WAMU going under?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I stopped listening long ago when they couldn't ease up on their "angle"

I love WAMU local news coverage, politics hour, etc. but the agenda that the replacements for Kojo and Diane Rehm had was just too much. Everything had to talk about trans or race or social justice. I’m fine with insightful discussions of those topics, even if I disagree with the views discussed - but it was constant and to the exclusion of other interesting topics that used to only be covered (well) by WAMU and then didn’t get covered at all. I was so happy when they restarted dcist but they didn’t pull much of that work through to be on the air.

I used to love their Sunday morning shows. Not anymore, due to personnel changes.

[Anonymous]

When you tour the studios, you see no employee over…maybe 27. They must pay them peanuts.

[Anonymous]

Sounds promising - unfortunately DCist is gone, but they’re doubling down on local coverage. At least for now.

[Anonymous]

I have a game now where I turn the car radio to 88.5 and see how long it takes for race, gender, or trans issues to come up (always in an in-your-face, non-nuanced way). It's usually less than a minute. It's very clear that the agenda simply became DEI stuff all the time about 5 years ago. We used to give money, listen avidly, etc. It's not not listenable anymore. They obviously just ignored the disappearing audience and chose to ride this into the ground. It stinks because we desperately need a smart local news station.

[Anonymous]

I miss stained glass bluegrass

[Anonymous]

DCist had a sizable core audience that would gather in the comments, but then they eliminated comments and I'm going to guess those readers had zero reason to click on DCist anymore. It certainly wasn't for the journalism, which -- for all the hosannas it's getting from the terminally online right now -- was pretty amateurish.

I will say that local news is extremely important, but also that it's an extremely tough sell because its audience is capped by geography. And even in DC, which on its face should be a prime audience for local news, we have an *extremely* apathetic population when it comes to local matters, which is why we get the same mediocre politicians elected over and over again. Just look at voter turnout, which is laughably bad here.

[Anonymous]

Seems as if the money just ran out:

https://twitter.com/jasonshevrin/status/1761036815685796107

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCist had a sizable core audience that would gather in the comments, but then they eliminated comments and I'm going to guess those readers had zero reason to click on DCist anymore. It certainly wasn't for the journalism, which -- for all the hosannas it's getting from the terminally online right now -- was pretty amateurish.

I will say that local news is extremely important, but also that it's an extremely tough sell because its audience is capped by geography. And even in DC, which on its face should be a prime audience for local news, we have an *extremely* apathetic population when it comes to local matters, which is why we get the same mediocre politicians elected over and over again. Just look at voter turnout, which is laughably bad here.

The problem with DC local news is that DC only has 700k residents. That isn't enough to support local news. MD and VA suburbs have far more, but they are lucky to get a fraction of the stories that DC proper does from most outlets

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCist had a sizable core audience that would gather in the comments, but then they eliminated comments and I'm going to guess those readers had zero reason to click on DCist anymore. It certainly wasn't for the journalism, which -- for all the hosannas it's getting from the terminally online right now -- was pretty amateurish.

I will say that local news is extremely important, but also that it's an extremely tough sell because its audience is capped by geography. And even in DC, which on its face should be a prime audience for local news, we have an *extremely* apathetic population when it comes to local matters, which is why we get the same mediocre politicians elected over and over again. Just look at voter turnout, which is laughably bad here.

The problem with DC local news is that DC only has 700k residents. That isn't enough to support local news. MD and VA suburbs have far more, but they are lucky to get a fraction of the stories that DC proper does from most outlets

Yes, exactly. It's a comparatively small population, and then when you take into account that probably 685,000 of that 700k probably would never click on a DCist link (or even know what it is), you start to see how impossible it becomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCist had a sizable core audience that would gather in the comments, but then they eliminated comments and I'm going to guess those readers had zero reason to click on DCist anymore. It certainly wasn't for the journalism, which -- for all the hosannas it's getting from the terminally online right now -- was pretty amateurish.

I will say that local news is extremely important, but also that it's an extremely tough sell because its audience is capped by geography. And even in DC, which on its face should be a prime audience for local news, we have an *extremely* apathetic population when it comes to local matters, which is why we get the same mediocre politicians elected over and over again. Just look at voter turnout, which is laughably bad here.

The problem with DC local news is that DC only has 700k residents. That isn't enough to support local news. MD and VA suburbs have far more, but they are lucky to get a fraction of the stories that DC proper does from most outlets

Yes, exactly. It's a comparatively small population, and then when you take into account that probably 685,000 of that 700k probably would never click on a DCist link (or even know what it is), you start to see how impossible it becomes.

Such a transplant perspective. There are 6 million people in the DC area. Thinking it is only the 700K in the borders that makes DC, DC is just navel gazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I miss stained glass bluegrass

+1. And totally agree with many PPs on the “angle” being over the top. And I’m African American. I stopped listening years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCist had a sizable core audience that would gather in the comments, but then they eliminated comments and I'm going to guess those readers had zero reason to click on DCist anymore. It certainly wasn't for the journalism, which -- for all the hosannas it's getting from the terminally online right now -- was pretty amateurish.

I will say that local news is extremely important, but also that it's an extremely tough sell because its audience is capped by geography. And even in DC, which on its face should be a prime audience for local news, we have an *extremely* apathetic population when it comes to local matters, which is why we get the same mediocre politicians elected over and over again. Just look at voter turnout, which is laughably bad here.

The problem with DC local news is that DC only has 700k residents. That isn't enough to support local news. MD and VA suburbs have far more, but they are lucky to get a fraction of the stories that DC proper does from most outlets

Yes, exactly. It's a comparatively small population, and then when you take into account that probably 685,000 of that 700k probably would never click on a DCist link (or even know what it is), you start to see how impossible it becomes.

Such a transplant perspective. There are 6 million people in the DC area. Thinking it is only the 700K in the borders that makes DC, DC is just navel gazing.

I'm one of the 1.15 million people in Fairfax county. I am not reading a 'local' news site focused on DC that may have the occasional article about my county. Do you think people in Gaithersburg really care about DCPS reporting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCist is axed

Is that a guess or do you have a source?

[Anonymous]

Which public radio station across the country would you listen to from your desktop at work? I am sick of the in your face agenda of WAMU and would like to listen to NPR programming on another more balanced station, and since everything is accessible through streaming there's no need to waste my time getting aggravated With WAMU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCist is axed

Is that a guess or do you have a source?

https://www.axios.com/2024/02/23/wamu-dcist-layoffs-npr-washington