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SHAME on CSU and SHAME on Ideastream. Nobody asked to kick one of the best student led stations off the dial. And it was really dirty to do it on World College Radio Day. Ideastream was given reign over one of the last vestiges of creativity, diversity, cultural enrichment that CSU offered and has painted it landlord gray. We don't need more monochrome radio. This smacks of an initiative to squash voices of dissent that may be speaking on particular current issues and appease wealthy donors.
This was one of three radio stations I actually liked. I can't stand commercial radio and after working in sheet metal, developed a loathing for the same 50 classic rock songs played ad nauseum. I told friends and coworkers about 89.3. I can't even stand NPR stations anymore since entities allegedly dedicated to cultural enrichment keep becoming tools for political propaganda and homogeneity. I listened to hundreds of hours of 89.3 while driving routes for work. I recorded bits of music to look up later if i didn't catch the name of the artist. I loved the Halloween themed programs. I could hear new but obscure music and vintage obscure music. These stations make listeners aware of local artists and promote under represented local cultural events. The students who ran the station gained far more practical experience than they would through internships and a very different skill set for solving problems live instead of making pre-recorded content.
Smooth jazz is a dilution of everything that influenced jazz in the first place. It's the musical equivalent of office wallpaper. CSU has been trying to sanitize its image for a while, ridding the place of any programs geared toward women and cultural diversity, and this is yet another step in that direction. We do not need more on-hold music on the radio.
Intervention is desperately needed. The students are getting a big education throughout this debacle. They have been repeatedly told that this was a Win-Win - but their autonomy was ignored and sacrificied. Please stand up for them, and prove to them that they matter. These young people have answers to questions that we don't even yet know how to ask.
Kevin Martin publically stated in the recent City Club forum "I would not put myself in the place to make judgments about what is important in terms of the values and the priorities of Cleveland State University. That is not what I do, and that's not what public media does," This was a bit disgraceful to hear, since educational opportunites were promised by Ideastream in this deal, and public media touts education as essential to their values! Mr. Martin also denigrated the value of clubs in having professional value... while sitting at The City Club! Is that cruel irony?
I work with CSU students, both as an instructor, and as a member of WCSB. They have intelligence, grit, and love for arts, and politics, and community. How I've seen them dismissed in this deal is a full tragedy.
Thank you for being involved!
When I woke up Friday morning on October 3 to being locked out of the radio station, I felt like a best friend had just kicked me out of their life without warning. I had no idea the community of my hometown would rally behind this cause as much as I can recall since Art took my Browns. For this I am grateful and I hope both my current outgoing councilman can see that before taking his leave to work to sell other city councils on AI surveillance technology.
Alex Howe
Formerly of Good Morning Metal on WCSB
The Germans, largest ethnic community in Cleveland just lost its only native language public radio program.
The familiar Sunday sounds of German melodies from the Cleveland German Radio Program (CGRS) at WCSB 89.3 FM at Cleveland State University, hosted by Ambassador Renate and David, gave way to the bland elevator music as Ideastream Public Media’s JazzNEO took control of the stations programming.
In an instant, on national College Radio Day, nearly 50 years of student- and community-run programming—not to mention ethnic broadcast legacy—vanished from Cleveland’s airwaves.
For half a century, the old WCSB (now going by “XCSB” as it remains in limbo/transition) had been more than a student organization. It was a independent radio hub, a beacon of Cleveland’s community - a place where punk sat beside jazz, talk shows mingled with esoteric late-night programs and under served ethnic voices. "Preserving the Past and Promoting the Future" as Ambassador Renate, the German Voice of Cleveland stated uncountable times on the CGRS.
WCSB promoted itself on the Cleveland German Radio Show (CGRS) as the "...Station with all the Nations". Ethnic Programs for the German, Polish, Hungarian, Arabic, Slovenian and Latin and many more had an audiences and culture flourished. Immigrants, Students, artists and outsiders found a home here where expression and opinion aired in their own language.
And now, without warning, it was all gone.
As shocking as it feels locally, what happened to WCSB fits a national trend: slow absorption of college radio stations by public/NPR affiliates.
CSU is the third American university in the last month-plus to remove students from their own station. Cleveland State University and Ideastream silenced independent ethnic voices by abruptly seizing control of WCSB’s student-run radio station — a move that columnist Leslie Kouba sees as part of a growing and troubling trend of suppressing free speech in America.
Public media relies on listener trust. Alienating those listeners can lead to donor defections, negative press and lasting reputational harm—or all of the above, something CSU and Ideastream are now confronting in real-time.
Peace Friends,
David and Ambassador Renate Jakupca
Cleveland German Radio Show (CGRS)
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17EmyhMZwL/
For almost 50 years, record labels, bands and alternative media groups from different backgrounds have contributed to WCSBs library. A library the president of the university thinks she can just take away from its community.
The shady action of the university president and her idea stream counterpart, speaks volumes to WCSBs value to the community.
It speaks volumes when the president wants to constantly remind the idea stream audience that WCSB was just a so-called student run organization. WCSB was composed of all members of the community dedicated to the same goal.
The president's constant use of undermining language tries to discredit station members as simple budget processors and not as active members of the WCSB family.
A student, in the eyes of the president and its board members, has no voice in university.
When interviewing the president of CSU on idea stream all she could produce was a so called “win win” strategy with absolutely no substance, no time tables or actionable items, while her idea stream counterpart was peddling jazz like it was fentanyl on the streets.
The president talked about an audience of students where they seemed excited about her new non existing program. Did she let the students know what it was replacing?
I think if she had been a little bit more honest to those students, they would have realized that the president is filled with terrible business decisions that only serve a minority that is already quite well served.
Let's be clear, this deal does not serve students in any shape or form. To be perfectly frank, if you are “preparing students for the career of the future” radio ain't it.
This is a corporate takeover where the “win win” goes to the board and executive members involved.
CSU, like Idea stream, would like to remind everyone they are public institutions. That does not equate that they are stakeholder driven.
CSU has a history of increasing their student headcount at the peril of its programs and organizations that were actually serving its students and community.
If this deal is allowed to continue, a few executives will get some cushy jobs and something for their legacy, a handful of students will get some training and experience just to justify the budget, all this at the expense of one of the most realist and honest representations of what it means to be from Cleveland.
If the president and idea stream get their “win win”, Cleveland and the world will lose one of its greatest gems with nowhere else to go.
I already lost my respect for CSU and Idea stream. All that's left is my respect for Cleveland and its community. Don't make me lose that too.