Telling Public Radio’s Story
Telling Public Radio’s Story – Fiscal Year 2022
Item 6.1 of the annual CPB SAS Report
1. Describe your overall goals and approach to address identified community issues, needs, and interests through your station’s vital local services, such as multiplatform long and short-form content, digital and in-person engagement, education services, community information, partnership support, and other activities, and audiences you reached or new audiences you engaged.
WUNC delivered high quality news and information that gets people talking and helps citizens make informed decisions about their lives and community. We produced hourly newscasts, features for radio and digital, a weekly show focused on relationships and health, podcasts and weekly folk radio show and a 24/7 Music Discovery radio stream.
2. Describe key initiatives and the variety of partners with whom you collaborated, including other public media outlets, community nonprofits, government agencies, educational institutions, the business community, teachers and parents, etc. This will illustrate the many ways you’re connected across the community and engaged with other important organizations in the area.
WUNC has been a project lead and supportive partner for statewide coverage of issues significant to North Carolina residents. WUNC helped build and depends on a statewide distribution network to share regional and state news stories as well as hurricane coverage and other breaking news. WUNC also partners with local schools and educators for our Youth Reporting Institute. It's a program that helps develop the next generation of reporters and audio storytellers.
3. What impact did your key initiatives and partnerships have in your community? Describe any known measurable impact, such as increased awareness, learning or understanding about particular issues. Describe indicators of success, such as connecting people to needed resources or strengthening conversational ties across diverse neighborhoods. Did a partner see an increase in requests for related resources? Please include direct feedback from a partner(s) or from a person(s) served.
WUNC has a daily impact on a large listening audience. It is on average, the most listened to radio station for persons 25+ in the Raleigh market. As one of the leading stations in our market, we reach a broad cross-section of the community and spark conversations and actions that often happen out of our view.
4. Please describe any efforts (e.g. programming, production, engagement activities) you have made to investigate and/or meet the needs of minority and other diverse audiences (including, but not limited to, new immigrants, people for whom English is a second language and illiterate adults) during Fiscal Year 2022, and any plans you have made to meet the needs of these audiences during Fiscal Year 2023. If you regularly broadcast in a language other than English, please note the language broadcast.
WUNC strives to serve as broad and diverse an audience as possible with its news and information programming. In 2022, the station continued to hold community meetings to hear firsthand ways WUNC could better serve the local community. Other engagement activities included tabling at a variety of nonprofit events and hosting HBCU trivia nights. Additionally, the newsroom continued coverage of a cultural shift in the American south and North Carolina’s role in that. The topics of these stories included an ongoing trend to dismantle Confederate monuments in towns and counties across the state. The news team also covered efforts to increase wealth among Black residents in a variety of different ways including stories on Black farmers and local financial institutions investing in Black owned businesses. The WUNC news team continued to report on the developing case of Andrew Brown Jr, a Black man killed by Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Deputies in 2021. WUNC reporters covered the 2022 mid-term elections and concentrated efforts on an open seat for U.S. Senate, that included a candidate who if elected, would have become the first Black woman in the state elected to federal office. The newsroom tackled election topics related to education, affordable housing, healthcare and other issues important to voters. The news staff also localized national stories including the SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a landmark affirmative action case involving UNC and a case born out of the North Carolina Supreme Court that could determine election policies for the nation.
5. Please assess the impact that your CPB funding had on your ability to serve your community. What were you able to do with your grant that you wouldn't be able to do if you didn't receive it?
CPB funding is essential to the operations of WUNC. It makes up roughly 6% of our overall operating budget. We are able to leverage that foundational support and raise the rest through listener contributions, corporate support and foundations. WUNC receives no direct support from the University or the State. If we lost CPB funding it would put other funding sources at risk and we would have to make cuts and most likely that would mean the loss of reporters and producers.