Delete WardMaking a Public Comment
Council welcomes public comment before regular council meetings. Fill out the online form below for your chance to make a public comment at the next regular Monday Council meeting. Please read the revised rules and procedures.
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Public Comments
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Cleveland deserves a radio station, our radio station, that reflects its people — not a corporate handoff. Recently, Cleveland State University turned over control of WCSB Radio, the university’s long-running student-led station, to Ideastream, a move that is being universally lambasted. This decision silences one of the most authentic and diverse voices in our city— no doubt, and important reason for the shift.
While WCSB may have been operated under the university’s umbrella, it has always been far more than a Cleveland State thing— it’s a Cleveland thing. It’s been a vital part of our cultural ecosystem — a space where students, community members, and local artists shared ideas, music, and, perhaps most importantly, perspectives that couldn’t be found anywhere else. WCSB’s programming wasn’t just student radio; it was Cleveland radio — raw, local, and real.
Replacing that with a corporate-run feed, even under the banner of “public media,” is a loss for everyone. The student DJs and producers who ran WCSB weren’t just learning media — they were curating the city’s sound, from underground jazz and global music to grassroots reporting on issues that actually matter. Cleveland’s jazz scene, in particular, deserves to be represented by passionate local curators — not a distant organization more concerned with branding than community.
Furthermore, it should be noted that countless artists have used WCSB as their entry point to our city. More times than I can count, I heard an exciting artist on WCSB before catching their show at Happy Dog or Little Rose.
What are we allowing to happen?
I urge (and hope) the City of Cleveland and Cleveland State University leadership to do the right thing, and give WCSB back to the students and by extension, the people of Cleveland.
This current administration does NOT have the best interest of its students (or MY students) in mind, or the local communities they represent. What reprehensible behavior by both the president of CSU and IDEASTREAM Public Media. We will not tire in our efforts. We will continue to demand the return of WCSB to the students.
But ok, let’s kill a five-decade shining star in radio — one paid by general fund money and donors; that fed the rock radio revolution in Cleveland and was a pilgrim of online streaming?
Make it make sense.
CSU didn’t care to know what they had and Ideastream bilked them for it — in exchange for radio ads and a board seat!
Worst trade since the ol’ Cleveland Indians days, when they’d trade all-star players for cash and “players to be named later.”
And so very on-brand for them both.
To have jazz music — a quintessentially Black American art form — being used to silence marginalized community voices is “next-level terrible,” a slap on the face.
Especially when you consider that the jazz musicians making it had trouble finding clubs to play and were once persecuted (and much worse!) just to be heard?
You mean to tell us that NO ONE thought about the optics of THAT before they made their decision? That would have been the very FIRST thing to ask all the parties involved in the room:
“Uh. You SURE about this?”
There aren’t enough hair shirts for the two marquee “urban institutions” involved.
And these are highly educated leaders?
Sure. But they’re not FROM here, or they would have pulled the emergency brake on this harebrained idea before it ever got out of committee. Now. Give back WCSB.