Pacifica's Bob Hennelly describes WBAI's public-service role and financial strain
Hennelly says he is general manager and City Hall reporter for WBAI/Pacifica, a nonprofit community radio station on air since 1960. He describes its 9/11 coverage, free emergency information, and financial pressures including $1.3 million in operating costs and transmitter payments.
Thank you, Chair Brewer.
I think this is the first time in my 50 years of journalism I'm on this side of the microphone.
My name is Bob Henley, and I'm the general manager and city hall reporter for WBI Pacifica Radio in New York City.
This has been on the air as a nonprofit, community-run, and informed radio station since 1960.
WBI provides emergency alerts as well as local, national, international news, all without a subscription or paywall to hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who can't afford either.
That's right, all you need to know for free.
Something that's essential for democracy to survive in an era where corporate-owned social media has increasingly supplanted authentic journalism.
On 9-11, we were based at 120 Wall Street, just blocks from the World Trade Center.
And because our transmitter was on the Empire State Building, we stayed on the air until 5 p.m.
Until the National Guard ordered us to leave.
There's no doubt with our traffic and subway updates, we saved lives that day.
And then the years since have led the discussion on the lingering health impacts from the EPA's assertion the air was safe to breathe.
And since June of 2024, we've managed to stay in the air, thanks to listeners and unions representing 5 million households.
We've not gotten CPB money in a decade.
My first reporting job was when I was 17 for a local community newspaper.
I'm 71 and have been in the news gathering business for over half a century and pivoted to broadcast journalism because, as it turned out, extemporaneous expression paid.
better than the printed word, which when I was on staff at the Village Voice paid a dollar a word.
For many years, I was on staff at WNYC, which up until the Giuliani administration was municipally owned.
After being pension eligible at what was now New York Public Radio, I went to work for several years as the chief leader, the city civil service newspaper, in business since 1897.
BAI is one of five flagship stations owned by the California-based Pacifica Foundation, a 501c3 nonprofit that also includes a Pacific affiliate network
made up of 210 plus affiliates in 40 states, several countries, and 30 swing districts, all run by their local communities.
BAI is...
Where as a struggling college student, I learned the basics of broadcast journalism without having to pay any tuition.
It really helped me to get the foundation for a long career in print and broadcast journalism that includes work with NPR, The New York Times, CBS 60 Minutes, and dozens of other outlets.
WBI has a paid SAG after staff of five master control engineers, one news director, a program director, several interns, and dozens of volunteer producers who helped us maintain a 24-7, seven-day-a-week broadcast schedule.
Our paid full-time employees are overwhelmingly composed of women and people of color.
Our volunteers have included people like Dr.
Michio Kaku, the world-renowned City University of New York businessman, David Rothenberg, the founder of the Fortune Society, as well as the legendary broadcasters Gary Bird and Bob Law.
WBI has a paid SAG after staff of five master control engineers, one news director, a program director, several interns, and dozens of volunteer producers who helped us maintain a 24-7, seven-day-a-week broadcast schedule.
was the incubator for Democracy Now!, hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, which went on to become one of the most widely distributed news programs in the world with its unique style of anti-authoritarian reporting.