Since it went on the air in the 1970s, Loyola University’s 100-watt WLUW (88.7 FM) has been a Top 40 music station, the type where student DJs train to become professional broadcasters. Then three years ago Loyola’s communications department voted to devote mornings to community radio.
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The Lakeshore Community Media Workshop puts students in touch with community groups and sends them out to dig up stories in the neighborhoods of Uptown, Andersonville, Rogers Park, Edgewater, and Devon Avenue. The students target groups and stories that are usually ignored by the mainstream media.
The result is a sort of community access radio. Programs include the long-running “Voice of Guatemala,” a show about culture and politics produced by students and members of the group Casa Guatemala; the nationally syndicated “Aware: Positive Health Talk Radio” (formerly known as “Aware: HIV Talk Radio”); and “Live From the Heartland,” a weekly talk show with academics and community activists discussing issues of the day that’s broadcast live from the Heartland Cafe in East Rogers Park. “The Coming of Thunder,” a Native American community program that ran for a year, was created when a Loyola student was working on a story and ran into another student at the Native American Educational Service. The two teamed up to do a series of half-hour programs. “That’s the exact model of how we want this process to work,” Kois says.
Kois and Harder say they don’t control the content of programs and welcome proposals for new shows. “We have very limited protocol,” explains Harder. “What we’re looking for is sustainability. But if someone cannot sustain a show, we have alternative formats. We really want to get people involved.”
