The New Newsroom

By Annmarie Dean

We have had an exciting March so far here at WNED; this month brought the addition of WBFO to our family of public broadcasting and there is an exciting program line-up in place that features something for all listeners of public radio. The combination of two continuously award-winning newsrooms is something that we can definitely boast about. There are also some new faces (with familiar voices) at our NPR station.

Joining the guys downstairs in our newsroom are:

Eileen Buckley, assistant news director. She assigns reporters to daily news events, works on the news department’s digital platforms, and edits stories and interviews. Eileen assists reporters in developing enterprise stories to create long-form, NPR-style reports and also serves as a field reporter and anchor.

“I am thrilled to join the WNED family. Ironically, 25 years ago, I was working as a reporter in the AM-970 newsroom when it was the former WEBR. I believe with our combined public news teams, we will be a news force that will be recognized throughout the Western New York community. With many of the veteran broadcasters that now make up our news team, we collectively bring more than 100 years of news anchoring and reporting to the 88.7 FM and AM-970 dials, working to bring the voices and stories that NPR listeners depend on us to deliver.”

 

Mark Wozniak, “All Things Considered” host.

 

 

 

Chris Jamele, weekend program host. He writes, edits and delivers the stories for the hourly newscasts during “Weekend Edition.” He is also the local voice that fills the programming breaks throughout the other feature shows in our weekend morning schedule.

“The merging of resources between WBFO and WNED should benefit listeners tremendously. It brings together two very talented reporting staffs into a newsroom that now has the resources to cover a greater spectrum of issues. The assortment of national programming in the revised schedule should appeal to a broader audience. I’m looking forward to continued growth and development with the station and with our sound for the listeners. I see this marriage of broadcasting resources becoming a stronger and more vital NPR presence for all of Western New York and Southern Ontario.”

Other part-time program hosts include Mark Phillips, Howard Reidel and Mark Scott.

Not only are the new staff members looking forward to the wonderful growth that will surely flourish in the days, months and years ahead, but our entire organization, members, and listeners are anticipating a continued tradition of quality.