Click here for the Tucker Election Guide.

The forums were hosted by Rahul Bali of WABE. Questioners were Cathy Cobbs of Rough Draft and Delaney Tarr of SaportaReport.

Here are the candidates for Tucker Mayor:

• Anne Lerner (story) | Campaign Website
• Noelle Monferdini (story) | Campaign Website
• Beverly E. Williams (story) | Campaign Website

The post Meet the candidates: Tucker mayoral election forum appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta.

Local arts leader and art gallery owner, Shawn Vinson, has started a petition urging WABE to rethink its decision to end the “City Lights Collective” program.

The local NPR affiliate announced on Sept. 17 that it was cutting the afternoon arts program, hosted by Kim Drobes and Jon Goode, due to the Trump administration’s funding cuts to public media. The show had only been on the air since July, succeeding “City Lights with Lois Reitzes” after her retirement.

In the petition, Vinson, who operates The Sun ATL gallery in the Sweet Auburn Historic District, encourages WABE management to look more closely at cost savings with smaller reductions across programs, scrutinize executive salaries, and consider additional fundraising efforts.

“If this show has meant something to you, or if you believe Atlanta needs more spotlights on local artists and creative voices, I’d be grateful if you’d take a moment to read my letter and sign the petition,” Vinson said in an email to his followers. “Even better, consider reaching out to WABE directly to let them know how you feel about keeping the show alive.”

Vinson said having one contributor – Arts & Culture Editor Sherri Daye Scott (who is also the curator of Rough Draft’s weekly Sketchbook newsletter) – handle all arts coverage across multiple platforms cannot adequately serve a metropolitan area of Atlanta’s size and cultural significance.

“This approach treats arts and culture as an afterthought rather than recognizing them as fundamental to Atlanta’s identity and economic future,” Vinson said. “We urge WABE to prioritize the restoration of dedicated arts programming in these efforts and to reconsider whether a 13% budget reduction truly necessitates eliminating an entire program rather than making proportional cuts across all departments.

Read Vinson’s full letter and sign the petition here.

The post Petition urges WABE to save ‘City Lights Collective’ appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta.

After just three months, WABE has ended “City Lights Collective,” its weekday arts and culture show that took the place of “City Lights with Lois Reitzes” in July.

The move comes after the U.S. government’s decision to roll back federal funding for public media, including NPR and all of its member stations, like WABE. According to WABE President and CEO Jennifer Dorian, WABE lost 13 percent of its budget due to the federal cuts. 

NPR also announced today that it plans to trim $5 million from its budget. 

“I’m really sad that we’re not able to continue a show that has been a signature. We have the legacy of 10 years of ‘City Lights with Lois Reitzes,’ and we had this new version of ‘City Lights Collective’ that’s been thoughtful programming for the last three months,” Dorian said. “But the new economics of public media don’t allow us to sustain that dedicated three/four person team for ‘City Lights.’”

Reitzes’ show originally started in 2015. “City Lights Collective,” which was hosted by Kim Drobes and Jon Goode, started on July 7 this year. The last show will be Sept. 25. 

In addition to the four members of the “City Lights Collective” team, Dorian said that WABE also laid off three people working in marketing and events. These layoffs join multiple others over the past year.

With the end of “City Lights Collective,” WABE plans to take a different approach to arts and culture coverage. WABE Chief Marketing Officer Sherri Daye Scott will now serve as WABE’s arts and culture editor and correspondent. Daye Scott will also continue to curate “Sketchbook,” a weekly arts newsletter from Rough Draft Atlanta.

“We are going to try a new approach, which is one dedicated person as a WABE arts and culture editor and contributor,” Dorian said. “She will try to lead multi-platform content creation, not just radio.”

The position will have Daye Scott creating audio segments for peak driving hours, making weekly social media videos, writing a weekly newsletter, hosting public events, and more. While Daye Scott will collaborate with other WABE staff, she will be the only staff member dedicated to arts and culture, producing across multiple platforms. 

This is not the first WABE program to go off the air in recent months. The weekly events-based show “How Do You Atlanta” has also ended. However, Dorian said she doesn’t think people should be “downhearted” about the future of WABE. She said she thinks WABE is set up for stability in fiscal year 2026 and that the organization is looking for ways to continue that stability outside of more cuts. WABE plans to have a large fundraising benefit in February and is also looking for more long-term corporate sponsors. 

“There are always other risks, but we are doing our best to make reasonable plans,” she said.

Editor’s note: Rough Draft writers and editors have appeared on WABE programming through a content partnership between the two organizations. Associate Editor Sammie Purcell was the co-host of “How Do You Atlanta,” and Editor in Chief and Dining Editor Beth McKibben was a contributor to “City Lights Collective.” 

The post WABE ends ‘City Lights Collective’ due to federal funding cuts appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta.

After passing the House of Representatives with a vote of 216-213, President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill that will take 13% – or $1.9 million per year – away from Atlanta NPR and PBS affiliate WABE’s budget. The station, which is a Rough Draft media partner, has been on the air for 76 years.

Jennifer Dorian, WABE president and CEO, said her team is aligned in the importance of local news and local programming. The nonprofit media organization serving metro Atlanta receives 87% of its funding from the public. Losing federal funding that was expected to be distributed in November will be a shift, she said. 

“We’ll be looking at new economic models for our partnerships with PBS and NPR, and more ways that the local community could fund our work,” Dorian said. “Amplifying Atlanta is our calling, and making sure Atlanta understands itself and that the wider world understands Atlanta is job one.”

If the community wants accountability journalism, local news, arts and culture coverage, “we’re going to have to place a value on that civic infrastructure” she said, calling for support in the short and long term. 

“At WABE, we’re really lean. I know 13% doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s very impactful, because we operate every year on a break-even basis,” Dorian said. “There’s only one IT person, there’s only one broadcasting engineer, there’s only one managing newsroom director, you know. So, losing 13% of this money is significant.” 

The state of Georgia does not provide funds to WABE. Federal cuts are set through 2027, but it remains to be seen how Congress will budget in 2028 and 2029.    

Lobbyists and individual stations have been fighting the bill in Washington, D.C. Dorian said meetings with Sen. Jon Ossoff and Sen. Raphael Warnock were held, and both understood “how much we do for the local economy, how much we do for civic education, how much we do for community affairs.”

Sen. Ossoff told Rough Draft that now is not the time for Congress to focus on “defunding ‘Sesame Street.’”

“I’ve vigorously advocated in public against this defunding of public television and Public Radio, which Georgians rely upon, not just for news, but also for emergency weather information and emergency services,” Ossoff said. “We need to be bringing Republicans and Democrats together to do what’s in the national interest, not fight these culture wars.” 

Broadly speaking, Dorian estimates that cuts will cause the closure of stations that heavily depend on federal funding. While those outlets are mostly rural, there is a risk that they will not be able to get emergency alert information on extreme weather events, power outages, cyber security problems. 

“That’s not our situation in Atlanta, where I don’t think there’s going to be closures, but we will see across the country newsrooms weakening, the shrinking of local reporting, local arts and cultural programming, and local educational programming. We also could see the weakening of PBS and NPR nationwide as the stations don’t get the money to pay them,” Dorian said.  

News networks rely on local stations for on-the-scene reporting of extreme weather events in Asheville, N.C. and Kerrville, Texas. And it’s vital for public radio to maintain the Emergency Alert System, Dorian added. 

WABE launched a new appeal to listeners to make donations to make up the budget shortfall.

Georgia Public Broadcasting, a statewide network operating nine TV stations and 18 radio stations, receives funding several sources including the Georgia General Assembly. In fiscal year 2024, the state legislature gave GPB $12.9 million. 

“For the past 65 years, Georgians have relied on Georgia Public Broadcasting to bring them high-quality educational programming, unbiased local news, homegrown sports and entertainment as well as emergency public safety messages,” GPB said in a statement. “GPB leadership anticipated a rapidly changing federal funding environment and in response, has conducted careful scenario planning in preparation for multiple outcomes.” 

GPB added: “There is no better time than now for Georgians to show their support and donate to GPB.” 

The post Local NPR and PBS stations call for public support after federal cuts appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta.

Like many native Atlantans, jazz pianist Joe Alterman has been listening to H. Johnson’s jazz show on WABE for years.

“The most exciting thing to me about getting my driver’s license when I was 16, was the fact that I could go somewhere on a Saturday night, and then leave that place and drive around listening to H,” Alterman said. “He turned me on to so much music that has changed my life.” 

Now, Alterman has the opportunity to do the same thing. On July 12, the first episode of Atlerman’s new radio show “The Upside of Jazz” will premiere on WABE. The show will play on Saturday evenings at 7 p.m. 

Alterman started piano lessons at age four (he didn’t love it at first – he kept getting in trouble for changing the notes). But while he didn’t immediately take to the piano, he loved going to bluegrass shows with his dad. He got turned onto jazz music – and back onto the piano – by hearing jazz musicians take popular songs and make them their own. 

“Oscar Peterson, if he played a song like ‘You Are My Sunshine,’ that I heard at a bluegrass festival – the way in which he played the melody and interpreted it would be so cool,” Alterman said. “It just kind of opened my eyes to this whole interpreting songs thing.”

Decades later, Alterman has a wealth of jazz knowledge he’s ready to share with his hometown. Each episode of “The Upside of Jazz” will feature music and storytelling centering around a weekly theme. 

Alterman will talk about his favorite tracks and talk to artists about theirs, as well as discuss his musical journey. He is particularly looking forward to sharing music and information about his mentors, Les McCann, Ramsey Lewis, and Ahmad Jamal. 

“I’ve been really lucky to get to know a lot of the legends and learn from them,” Alterman said. “One of the reasons I want to share all that is because I feel like you often hear the term, ‘Music is life.’ I never knew what that meant. I feel like a lot of the things that I’ve learned from these great musicians are things you can carry into your life.” 

Alterman is aware that jazz doesn’t necessarily have the cultural cache that it once did in the 20th century. Through “The Upside of Jazz,” he hopes to help make jazz more accessible to a wider audience. 

“A lot of people have a negative, preconceived notion when they hear the word jazz,” he said. “What happens to me a lot – and this happened to my mentors in the 60s too – is that so many times, people will come to our gigs and say, ‘I don’t like jazz, but I like that.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, that is jazz!’”

Alterman said that he feels like people tend to shy away from jazz because they feel like they don’t know enough about the genre to really enjoy it. But it’s just like any other genre, he said. The same things that people might go wild for at a rock show – a drum fill, a guitar solo – are the exact same things that excite people at a jazz show. 

“In other genres of music, people can immediately connect to the moments that make jazz really special, that makes all music really special,” Alterman said. “But there’s a distance from it [in jazz].” 

Alterman said that watching someone like H. Johnson teach Atlanta about jazz for all these years has taught him a lot about how to approach his own show. 

“Watching how he would present someone like John Coltrane, whose music really ranges from traditional to very avant garde – I learned what resonates with the general audience by watching how he would present audiences artists like that,” Alterman said. 

The name of the show comes from a song Alterman wrote during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic called “The Upside of Down.” The emotional core of that song reminded him of a quote from jazz saxophonist Johnny Griffin: “Jazz is music made by and for people who choose to feel good in spite of conditions.” 

“To me, that’s what it is,” Alterman said.

The post Joe Alterman lands new jazz show at WABE appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta.