New bureau chief says radio ‘theater of the mind’

There’s a new voice in the air.

Elizabeth Wynne Johnson is the news bureau chief – in fact, she’s the entire North Idaho Bureau – for public radio’s Northwest News Network.

From her leased office and production facility in KXLY’s downtown Coeur d’Alene studio, Johnson covers a beat that includes Western Montana, Eastern Washington and North Idaho up to the Canadian border.

Johnson began in late April, and has been producing feature and spot news stories each week on matters of community and regional interest.

The most exciting stories so far, she says, are those she developed on two trips to Texas where she covered the training of Idaho Army National Guard troops in preparation for their deployment to Iraq.

“I was embedded with them for several days, and got to know quite a few of the soldiers,” she says. “I’d love to cover their activities in Iraq, but unfortunately the network just doesn’t have the finances to support a trip like that.”

“The network” is a partnership of eight National Public Radio affiliates that pool their resources into a regional news unit to provide 49 stations across the Northwest feature stories and coverage of breaking news.

Participants are Boise State Radio, Oregon Public Broadcasting and public radio stations in Spokane, Tacoma, Seattle and Pullman, and Ashland and Eugene, Ore. They boast a total audience of some 1.1 million in this region of nearly 11 million people.

In addition to its new North Idaho bureau, the Northwest News Network also established a bureau this spring in Richland, expanded an existing bureau in Olympia, and added a roving correspondent.

The beefed-up program is funded by a three-year, $1.2 million grant, including $535,280 from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Terry Fitzpatrick, who coordinates the eight-station consortium from his Seattle office, says he hopes to make the expanded program permanent.

Johnson is a Washington, D.C., native who earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass., a degree that included a year’s study at Harvard. Her master’s, from Stanford University, is in documentary film and television production.

She was recruited for her new job from KMUN, a public radio station in Astoria, Ore., where she spent 1 1/2 years as a reporter. Her previous experience includes a year as an associate producer and reporter at KQED-TV in San Francisco, free-lance video production, also in San Francisco, and an internship at KQED public radio.

“I love the variety, the story-telling challenges and the opportunities in radio,” she says. “Through sound and writing, you can bring a story to life. It’s really a theater of the mind.”

Johnson, who hadn’t visited Coeur d’Alene before she was hired, is a hiker and a downhill skier, and thus is thrilled that this is her new home.

“And I’m also fascinated by the potential of so many stories here,” she says. “Those include tribal issues, cultural changes that are occurring as the economy shifts from production of goods to providing services, and the influx of new people who hold far different values than long-term residents.”

Other topics she intends to explore for future news and feature programs are related to the environment and opportunities and problems associated with population growth.

Johnson thinks public radio is playing an increasingly important role by providing interesting stories that are meaningful to their audience.

“It’s especially important that we hear local voices and local concerns in this era of increasing consolidation of the private news media,” she says.

You can check out Johnson’s program on public radio’s Morning Edition, from 5 to 9 a.m. daily, and on All Things Considered, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Both are broadcast locally by KPBX, at 91.1 FM in Coeur d’Alene and Spokane.