Public radio - a rural treasure

Like many other folks commenting here, my family and I have our radio dial consistently tuned to WMUB for the full variety of wonderful programming and news that the station offers.  As loyal listeners and contributers to the station, we have treasured the station's firm presence in our community as way to connect local listeners to one another, to events and debates at Miami, in the surrounding community, and around the world.

As radio broadcasting in the U.S. continues to be privatized, and our federal government continues to be blind to the merits of fully supporting public broadcasting, truly PUBLIC radio stations are in danger.  But the importance of public radio, particularly to more rural communities such as ours, is not to be overlooked.

Without a public radio alternative, many rural communities lack a way to communicate local events and debate crucial issues of importance to them.  Without public radio outlets, rural communities are often locked into relying on news outlets that are more concerned with profits than with good investigative reporting.  Without public radio outlets, forums about school board elections, regional athletic events, and other items of local concern have few if any other outlets available to ALL citizens across a wide rural area.

Public broadcasting is a vital part of any democracy, and part of it's link with democracy is the fact that it serves both urban/suburban areas as well as the rural areas scattered across our nation.  WMUB is so valuable to me in large part because it serves our local/regional rural communities in southwest Ohio and southeast Indiana so loyally.

--Kathleen Knight Abowitz, Oxford