A short version of “Monroe County Today” hit the WHFI-FM airwaves officially on September 1. The 10-minute community news program airs three times a week, and it’s a major step forward for the Monroe County Radio Project, spearheaded by West Virginia University’s Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism.
WHFI’s newscast is one component of the WVU project, which will include a monthly public affairs show and a website with more news and audio from the station, housed in the Monroe County Technical Center, a vocational school. Mark Blevins, an area high school teacher and radio club advisor is the news director of “Monroe County Today,” which by Jan. 2007 will air for 15 minutes five days a week. The show’s primary reporter is Danny Chiotos, an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, and the technical center’s principal is another coordinator of the initiative.
The project got off the ground through a summer community radio course at WVU taught by Emily Hughes Corio, an adjunct professor and West Virginia Public Radio correspondent. Corio’s five students looked at radio programming models around the country and produced radio news stories in order to get up to speed on their own audio skills. From June 11 to June 17, Corio, the students and Dean Maryanne Reed, the project director, traveled to WHFI – a four hours’ drive from the university – to host workshops with about 10 high school students in the radio club and community volunteers who will work for the news programs. The WVU group talked about reporting, interviewing and story production. Students then teamed up with volunteers to produce stories. The Monroe County school district bought new computers with Cool-Edit audio editing software, and the New Voices grant paid for mini-disk audio recorders.
During this visit, WVU students also held two community meetings in the county, asking for story ideas and interested volunteers. They conducted a survey in the area throughout the week on residents’ interests.
After the trip, Corio’s class put together a reporter training manual and a possible schedule for the 15-minute newscast, containing local stories, weather, a community calendar and various features such as “Envirominute” and “Ag Talk.” Since “Monroe County Today” began airing, it has included segments on a local family using solar panels to power their home, recaps of county commission and school board meetings, and an interview with an area artist.
Dean Reed, Corio and the students have been critiquing newscasts and story scripts through e-mail and conference calls. (Four of the WVU students have continued with the project as volunteers and a new participant is earning college credit.) Some students are producing stories for WHFI and all are mentoring the high school students in Monroe County.
Reed and Corio say the website and public affairs program will launch by January. Some of the ideas for the half-hour program include a conversation with a local legislator, profiles of state or local organizations, a call-in show with members of the planning commission and a garden show.
They plan to have another training workshop in November. One thing Reed and Corio have learned is that they need plenty of community participation. “It’s just a tremendous feat to get the volunteers we have working on this,” Reed says. “So what we’re trying to do is a get a stable product and then bring more people in.”
