The Baltimore Museum of Art auditorium on the evening of Wednesday, Feb. 20 was the scene of two hours of stunning, intelligent, and passionate public calls for the return of The Marc Steiner Show. A strong feeling of community and intelligence spiced the air.

Fifty-plus people spoke before a crowd of around 300 to voice their outrage to the representatives of WYPR’s Community Advisory Board (CAB) from 7 to 9 p.m. CAB is a newly formed group designated to report community opinion to the station’s board of directors. Marc Steiner’s public-radio news show on weekdays from noon to 2 p.m. was abruptly cancelled this month. Its cancellation has ignited outrage and daily protests outside WYPR's Baltimore offices.

All fifty-plus speakers called for the return of the show. Many said they would boycott listening and donating to WYPR until that happens. Speakers included lawyers; bus drivers; school teachers; WYPR donors; frequent Marc Steiner Show callers; professors of political science, history, and law from many Baltimore-area colleges and universities; community organizers; myself; and former Maryland state Senator Julian L. Lapides.


A Howard County school bus driver spoke and said that he and his wife were devoted WYPR listeners and donors. WYPR programming is the focus of their nightly dinner conversations. The station’s slogan of “Your Public Radio Station” now rings hollow to him, he said. He thinks the cancellation of The Marc Steiner Show without any community input is wrong. The day before the meeting for the first time in years, he shut WYPR off.



The forum revealed some stunning facts about the internal workings of public-radio WYPR. The amassing picture is showing that top station management surrounding WYPR President Tony Brandon are trying to run WYPR like a private corporation. However WYPR is public radio under its licensing as well as according to WYPR claims to citizen and corporate donors. In fact the station has accepted $1,339,290 million from WYPR citizen donors alone as of June 20, 2007, according to WYPR. This represents 30 percent of the station’s “net assets.”

Marc Steiner himself says the cancellation of his show is not about him, but about the meaning of public radio. Facts surrounding his firing bear this out.

CAB board member Ralph Moore opened up the event by noting that WYPR’s own Community Advisory Board was never consulted about the firing. The CAB was only told three days after through an email, Moore said.

According to WYPR itself, the station’s license with the federal government requires it to seek and consider community opinion. Under Section 396(k)(8) of the Federal Communications Act, WYPR is required to create a CAB “not later than 180 days after” formation. Yet Community Advisory Board member Brandon Walsh says the first ever planning meeting for the CAB he knows of occurred in May 2007. That is five years after the radio station became WYPR, after it was purchased from Johns Hopkins University in 2002.

Passionate and diverse speakers at the Feb. 20 event revealed that Steiner’s long-running Maryland and Baltimore public-affairs show has nurtured deep roots in the community. Steiner was praised for his depth, fairness, and inclusion of community and national voices in a way enabling listeners to understand all sides.

Steiner’s reporting on inner-city Baltimore has shown Baltimore in a human light, said one inner-city community organizer in a suit and red bow-tie. He noted that the show performed a public service. In contrast, he said the glorification of violence in Baltimore is typically found in television shows like The Wire and The Corner.



WYPR President Tony Brandon says WYPR cancelled The Marc Steiner Show because of low ratings. However an online Baltimore Sun article analyzed ratings data and found that Steiner’s ratings basically have stayed the same, dipping slightly, and even recently rising back up. WYPR has not clarified this.

Furthermore on Feb. 21, The Baltimore Sun reported that WYPR (88.1 FM) ratings have been falling overall. They have fallen by 17 percent between Fall 2005 and Fall 2007, from 170,500 weekly listeners to 142,000 weekly listeners. The Marc Steiner Show’s ratings also fell by 21 percent, from 47,300 weekly listeners to 37,400. The data from the Radio Research Consortium shows that Steiner’s show was in line with the declining performance of the whole station.

Crunching these numbers further, one sees that The Marc Steiner Show represents a high percentage of station listeners. From noon-to-two p.m. daily, Steiner’s show represents 8.3 percent of all broadcasting time in a 24-hour cycle. Last fall his show attracted about 26 percent of all weekly listeners. His show is a WYPR attraction, central to station.




The fog is lifting on the real story, slowly but surely: WYPR station President Tony Brandon wants to run WYPR like a private corporation, to hire and fire whomever he deems fit. Since the firing, Tony Brandon has claimed on WYPR that a small group of wealthy investors who simply guaranteed the original loan to purchase the station—not in fact used their money to purchase it—“own” WYPR. That seems anathema to the spirit of public radio.

It certainly is not the message WYPR sends out to recruit people to contribute $35 or more during its “pledge drives.”

On a national level, there is increasing advertising and corporate “sponsors” on public television and radio.

In terms of The Marc Steiner Show, WYPR management does not seem poised to listen to calls for its return heard at the Feb. 20 forum.

Many who spoke at the event vowed to continue organizing and protesting the decision. An online petition for the show’s return can be found here at: www.thepetitionsite.com/1/bring-marc-steiner-back-to-wypr

Two groups have created Web sites calling for Steiner’s return to the public radio airwaves at: www.sossteiner.com and www.savesteinershow.com.

Marc Steiner himself is working at the Center for Emerging Media and maintains an active blog at: marcsteinerblog.wordpress.com

The WYPR board of directors plans to convene on March 12, 2008 in an open public meeting to consider WYPR policy issues. The firing of Marc Steiner promises to take the spotlight.

Gregg Mosson is an independent reporter and author of "Season of Flowers and Dust" (Goose River Press). More can be found at his Web site at www.greggmosson.com