June 2011 | Signal | WSIU Radio

Signal

Vol. 4, No. 6: June 2011

An Online Newsletter from WSIU Public Radio P o w e r e d b y Yo u ®

This Month on Morning Conversations

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une 1 • 2011 Legislative Session. Paul Simon Public Policy Institute’s David Yepsen and John Jackson will be in to talk about the Spring 2011 Legislative Session in Springfield. We’ll analyze what worked, what didn’t, and what’s still to come.

June 6 • Remembering Old Main. Gordon Pruett of SIUC’s Morris Library and Jon Davey of SIUC’s School of Architecture preview this event, which will take a look at one of the University’s most storied landmarks.

June 7 • Camp Carbondale. Carbondale Park District Director Kathy Renfro will visit to talk about Camp Carbondale, an event to re-introduce Southern Illinoisans to the joys of spending a night outdoors.

June 14 • SIU Chancellor Rita Cheng.

June 21 • Carterville Heritage Day. Jennifer Spence and Sheri Hunter join us for a discussion about this special day celebrating Carterville’s beginnings and history.

June 27 • SIU President Glenn Poshard.

Morning Conversations, hosted by WSIU morning news anchor and reporter Jennifer Fuller, airs at 8:30am on Tuesdays and other weekdays, as scheduled, and repeats at 5:30pm.

David Yepsen, Director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. Photo: Monica Tichenor.

All Morning Conversations episodes are available on air and on our live stream www.wsiu.org/live. You can also find them on our podcast page at www3.wsiu.org/radio/ morningconversation.

We also invite you to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

WSIU Summer Community Support Celebration Celebration! From June 24 to June 30, WSIU Radio will be on the air celebrating the power of public radio in our community.

Verna “Bowie” Webb Hanna of Texico, Illinois (left), a long-time supporter of WSIU Radio, poses with Susan Patrick, WSIU Customer Service Representative, during a recent visit to our FM studios. Bowie often sponsors challenge grants during WSIU Radio’s on-air membership celebrations to encourage listeners to financially support the stations.

Photo: Jenna Richardson.

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SIU Radio celebrates the season with our 2011 Summer Community Support

Listener support is one of the most vital and consistent sources of funding for this station. Whether you listen to Morning Edition, Classical Music, Fresh Air, Car Talk, Whad’Ya Know or This American Life, or any of our other great local shows like Celtic Connections, Rhythm in Bloom, or Sounds Like Radio, WSIU’s unique and diverse programming touches our lives in many ways.

Our 2011 Summer Community Support Celebration is an opportunity for listeners to

help make a difference in our community by supporting the mission of WSIU Radio. As we near the end of the our budget year, keep in mind that listener contributions accomplish two important goals: they help finish paying for our current year’s programming and they help the station qualify for additional federal grant dollars that will be part of the station’s future funding.

WSIU is looking for volunteers to help with our Community Support Celebration. If you’d like to answer phones or share why WSIU Radio is important to you, please give us a call at (618) 453-4343 and ask for Susan Patrick or Laura Cobin.

WSIU Radio is Powered by You!

WSIU Honors Top Students of 2011

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tudents and staff crowded WSIU-TV’s Studio A on Friday, May 6 for a Cinco de Mayo-themed Student Appreciation Dinner celebrating the contributions of WSIU’s talented student employees over the past academic year. WSIU Executive Director, Greg Petrowich, led the awards ceremony during which this year’s WSIU Student Award winners, all seniors, were honored.

FM Student of the Year: Brad Highland, a Cinema & Photography major from Thomson, Illinois TV Student of the Year: Haylea Peters, a RadioTelevision major from Litchfield, Illinois Student Service Award Winners: Chelsea Stone, an English major from Woodlawn, Illinois, and Mallory Henkelman, a Journalism major from Danville, Illinois Lee D. O’Brien Award Winner: Ryan Kinsella, a Radio-Television major from Bartlett, Illinois FM Student of the Year Award Winner Brad Highland (center) with WSIU Radio news reporter Brad Palmer (left) and WSIU Radio General Manager and News & Public Affairs Director, Jeff Williams (right).

Each honoree was presented with a framed certificate and cash gift by their WSIU staff supervisors. Their names also have been engraved on plaques for their respective awards. Congratulations to all!

SIRIS Student Employee: Weston Quivey

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eet student employee Weston Quivey. By day he is a sophomore at SIUC, majoring in Cinema & Photography, with a minor in Philosophy, and possibly a minor in Japanese. By night, he transforms into a WSIU Radio student employee, becoming the nuts, bolts, and glue that keeps SIRIS running.

Shortly after being hired at SIRIS, the opportunity became more than just a job – it became a personally rewarding experience.

“Even though I don’t always see the end result, it’s nice to know that I’m helping somebody else out,” says Quivey. “There’s just something special about that.”

Working at SIRIS, Quivey is responsible for “making sure everything flows smoothly.” He sets volunteer readers up in the studios, edits content, and mails applications for volunteers and radios.

Quivey ‘s favorite perk is getting the chance to meet volunteers.

“I like meeting new people, talking to them, and hearing their life stories,” he says. “I’ve met many interesting people through SIRIS.”

The humble Steeleville, Ill. native met his destiny with SIRIS “basically out of luck,” he admits. He first learned about the opportunity from his mother after she attended a professional development workshop. Vickie Devenport also was at the event and mentioned the need for volunteers. “Vickie apparently liked me,” Weston says as he laughs and reminisces about how the opportunity unfolded.

In his free time, Quivey volunteers for the student-produced TV series alt.news 26:46, where he helps on the set, and also participates in a foreign language group where he practices his Japanese.

He is also a member of the Boy Scouts where he is an Order of the Arrow Representative, and has been a patrol leader for over four years.

SIRIS student worker, Weston Quivey.

Photo: Katie Tullis.

Outside of school, work, and organizations, you can find Quivey squeezing in time to write screenplays and listen to NPR. After graduation, Quivey plans to move to Los Angeles where he hopes to find work. With so much dedication and passion, we have no doubt greatness will be knocking on his door.

To learn more about volunteering for SIRIS, call (618) 453-2808 or click on the SIRIS tab at wsiu.org.

Reporting Live From the Scene of Breaking News…On an iPhone

By Andrew Phelps for Nieman Journalism Lab at www.niemanlab.org.

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arlier this month, as the president announced Osama bin Laden’s demise, NPR’s Robert Smith noticed on Twitter that revelers were congregating at Ground Zero.

He grabbed his gear and headed into Manhattan. A few hours later, Smith was reporting live in high fidelity, playing back sound bites as if broadcasting from the D.C. studios. No engineer at his side, no setup – and, importantly, no cell-network fuzz.

It was 4 a.m. and Charlie Mayer, NPR’s director of operations, was listening at home, stumped.

“As the operations guy, it’s my job to understand how everybody gets on the air,” Mayer said. “I emailed him, I’m like, ‘Robert, that was a great two-way, how did you do it?’ And he’s like, ‘Fool, I did it with my iPhone!”

An iPhone 4, running on Verizon’s 3G network, with a standard field mike and an adapter plugged into the headphone jack. Smith pulled off what might have required days of planning just a few months ago ­– sending engineers to install an ISDN line at the site, Mayer suggested, or equipping the reporter with a $3,000 satellite phone. A low-quality cellphone connection would usually have to do for breaking news. ”Sounds fine,” Mayer said, “but it’s not like being right there.”

I thought I was impressed last month when I wrote about a Boston radio reporter who used her iPhone to record interviews for a story. That was kid stuff. It turns

out NPR has been experimenting with radio-quality live broadcasts on mobile devices and wireless connections.

Smith used an iPhone app called ReportIT Live to make the connection. No IP addresses or ports to configure, just a user name and password.

NPR worked with Photo illustration based on an developer Tieline image by Guillaume Lemoine used under a Creative Commons license. to streamline the app for maximum simplicity – not so much for reporters like Smith, but for tens of millions of broadcast-capable citizens out there. ”We think of that as being for anybody with an iPhone,” Mayer said. “Every iPhone in the world is potentially an NPR recording and transmission tool.”

People who are far away or unavailable in person can talk to a host without that “faraway” sound. The ReportIT app is a free download, though NPR pays server licensing fees. Mayer walked me through the setup during our interview; it took less than a minute to get “on the air.” To read the full article, click here.

Put Yourself on the Map!

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id you know that 93% of the U.S. population lives in an area served by an NPR station?

And that nearly 34 million of those folks tune in to public radio stations each week?

NPR has created a fun way for you to share your affection for NPR and public radio by adding their new Facebook phone app, "I Heart NPR."

This cool new app lets you place yourself on an interactive map, select your favorite public radio station (WSIU Radio, of course), and then "like" us.

You can also play games such as "Name That Theme Song" and the "NPR Trivia Quiz." Once 100,000 fans, and then 200,000 fans, are on the map, NPR will unlock two new mystery games.

Image Provided by NPR

Go online at www.npr.org/ about/gopublic/iheartnpr to get started!

Celtic Connections host Bryan Kelso Crow.

Photo: Suzanne Milano.

Airs Saturday @ 7pm • Sunday @ 6pm June 4 • New Releases

The top of the month means it’s time to sample new and recent releases.

June 11 • Twin Fiddles

The sound of two fiddles playing in unison or in harmony is always exciting, and with piano or guitar backing, who could resist the urge to dance? This week we sample a number of twin fiddle tracks from Celtic and North American fiddlers.

“WSIU is one of my most reliable compasses” - Rodney Jones, Carbondale, IL

June 18 • Old Favorites

Songs and tunes from favorite albums of the past several decades will be featured this week.

June 25 • Summer Festival

Singers, instrumentalists, and bands are on the run trying to hit as many of the summer Celtic festivals as they can, and we will catch up with as many as we can for a preview of some of the major festivals for 2011.

Thank You, Underwriters!

Please join us in thanking the underwriters who recently began, renewed, or expanded their partnerships to make public radio possible:

Kemper C.P.A. Group, LLC, Marion Gator Automotive, Carbondale My Favorite Toys, in University Mall, Carbondale

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listen to WSIU because I find programs there that I can’t find anywhere else. Through the balanced news reports that I hear on WSIU, I’ve learned about derivatives and state politics. I’ve heard Senator Paul Simon talk about why he thought the war in Iraq might not be a walk in the park and why bees and amphibians are in trouble. I also found the best ideas on why time seems to pass more quickly as we grow older – and how butterflies are able to migrate from Canada to Mexico and not get lost.

As I grow older, I want to continue to move and not be lost, and WSIU is one of my most reliable compasses. Thank you so much for supporting our public radio station – WSIU Radio.

I’m Rodney Jones from Carbondale, Illinois, and WSIU Public Radio is Powered by Me!

Sujatha Rao, M.D., Hem-Onc Care, Carbondale

What do you love about WSIU?

Southern Gas Company, Carbondale

Tell us and we’ll share it on the air, online, or in print!

SIU School of Music SIU Theater Department Williamson County Tourism Board For a complete list of WSIU sponsors and information about sponsoring WSIU programming, visit us online at www.wsiu.org or call (618) 453-4286.

Online • www.wsiu.org/you Email • you@wsiu.org

W S I U i s P o w e r e d b y Yo u ® WSIU Public Radio Communications Building 1003 - MC 6602 Southern Illinois University Carbondale 1100 Lincoln Drive Carbondale IL 62901 • 618/453-6101 • wsiu.org • wsiuradio@wsiu.org