DEMOCRACY FORUM ASKS,
HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS?
“THIS IS NOT AN ESOTERIC CONVERSATION”
THIS IS COMMUNITY RADIO.
PART II
THIS IS COMMUNITY RADIO.
Ann Luther’s story of Democracy Forum’s creation and development–by earlier, welcoming WERU programmers, by community members committed to Maine’s League of Women Voters, by WERU training and encouragement–is reflective of the station’s–and community radio’s—foundational
commitment to public service programming.
To learn more about that work, I spoke with Amy Browne, WERU’s News and Public Affairs Manager.
Diane
Amy, thank you for taking the time to talk with me today.
This is, I believe, the third time in recent years I’ve contacted WERU about the station’s public service programming. We first spoke in 2022 about the series, Maine, The Way Life Could Be; and then, in 2024, I spoke with General Manager Matt Murphy and two program facilitators about the station’s collaboration with Story Corps on One Small Step.
So, now, while the focus here is on Democracy Forum’s Constitutional Crisis series, I hope we can also talk about WERU’s overall commitment and approach to public service programming.
But let’s start with Democracy Forum. What has been your role in developing this series?
Amy Browne
Well, first, I’ll say that Ann and Democracy Forum are just amazing. They put information out there that is so needed right now, and I’m glad they’re getting the recognition that they deserve. They are working very hard and doing something really important.
My involvement with that series has been very minimal. For me, for the Public News and Public Affairs team, once folks are trained, [we’re] fairly hands-off. When somebody’s experienced, we let them go with whatever they’re working on. We know that Democracy Forum is capable of covering election- related topics without getting into partisanship or editorializing or calls to action because that’s what they do as part of their work and because they’ve done it so well over the years.
Diane
Were you involved in Democracy Forum’s decision to do this Constitutional Crisis series?
Amy
No. I think people think of the media as a place where somebody assigns stories and tells you to cover these things. But, I knew myself, having been a WERU volunteer for five years [when I started at the station], that, if they’d done that with me, if they’d made suggestions that I didn’t think fit my show, I wouldn’t follow them. So, taking this sort of hands-off approach has worked out better.
Diane
Let’s talk about your history with the station. You’ve been at WERU since 2000?
Amy
I started in 1999 or 2000, and I’ve been a full-time staff member since January 2006. When I started, I went to the training for new volunteers, and I ran into a friend there. We were from the activist community and frustrated. Mainstream media and even public media here was not covering protests that were happening. [Events] were being misrepresented. And it was really hard, from a grassroots perspective, to do anything. So, while we were at that orientation, my friend and I started thinking, ‘Wow. They need people to do public affairs and news programming. We could definitely do that.’
Diane
Did you have radio experience before that?
Amy
No, I didn’t have radio experience at all. I had been involved in an underground zine with some friends. I had taken some journalism courses in college, but I hadn’t pursued a journalism degree. That [first] five years, my friend and I were doing a weekly current events show. We were at the station all the time. And the station sent us to several of the radio conferences, the Grassroots Radio Conferences and the NFCB conferences. We got a lot of training from attending those conferences and [from] our mentors at the station. I was working two part-time jobs at the time. So, if I had to be at the station in
the middle of the night to edit, it was open. It was a very flexible and welcoming environment.
Diane
And that encouraged your work to expand?
Amy
WERU had a couple of public affairs shows, much more public affairs and a lot less current events, So, [for] our coverage, we traveled around the country, covering the anti-corporate globalization protests and the police riot in Miami in 2003 and the School of the Americas protests. We started to work with the tribes up here over water quality issues and sovereignty issues and [did] a weekly environmental
and social justice news journal. People appreciated that type of coverage.
When I became the full-time Public Affairs and News Manager, we started to expand our Public Affairs, to get [those programs] on at a time of day when there were more listeners. We had a
few shows that were hosted by people who were hosting as part of their job, but I thought it might be better to have people who weren’t so involved in an issue reporting on it, that that would be more trustworthy, that shows might sound like an infomercial for their particular organization.
But we decided to give it a try. And now we have several programs that are hosted by nonprofit organizations, and they’ve all done a really good job of keeping their own opinions out of things, in terms of the host [not] weighing in on everything that’s said. They give information. We train them at the very beginning. We talk the show through before we put them on the air. And it’s worked out
incredibly well, much better than I would have expected.
Democracy Forum is one of those programs. They’re not supporting or endorsing particular
candidates. They’re party neutral, while educating people about their voting rights and the issues, how [issues] impact people and historically how they came to be. This is a great contribution to the community.
Diane
And did you work with Democracy Forum from the beginning?
Amy
Ann and I have different memories about that, but I was there when they started as a regular monthly, year-round public affairs show.
At that time, we were doing call-in shows, and that’s what Democracy Forum was going to be. So I trained them by having them sit in with me while I engineered a show, had them sit in with hosts and guests on other shows to get them ready. Then I engineered their show for years, so I was right there to give feedback after the program.
Over the years, we’ve developed [additional] systems for getting new programs on the air. We have anybody who is going to be a host or even co-host take a basic orientation to the station, to basic policies. We have training manuals. Then they continue a customized training with me.
We also evaluate programs now. We have an application process. We ask what they’re going to do, how it helps meet our mission and serves our community, and how it avoids overlapping with what we already have on the air. We have them record the first episode. We give feedback, and we also are try to make sure that what they’re doing is a service to the community.
And we critique them on a random schedule. The Advisory Committee, which is mostly volunteers, will choose a show to critique after they meet every month, and so [hosts] get regular feedback on how they’re doing.
Diane
That’s important.
Community radio is in a challenging situation right now, and so much of WERU programming provides public education. So, would you talk more about how WERU defines its commitment to public service, community service, public affairs and public education.
Amy
We really are mission oriented when we decide what to put on the air. We don't want to have anybody in a position of power, whether it’s a Programming Advisory Committee member or part of the Community Advisory Board, or whether it’s a staff member who doesn’t like something in particular, controlling what’s on air based solely on their personal preferences.
WERU’s mission is to be a voice of many voices. Our guiding values are to have diverse people in programming, diversity, equity and inclusion, which we’re glad we still have on the website; civility and respect, social justice, fact-based journalism, and service to the community. The social justice piece is huge. We have groups that have come up to Maine and tried to take over some of our small unincorporated areas. They’ve turned them into extreme right-wing training camps for these paramilitary, homegrown terrorists. So I’ve always wondered, if one of those folks showed up and said, ‘You know, I want to propose a show,’ what piece of this process would prevent them from doing that? And I think pretty much all of it does. Our guests may sound disrespectful at times to the current administration, but you won’t hear people on the air who are hosting, representing WERU, being
disrespectful or uncivil to anyone who’s on the air, which doesn’t mean that they’ll back down. We coach them, if there’s a hard question, you have to be up to asking it or you’re not the person to do this interview.
Diane
WERU was founded in 1988; and you mentioned earlier that, when you first came to the station, there was already a tradition of providing public affairs programming. I’d like to hear more about that foundation.
Amy
There is an organic approach at this radio station that started from its beginning. Noel Paul Stookey from Peter, Paul and Mary is one of the founders of the station, and [WERU’s first broadcast came from his chicken barn.] There’s still a sign somewhere here from his hen house.
We’re not in a city. So, [he and the founding group] had a slot between 10 and noon when it was really hard to find anybody to be on the air. They started putting recorded public affairs programming in that time slot.
And that foundation has continued.
Diane
The station seems to have thrived on a tradition of civic responsibility and respect.
Amy
Community members know we’re here. They know that people can come and be trained to do radio programs.
We have an older population. So we’re working with the young people who are still here and the
college students who came here from somewhere else, to get them involved and on the air. I try to guide them as little as possible other than technical stuff, so that the vibe of their shows sounds the way they would want it, not to use a formulaic approach. The shows come together based on the people in the community who are coming in to put them together. We represent the community. It’s a natural process.
And it’s a small enough place, or a bunch of places, really. Folks in the communities we serve who are involved with any type of civic engagement in any way have heard of the station. If they haven’t been a host, they’ve probably been a guest at one point or another. And, then, during pledge drives, people
stop by. It becomes a sort of community hub.
People feel like they own this station, which they do.
WERU logo used with permission.