveland Foodbank and Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio, WKSU raised $185,000 to support the station and with that same amount from the generous support of our challengers sending $185,000 to the foodbank community. This fund drive event has come a long way, but the need continues to grow as we deal with the worse economic downturn that most of us have seen in our lifetime.

As we inch towards the holidays at breakneck speed, I hope that you have the chance to reflect on the year behind us. I know that my family is very fortunate and this year. I’ve learned to appreciate just how fortunate we are after returning from a trip to El Salvador visiting my son. Today, I still have an 80 year-old mother who is in good health, two sons who are employed, a daughter who is working towards a Masters degree and a wife who is truly my best friend.

So, I feel lucky as I look ahead to 2012, but also I look forward with the knowledge that change is ongoing. WKSU has been a constant for so many of us, but the media world travels faster than the speed of light and WKSU strives to be relevant. Thanks to all who contributed to our “Sound of the Future” capital campaign – WKSU’s greatest fundraising success to date. Now that we are well positioned technically, we will use this digital technology to push our content on every conceivable platform making WKSU available to you wherever you are around the world.

Enjoy the holidays, stay warm and let’s look forward to a new year together!

Reports of the economic downturn are hard to avoid, they’re in the news every day.  Ohio has been hit hard – almost everyone knows someone who has struggled with unemployment and this issue is sure to be in the forefront of the debate that will be the focal point of the next election. Many of the statistics are alarming. One stat that is sobering is the number of children who are living near the poverty line in the United States. Soon we’ll reach 20 million and all-time high.

I hope that while you are listening to WKSU this week, you will consider being a part of our effort to support our local food bank community.  If you pledge to WKSU during our Hunger Challenge, your pledge will be matched dollar-for-dollar by generous donors with funds to food banks in our listening area.

Our efforts are very modest, but the impact here is important. If WKSU reaches our goal of $200,000, it will enable nearly 800,000 meals to be served to those in need.

This short fund drive has no mugs, tote bags, or grand prize drawings, but we will all win if we are successful.  Please consider making a pledge during our challenge. See you on the radio!

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who contributed to WKSU during the fall campaign. I know that I’ve lost count of how many campaigns I’ve participated in at WKSU – probably more than I care to remember. But each drive energizes station staff, because we exist to serve you in the work that we do at WKSU.  I’m continually amazed by the geographical diversity of where our members live – from Roaming Shores to Alliance, from Strongsville to Minerva and communities in all 22 counties that we serve.   Fund drives are the lifeblood of WKSU and with continual discussion of the future of federal and state funding member support may play an ever increasing role in paying for public broadcasting as we go forward.

During the campaign we heard from new friends and old, including our volunteers who manage to join us in the pre-dawn hours for Morning Edition and stay late into the night to answer phones for our folk music programming. From all of us at WKSU – a huge thank you to all of you who believe the work that we do makes a difference in your life.

We’re almost recovered from the 45th Kent State Folk Festival. It was exciting to share some excellent music with you and the entire Northeast Ohio community! But, just because this folk fest is in the books, it doesn’t mean we’re sitting back with our feet up enjoying a frosty beverage.

The crispness of the fall air means that we are inching closer to our fall fund drive, which is always big news around here. It’s “all hands on deck” during drives because they are so important to WKSU. Not only does most of our funding come through individual donations, but it’s also the time when we speak with the most listeners. Many people ask why we have on-air appeals and the answer is quite simple. We know that there are thousands of people listening to WKSU at any one time, without knowing their names or addresses or, indeed, any way to contact them. The drive allows us to have a conversation with you and all other listeners and personally ask for you support to keep us going. And, it’s much more effective to reach you through the radio than setting up a table at Summit Mall!

This month, when we begin the drive in earnest, you will hear the stories of other listeners and their reasons for giving to WKSU. As a publicly funded, non-profit radio station, they are WKSU. So am I – and so are you! Together, we make a difference every day in Northeast Ohio. I look forward to talking with you!

Summers in Northeast Ohio are short and another one has slipped away from me. But as the summer ends, fall will be fast and packed with anticipation.  The Kent State Folk Festival arrives early this year and opens with the Grammy Award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops on Sept. 21 at University Auditorium in Cartwright Hall on the KSU campus.  For you old-timers, this was the home of the KSU Folk Festival for many years.

The festival this year will have something for the young and the old with David Wax Museum joining Low Anthem for Saturday’s performance at the Kent Stage. Friday should be the best Folk Alley ‘Round Town ever with (hopefully) warm temperatures and (definitely) hot music as every possible venue in the city of Kent is taken over by folk music.  If you like to start your weekend early, you will enjoy a New Orleans-inspired evening on Thursday with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band at the Kent Stage. And, as always, there will be a wide variety of workshops at the Kent State Student Center on Saturday. If you still haven’t had enough, you can sing along with the legendary Peter Yarrow – closing the festival at the Kent Stage on Sunday.

Summers go by like a New York minute, but I hope you had a chance to see our crew at many of the venues WKSU staff made appearances over the summer, from Blossom to Cain Park, from the Akron Art Museum to the Cedar Fairmount Festival (where we brought along the Folk Alley mobile unit). Folk Alley also joined the fun at Blissfest in Michigan and, once again, we drove our motorcoach/recording studio to Newport, Rhode Island for the Newport Folk Festival. This weekend, we’ll be webcasting the National Folk Festival from Nashville, Tenn.

So, before Labor Day, I’ll have some sweet corn, more watermelon and savor those final days of summer. Thanks for listening and supporting our efforts at WKSU!

If you listened to WKSU during the recent spring fund drive, you may have heard the alarming statistic that only 7% of our listeners support the station. It’s true that the greatest percentage of our funding comes from members who contribute more than 1.5 million dollars annually. If the percentage of our audience who donate regularly moved from seven percent to nine percent, it would make a dramatic difference in WKSU’s ability to serve the region and would act as a safeguard against unexpected changes in federal and state support.

We are all very grateful for the tremendous support that WKSU received in the spring campaign – and throughout what was a difficult year for many. But the debate on the hill over federal funding for public broadcasting reminds us how vulnerable we are to whatever political wind is blowing at the time.

So, please consider becoming a member or renewing your annual membership if you haven’t already. At WKSU, we are calling this push to increase membership The 2% Solution. It seems almost incredible that increasing our listener to member ratio by a tiny 2% could safeguard the station against so many external threats. Put the future of the station in your hands and accept the challenge! I hope that you are reading this and thinking, “I’m already a member!” But, if you are not – or if your membership has lapsed – please make a pledge and become part of the solution for WKSU. This is your station. We represent you, your neighbors and your community every minute of every day. Be a part of the solution by clicking here and becoming a member of WKSU.

The following is an essay by Bill Kling, CEO of American Public Media, on the current state of public broadcasting in the US. “America’s Missed Opportunity” was originally published in The Hill’s Congress Blog at: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/153689-public-broadcasting-is-a-vital-public-service

“At a time when much of the world is facing economic and political disaster, it is perplexing that Congress would direct an assault on public broadcasting — one of the most effective means of communicating an in-depth understanding of these important issues.

Earlier this month, the devastating tsunami in Japan was first reported and televised live for the Japanese people, and then to the world, through NHK — the Japanese public broadcasting service.

Last week, there were reports that the U.S. State Department will fund the BBC, with a “significant sum” of money because they are the best positioned to help combat the blocking of TV and Internet services in countries including Iran and China.

When there is need to reach key audiences with factual and trusted information, public broadcasting delivers.

Ten years ago, Newt Gingrich told me in our studios in Saint Paul, Minn., that he was wrong in 1995 to try and cut public broadcasting’s funding. “In the end,” he said, “my message was getting out more effectively and accurately through public broadcasting than through any other means.”

Public broadcasting as we know it today was born in 1967. Its first leaders were generally young, often inexperienced and sometimes naïve. The industry wasn’t very important. There was no NPR or PBS. But President Johnson, a commercial broadcaster himself, saw something that few others did — the opportunity to reach radio and television audiences with important programming that the commercial marketplace, by nature of its structure, could never embrace.

Johnson persuaded Congress to create the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and he appointed a board of significant Republicans, Democrats and Independents with experience running major entities to put their best efforts behind the fledgling idea. Their charter called for creating a public broadcasting system similar to what we have today.

If you go to Europe or Asia and study the difference in public media in those regions versus our systems in the U.S., you begin to see our mistake. Public broadcasting here has matured since 1970, but only slowly. We have governing structures that do not always serve us best. We have leadership that often lacks the discipline and the selection criteria demanded by strong governing boards. And we have inefficiencies as a result of our disparate structures. Our mistake in America was to not take this essential tool of democracy more seriously.

Each administration since Johnson’s has agreed there is an important but limited role for the federal government in supporting public media. Unfortunately, no administration since has supported any advanced development.

Today, we face the reality of a country that is near bankruptcy. The people who have the power to change that — Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike — are increasingly being divided by polarized media and underserved by the weakening traditional media. As a result, there is an increasingly important role for public media to serve as a “centering institution” for this country.

The logic of denying public broadcasting funding while emphasizing the importance of branding it as “liberal” or “conservative” is foolhardy. Those who have the wisdom to have attained any significant level of power in this country are often not easily characterized as either. Such branding serves no purpose. The mistake Congress may be making — once again — is to use these stereotypes to keep America’s public media system just above starvation, funding it at about 2 percent the rate of its professional peers in Europe and Asia — or even cutting that 2 percent altogether. That makes it exceedingly difficult for public broadcasting to fulfill its promise — to be what the U.S. State Department recognized and valued — when they decided to help fund the BBC.

Public media is America’s best friend. It is Congress’s best friend. It reaches the people who, on every level of our society, from ordinary voters to community leaders to corporate CEOs, make the decisions in this country. Informing them well, as Newt Gingrich discovered, puts the power of factual information prepared by top professionals, with no editorializing or bias of ownership, directly into the hands of the leadership of America. All parties win in that environment. America’s loss will come if public media is starved to the point of having to give control over its powerful transmitters and Internet services to whomever is left — well-meaning but inexperienced and often naïve, mission-driven people, with strong political views, for whom material rewards mean little and advocacy is everything.

Public media won’t disappear, any more than Facebook will. But it can be dangerously

weakened or further strengthened. To succeed, it needs not just monetary support, but the kind of attention to governance that President Johnson provided in populating the first board of the CPB; the kind of leadership that is the hallmark of great institutions and that can change a balkanized system into a unified system with even more professional performance and greater impact. Taking on this challenge would truly serve all Americans, and make public media into something that all political parties would embrace as essential to their success.”

This is a letter I wrote to the Akron Beacon Journal concerning recent events surrounding NPR.

The resignation of Vivian Schiller, president and CEO of National Public Radio (NPR) for the past two years, comes during a turbulent period for NPR and the public broadcasting industry in general. Schiller’s resignation comes in response to reactions over a recent video of NPR’s now-former chief fundraiser, who offered highly controversial political opinions during a meeting with what he believed to be potential donors. Last fall, she faced public scrutiny when NPR dismissed Commentator Juan Williams over remarks that he made on Fox News Channel.

As a 30-year veteran of public radio and WKSU, I support the NPR Board of Trustees’ decision to accept Vivian Schiller’s resignation.

The recorded comments made by NPR’s chief fundraiser are especially unwelcome as government funding for public broadcasting continues to be scrutinized in Washington and Columbus, with his comments adding fuel to the already-robust national discussion that has been strengthened by calls to tighten budgets and lower taxes. After attempts failed last fall to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the new Congress took up the fight again by passing new measures to eliminate federal financial support for public radio and television stations across the country. This issue is still being debated.

CPB provides funds for locally owned and operated public broadcasting outlets like WKSU, Western Reserve Public Media and Ideastream, and it acts as a firewall between the government that provides this support and the public media that it funds. Ten percent of WKSU’s operating income comes from the CPB, which also provides a significant percentage of operating budgets for more than 900 stations across the United States. In fact, the average CPB funding allocation is 16 percent. The loss of those funds would severely hinder the abilities of WKSU and other stations across the country to continue providing the level of award-winning local news coverage and music that listeners have come to expect.

WKSU and other public broadcasters are responsible for raising the funds that keep our stations on-air; however, the CPB allocations are vital to maintaining the quality of service that we provide in the communities that we serve.  It is unfortunate that the actions of a few people at NPR could be a negative tipping point in the debate over federal funding for public broadcasting, potentially severely hampering local stations from providing a critical service to their local communities.

A day never passes without my hearing from listeners who tell me how much they appreciate WKSU. Our station is a great example of a public/private partnership that informs and enriches the lives of the citizens who live and work in Northeast Ohio. The loss of CPB funding would be detrimental to the award-winning work that WKSU does every day to serve this region.

Al Bartholet, Executive Director and General Manager, WKSU