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https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article222659085.html
Issues on the future of WLRN are at play here.
After a year of inactivity, Miami-Dade County school district leaders and an ad-hoc panel made little progress Wednesday in forging a path for the future of South Florida’s sole public radio news station.
The conversation surrounding the School Board’s tenuous and often tense relationship with WLRN, as the owner of its broadcasting license, instead delved into and at times criticized the station’s diversity of programming, donors’ influence and coverage area.
Four options are on the table and will ultimately go to the School Board for deliberation and approval: Stick to the status quo, which neither party seemed to favor; sell the broadcasting license, which would be subject to the district’s legal procedures; bolster the station’s community advisory board and increase its influence on the station, or create another nonprofit that would manage the station as a third-party entity.
WLRN has a news partnership with the Miami Herald, sharing office space with the newspaper staff in Doral, collaborating on some journalistic work and sharing some content.
A panel of community members and former journalists appointed by Superintendent Alberto Carvalho regrouped to go over the options since their last meeting in October 2017. The panel was created after the district in 2016 drafted a new operating agreement that would force 19 WLRN reporters and editors now employed by an independent nonprofit to reapply for jobs and work directly for the school district. It also opened the door for the district to dictate programming and broadcast content.
School district spokeswoman and chief communications officer Daisy Gonzalez-Diego said the panel tried to meet in April but was still waiting for reports on the matter. She said it was difficult working around the schedules of Carvalho and the panel members.
Friends of WLRN, the nonprofit fundraising arm for the station, has been in favor of either buying WLRN Radio or creating a separate nonprofit to manage the station. It commissioned a report with Public Media Co. that emphasized the importance of the station’s independence and valued the radio station at $12.1 million.
Issues on the future of WLRN are at play here.