Devotees of KUER's Friday Edition -- the locally produced radio news half-hour -- were surprised to discover last Friday that the show is going off the air. It was sort of public radio's version of tuning in to your favorite oldies station only to discover that it had suddenly switched formats to country.
When it first debuted Friday Edition 372 Fridays ago, KUER was one of the few local public radio stations in the country to produce 30 minutes of local in-depth news, features and essays each week. Over the years, the program and its inventive staff have won numerous statewide and national journalism awards.The problem is that producing the news costs a lot of money. In fact, "it's the most expensive thing any radio station does," explains KUER station manager John Greene. "That's why stations do so little of it."
KUER has decided, he says, to "get the maximum usage" out of its news money. So, instead of airing the 30-minute news show each Friday, the station will produce two 9-minute segments of local news and features during NPR's "Morning Edition" each day. The segments will run at 6:30 a.m. and 7:30, with a repeat of the 6:30 segment at 8:30 a.m.
That adds up to 90 minutes of local news a week -- decidedly more than before. Greene prefers to think of the shift as "not a demise of Friday Edition but putting the best parts of Friday Edition into the most listened-to part of our programming." The station had already been recycling segments of Friday Edition during morning drive-time the following week and found, says Greene, that many more people heard it then.
"I'm very positive KUER will still be a major source of in-depth stories," says KUER news director Doug Fabrizio. He adds, however, that he is "disappointed that Friday Edition is going away," and that he and KUER's management have "some creative differences about the direction of local news."
Under Fabrizio's direction, Friday Edition took local news in thoughtful, sometimes odd and even contemplative directions. It's never been the usual, spot-news shtick offered by most local radio news. "People didn't tune in to us to find out why there was smoke downtown," he says.
Instead, Fabrizio sought to bring good writing and context to local news, as well as the sounds and voices that make radio a unique medium.
KUER will be expanding its news operation, adding one additional full-time reporter, as well as replacing Maria Titze, who has taken a job at the Salt Lake Observer.
The station is planning to do more locally produced programs, says Greene. He expects, also, that the new morning time slots will result in more news-oriented stories.