An Open Letter to WCAI Staff

I write this letter to explain why, as founder of WCAI, I cannot join you for the “ribbon cutting” at its new Falmouth location this Friday.

Atlantic Public Media founded the station 25 years ago as a vital collaboration with the local community. Its airwaves have been shaped, supported, and inhabited by locals, all along.

APM entered a unique partnership with WGBH to combine our missions -- two non-profits, one local and one Boston-based, working in harness, sharing a building in Woods Hole. The relationship bore remarkable fruit, locally and nationally, with APM creating The Moth Radio Hour, Sonic IDs, This I Believe, PRX, countless local series and features, The Frontline Dispatch, The Local Listener Line, Lost & Found Sound, Arts and Ideas, Science Story Slams, Sound School, Transom and much more during this time. We received many awards, including four Peabodys. 

With Boston’s longtime support, APM’s collaboration helped give WCAI a national reputation unmatched by any local public radio station its size.

As you may have heard, current management at GBH has decided to terminate the contracted access and office space for APM in the new facility.  APM is being locked out of the radio station it founded. The reason cited is security. 

It should be noted that after GBH's mystifying secret sale of CAI's home in the Captain Davis House, and its indifference to community input, APM still continued to lobby for collegiality, to raise funds for CAI, and to find ways to work together at a time when public radio is more endangered and precious than ever. 

I have a rational and irrational love for local public radio. For 50 years, I have believed in its welcoming nature and its open door. When we listen to our neighbors, we can come to care about one another, regardless of our differences or political beliefs. Localism is a key to that. We share a place and call it home.

GBH has moved in a different direction. In light of that, I regret that I must also remove my name from WCAI's Jay Allison Founders Fund. In this dismantling, in an era of such dismantling, we fear for the vital, local, creative, and quirky energy that has defined WCAI, a station we treasure. 

While it's hard to celebrate anything at this point, I want you to know we at APM remain supportive of you here on the ground—the reporters and hosts who keep showing up to represent the Cape and Islands. We know that many of you have also been baffled and heartbroken by these recent changes, and we stand with you. We are utterly committed to LOCAL public media, and I hope you will call on us when we can help in that pursuit.  

Meanwhile, we at Atlantic Public Media and Transom will remain in Woods Hole and remain dedicated to our work. We will stick to our mission. Transom is creating new projects, workshops, and gatherings that we hope you'll be involved with, as we all keep trying to serve our community and the listeners we have in common. 

Forward,

Jay