Ask the Editor: A new WORLD initiative

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, September 2nd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

WORLD Radio’s Executive Producer Paul Butler is here now with this month’s Ask the Editor. Good morning Paul.

PAUL BUTLER, EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Good morning!

EICHER: Paul, instead of having you answer a listener's question today, we have questions! We chose the music intro for a reason, because it’s a theme you had created for one of WORLD’s newest initiatives. Tell us about the Sift radio newscast.

BUTLER: Sure, happy to! Listeners know that every day our program begins with a 5 to 6-minute newscast, typically by Kent Covington, our longtime news director and anchor. So last fall, we were approached by a couple Christian radio networks who were familiar with our newscast and they said they wanted that for their stations.

BROWN: I’m assuming these stations have already been providing news coverage, why did they want what we offer?

BUTLER: Unfortunately, we’ve all seen it, the news has become a pretty divisive issue, and these radio networks heard something unique in our coverage. They told me that they believe our commitment to Biblical objectivity and our Christian worldview is crucial for providing updated news coverage that supports their mission for discipleship and evangelism.

Sometimes the news is controversial, but we attempt to cover it fairly and without stoking outrage that you see in much of today’s news coverage.

I like the way our colleague Lynde Langdon puts it—she’s our Executive News Editor—and a key person in making this project possible:

LANGDON: So many media outlets today are using fear to draw in an audience. We call that “the-sky-is-falling” journalism. At WORLD, we want to equip our audience for discernment amid all the outrage. That means keeping our listeners informed about what’s happening in God’s world without proclaiming that the sky is falling—because we know the one who holds up the sky.

EICHER: We do. And Lynde’s great to keep the news team focused on that.

BUTLER: She is. Over the last few months Lynde has built an amazing breaking news team to help us accomplish this project. Steve Kloosterman is our breaking news editor—he lives in Michigan. We currently have two full-time breaking news reporters who work out of Asheville, North Carolina. They’re no strangers to WORLD Radio. They were both interns—and we hired them as soon as they got out of college: Josh Shumacher and Mary Muncy. Besides Kent Covington, as I mentioned, a handful of our regular program hosts will anchor the newscasts throughout the day, of course our usual technical staff that puts it all together throughout the day. And Nick, thanks to you for stepping up to help direct the team the afternoon drive-time slot.

EICHER: Well, as they say at Chick-fil-A, my pleasure! Best to say, I “get to” step up and wear multiple hats here at WORLD. I really love how this fits in with our overall mission of spreading Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires to reach a whole new audience that maybe hasn’t even heard of WORLD. And we’re excited to serve them.

BUTLER: Right, and lots of them. We’ve already had more than 100 stations airing our newscasts regularly since July 4th. We’ve been creating two additional morning newscasts for the Moody Radio network of stations.

But beginning this month, we will have an updated newscast for every daypart—Monday through Friday. That means a fresh newscast from WORLD Radio during morning drive, a mid-morning update, early afternoon, afternoon drive time, and an evening newscast.

BROWN: Paul, talk about this week’s preparation for the launch.

BUTLER: All this week we’ve been producing six newscasts a day—we call it a “stress test” to make sure we’ve got all the systems in place for hitting our broadcast release times. Monday was a little bumpy, but each day since we hit every deadline!

EICHER: So this is radio only, broadcast radio only for our Sift newscasts?

BUTLER: Well, yes and no. September 5th, our newscasts will be available for download for Christian radio stations via server provided by Moody Radio.

The Moody Radio satellite service will begin broadcasting the newscasts September 12th, and Faith Radio Network out of the Twin Cities in Minnesota picks us up starting September 19th. We’ve had a handful of independent radio stations also say they will carry it as well. Most stations air the newscasts at or near the top of the hour. So that’s broadcast radio.

But maybe you don’t have a local radio affiliate carrying us … we’re also working on getting those newscasts available by smart speaker, and in its own podcast feed.

And a word to you if you work in broadcast radio: If you would like your local radio station to carry the Sift radio newscast, we’ve included some additional information in today’s transcript. We offer these newscasts at no cost to stations—we just ask them to make efforts to let their listeners know about our daily digital version of the Sift—available everyday by email.

BROWN: That’s great news, Paul. I’m glad we got the chance to “Ask the Editor.” Thanks!

BUTLER: Yeah, you betcha!

For more information about carrying The Sift Radio Newscast on your local radio station, call or email Moody Radio Network Development: 1-800-621-7031 / George.Economos@moody.edu / David.Woodworth@moody.edu

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.