Marc Levy A student passes by WMBR’s basement offices Monday in a Massachusetts Institute of Technology building in Cambridge.
A weekly local news report has returned to Cambridge airwaves on WMBR, the campus radio station at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Though local news has been covered sporadically on the station over the past few years, this marks the first time the show has aired consistently since before the Covid pandemic.
“It means a lot to us at WMBR,” said Linda Pinkow, the station’s news director. “I think a lot of people are happy that we’re doing our part to cover local issues and contributing as the station does in so many ways to the greater Boston media ecosystem.”
The majority of station programming is student-led radio shows, broadcasting an eclectic array of music genres. For the news show, Pinkow works with a team of student, staff and community volunteers as well as local journalists.
“Most of the people who are working on the news are not students, but we always like to train new folks even if they’re not going to stay for that long, because they go out into the world and do great things,” Pinkow said.
The news report aims to cover marginalized communities and underreported issues in Greater Boston. In a recent episode, stories covered combined sewer overflows in Cambridge and Somerville that pollute local waterways and a hemp freedom rally on Boston Common. The first show went live Sept. 22.
“There’s a dearth of journalism nationally as well as locally,” Pinkow said. “In Boston we’re in better shape than a lot of cities around the country, but there’s still room for other perspectives.”
“WMBR Nightly News” airs 5:30 to 6 p.m. Mondays at wmbr.org or 88.1MHz on the FM dial.
