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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.
I have listened to WCSB for most of my life, and it informed and enriched this life as it has for so many. The oblivious reasoning from Laura Bloomberg and Kevin Martin reflect an utter disregard for the community at large, and the many spaces of public life and public thought contained in community radio. WCSB provided direct connections to music that would be otherwise difficult to hear, events in our various forms of community, voices, ideas, challenging views that lead always to enrichment. What does not lead to enrichment is the silencing of everything but the most sterile community forums.
This has left a palpable emptiness in each day as my hand naturally heads to the left of the dial at 89.3
Everybody can use a little weird.
Thank you,
Rebecca Green
I am not a citizen of Cleveland, but have listened to WCSB for many years and have had friends who have been impacted by its shutdown.
WCSB was a cultural beacon of the community and a voice of the students of CSU. Taking it down is not only a great loss of culture (of which being a mixing pot of cultures makes Cleveland great), but also shows that the voice of Cleveland students can be bought and sold
Student organizations should be able to speak on behalf of eachother and speak freely without fear of being sold to the highest bidder or lose their voice to some corporate entity.
Do what’s right, return that voice to the hands of CSU students.
Thank you,
Layne Stitzlein, Concerned Citizen