WAMU 88.

5 COMMUNITY COUNCIL
Minutes of the Meeting of the Council
Wednesday, February 8, 2017

WAMU Community Council Members Attending:

Eugene Sofer; Council Chair, Shay Stevens; Vice Chair, Armele Vilceus, Margaret O’Bryon,
Dr. Christine Berg, Maura Brophy, Donna MP Willson, David Nemazi, Stan Soloway, Avis Thomas-
Lester, David Smith, Nakeisha Neal Jones, Kumera Genet, Navros Gandhi, Audrey Alvarado,
Lucinda Crabtree, Susan Weiss, Kumera Genet, Don Britton
Peter Tannenwald and Matt McCormick, ex-officio
WAMU/AU Staff Attending:
JJ Yore, Carey Needham, Andi McDaniel, Rob Bertrand, Audrey Johnson, Kelsey Proud, James
Coates, Amy Powers, Latisha Few, Patrice Jackson, Nancy Guis, Madeleine Poore
Members of the Public:
Gar W. Young, Steve Kaffen, Timothy Tilghman, Cliff Brody, Lisa Bregman, Dani Kauffman, Lisa
Shepard, Carolyn Finney.
I. Welcome – Eugene, Council Chair

Eugene opened the meeting at 7 p.m. Council members introduced themselves.

II. State of the Station Report - JJ Yore, General Manager

A. Strategic Plan Recap: JJ Yore, General Manager
JJ provided some background on the strategic plan developed by Atlantic Media Strategies.
In an effort to create a strategic path moving forward, the station wanted to incorporate
public media Best Practices; define a sound and style that can only be from WAMU; as well
as improve revenue functions so that we have money to invest in content and platforms.

Goal: To create a public service media company that provides the best possible service to
the region, on par with top-performing public media stations in country. The result was an
ambitious 5-year plan completed at the end of 2015; Launched beginning of FY (last May 1)

B. Audience Update: JJ Yore, General Manager

JJ explained that the station receives different kinds of audience information: weekly,
monthly, seasonally, annually; by metro market, Baltimore, and outlying areas. Some of the
current audience data shows that for fall - Sept, Oct, Nov - (9/8-11/30), for DC metro
WAMU was: the number one station, with a 32% increase from Fall 2015 to 862K
listeners/week (new high). Including Baltimore, Eastern Shore, Fredericksburg 984K (almost
 million) was also a record high. It was also important to note how many people listening any
given moment: *38K (40% increase from Fall 2015) *10.4% AQH Share of listening (35%
increase from Fall 2015). We gained a huge number of listeners during the presidential
election year. Often some fraction of listeners drop off, but we are hoping to retain at least
50% of growth this year.
C. New Department; Marketing and Engagement: JJ Yore- General Manager
JJ discussed the changes that have been made in restructuring departments. A new
department is in the works. The idea is to rethink how we are connecting to audiences
beyond the journalism we create and to deepen our relationship with audiences. It will also
bring together all the people who are supporters of the station in terms of volunteers, our
internship program, and the Community Council. That’s a process we’re just now working
on; we’ve got our lead position defined, with luck we will have this department up and
running by the summer.

D. Federal Funding: JJ Yore- General Manager

This isn’t the first time CPB has been under Congressional scrutiny. Some of you may
remember 2001 and 2009 – JJ recalls seeing Diane Rehm standing next to Big Bird outside
our building. So – what are we doing now: WAMU is setting aside a larger than normal
contingency in FY18/19 to buffer against cuts in funding and our five-year plan will include
a reduction in its dependency on CPB funding. Ideally we could zero out this dependency
over five years.

JJ also acknowledged that there are 2 bills currently introduced - HR 726: To prohibit
Federal funding of NPR and the use of Fed Funds to acquire radio content and HR 727: To
amend the Communications Act of 1934 to prohibit Fed funding for CPB after FY 2019.

Navros Ghandi asked “Does CPB give money to NPR directly? JJ answered, not really, NPR
can apply for funding for special projects but the funding is directly for stations”
One thing to keep in mind is that stations are used as an emergency communications system,
and that is another reason why they shouldn’t be defunded.
E. WAMU’s Finance Update: Carey Needham
Carey set the stage for the finance presentation with objectives 10, 11, and 12 from the strategic plan.
When JJ began during FY15, there were tough decisions made about WAMU’s financial performance
and operation. $1 million was cut from the operating budget, FY16 ---- As we look to the future, our
projections show the revenue eclipsing our expenses, meaning we would have surplus.

Christine Berg asked about the Capital Campaign, Carey clarified we participated in
American University’s campaign but have never done our own.
Expense break down: WAMU Donor Count, going back to 2010– total donor count
hovered around 50,000 for five years with no growth. Revenue was flat. Between 2015-2016
we brought in industry expertise to assess our membership operations, re-set our campaign
strategy, set aggressive monthly goals - which included increasing the # of on-air fund-
raising days, split out Major Giving and Membership – hired new leadership in both areas.
Between 2016-2017 – 34% increase in donors, at the same time we’ve seen a dramatic
 increase in audience, largely due to this incredible news cycle and the presidential election.
Note about January: added 4319 new donors in what is normally a slower month – as a
comparison we added 4157 new donors during our on-air campaign! As of Feb 1 we are
70,874! March on-air campaign is next up and David will give us a preview of what we will
expect from this effort.
Avis asked “why did this increase happen?” Carey responded by saying it has to do with our
content, engaging with the audience and JJ chimed in to add it might have to do with the
“Trump Effect” which is something Andi will be discussing later, but a lot of nonprofits
have been seeing an uptick in donations.
Carey introduced the upcoming on-air membership campaign, March 3rd to 10th with a goal
of 1.2 Million. The theme will be “Journalism and community, the importance of fact based
content” something new that we are doing is producing new member spots, drawn from
members all over the region, taken from produced in studio. He then played two spots for
the council to listen to.
Andi said an important way to contribute that isn’t financial is to boost to your audience on
social media, sharing why you support and listen to the station. “A well placed Facebook
post can go a long way.”
A community member brought up the #PressOn hashtag that journalists and supporters
have been using to show the support the press.
F. Journalism and Content: Andi McDaniel
Andi began by talking about “stationarity”, a made-up word that described the sound and
feel of the station. The main focus is to create a seamless listening experience, a sense of
place- when you tune in you know it’s D.C.’s station not New Hampshire’s. Greater
consistency, give hosts best way to connect with audience and a unified content vision.

David Nemazie made a comment about reducing phone sound and skype sounds because
the audio quality is not great.

Timothy Tilghman said he really liked the concept of stationality and said he wants to strike
a balance between hearing voices from all over the world and also staying true to a distinct
D.C. voice.
Andi spoke to this, mentioning BBC Newshour and how that was added because an
international perspective is important. Another aspect of our stationality plan is prerecorded
underwriting. Underwritting will now be voiced by Heather Taylor.
Other Stationality tweaks: we’ll mention sports when it’s relevant, regional and national
news, local events and traffic when it’s important.
Bluegrass country, we are thrilled that the Bluegrass foundation is now the steward of BGC,
it’s such a success story that we were able to accomplish this transition.
1A is going so well, we were hesitant transitioning from Diane Rehm to not Diane Rehm—
but the audience is loving 1A and Joshua. The goal was to retain 75% of stations carrying
DRS by the end of the year and we are currently at 100%.
David Nemazie complimented the 1A team for jumping in and having a Sunday show the
weekend of the immigration ban.
Trump effect, first we acknowledge we are in a historic moment nationally and something
that doesn’t get as much attention is the effect all of this churn has on people who live in
this town. We are uniquely positioned to handle covering that. Andi ends by opening up the
conversation and asking “What do you accept? What are you yearning for? What role
might we play in the conversation?”
Margaret Byron- “There’s a psycho-social piece- when you live here and you’re having to
deal with so many constant conversations and it does take its toll. I’d love for someone,
maybe it’s you guys figuring out where there is common ground.”
Andi spoke to how WAMU just began carrying “Indivisible” show, for the first 100 days of
the presidency.
Gene Sofer- “My sense is that some kind of a show that focuses on the local and regional
impacts on some of the things the administration is talking about, whether it is the impact
on the ban of families are already here, or choice for schools, or tax reforms on local
businesses. Something that has a local and regional focus goes to the identity, strategic plan
and stationality.”
Stan Soloway built on Gene’s point “There’s an opportunity here to bridge some of the gaps
were talking about, and engage the business community. I work with tons of smaller
companies in Washington, I’ve had CEOs of big very conservative companies who are
having conversations internally with their staffs about race, gender.”
Cliff Brody- “We’re worried about the uncertainty, a lot of programs are repeating the
problems, people want to know the answers, what’s going to happen, well history has the
answer—I would recommend a serious look at what happened in history during moments
similar to these, I have not heard, seen or read the parallels, identify where the answers are
hiding in plain sight”
Christine Berg- “I’d like to talk about regionally, federal workforce being cut, and the impact
that has on our region, I work as a contractor for NIH and we received a mass email today
about talking about not politics on the job, in preparation for the 2020 election and the
Hatch act, it was chilling”
33% of our listenership is of the federal workforce.
David Nemazie “We’re in an incredible time where there’s new people thinking about
politics who never thought about this before. If there’s a way to give Government 101.
People are becoming involved”
Kumera Genet “I wanted to echo the importance of history, it’s often implied but not
adequately discussed. In relation to the trump effect, there is a responsibility to tell local
stories, and going to business impacted is good, but they are secondary impacts, I think it’s
important to go to primary sources, people who are being directly impacted.”
David Smith “History is important, as a father with a millennial, often young people
advocate without understanding the history, the conversations are easier to have within the
context of history. “when capitol hill gets a cold, east of the river gets pneumonia” Bring
people together so it’s not about Trump but about issues and how were they handled in the
past.”
Nakeshia Neal Jones “I’m just wondering if there’s a way when things come up to ask
people if they have sources, unusual insights to add perspective to a conversation, like a lot
of the marches happening recently people were asking why there weren’t a lot of Black folks
there.
Susan Weiss “as someone who managed a newsroom, resource changes when there’s such a
flood of news, some tough choices have to be made to pursue the local regional stories,
where WAMU can looking for the enterprising stories, Washington post is focused on being
the national newspaper but a lot of local stories are falling through the cracks, our business,
our universities, I just think if you can zig when other outlets are all zagging, covering stories
that aren’t being covered.”
Steve Kaplin “I believe there’s a great opportunity to expand the listener base and diversity,
but re-examining the evening programing, generally working listener, period between 6:30-
8pm All Things Considered is a bit stale by that time.”
Maura Brophy “Listeners want to engage with the station, the station wants to engage with
the community. Marketplace does a good job of engagement by weaving stories from the
same people over a long period of time, checking in with them for all sorts of issues.”
III. Community Dialogue- Alicia Montgomery, Editorial Director
Alicia Montgomery gave a brief recap of the community dialogue hosted on November 17th.
It was titled “Empty Spaces” and focused on spaces that remain undeveloped or under
developed during times of fast development and the impact that has on residents in those
areas.

The panelists were:

Dekonti Mends-Cole, Director of Policy, Center for Community Progress
Jennifer Knox, Lead Organizer, Washington Interfaith Network
Judge Judith Bartnoff, Assoc. Judge, DC Superior Court

IV. Public Comment-

Steve Kaplin, long-time listener and supporter gave advice on looking at diversity as it relates
to the station. He also complimented the new website and said adding visual elements not
just audio will be beneficial.
Gar Young, a long-time listener and supporter, mentioned that he is thrilled about the new
program, is recommitted and reengaged, saying WAMU is on the right track on getting
people to listen to each other.
V. Adjournment-
The Chair called for a motion to approve the minutes from the December meeting, minutes
were approved unanimously at 9:07pm. There being no further business, the motion was
made to adjourn the meeting, seconded and approved by the Council. The meeting was
adjourned at 9:08 p.m.
Respectfully Submitted,
Madeleine Poore