The local weeknight news show moves to an hour-long format on Monday night.
Starting this Monday night, WORT-FM’s In Our Backyard news show is expanding into an hour-long format, airing Monday through Thursday from 6 to 7 p.m. (Until now it’s been a 6:30 to 7 show). Tone Madison will continue to be a part of the show with a weekly segment that airs on Thursday nights, and we’ll continue posting these segments here on the site, usually in longer web-/podcast-only versions that WORT puts together for us every week. (Keep up with those on our SoundCloud.) But you should tune in or listen online every weeknight for the robust and valuable local and state news IOBY’s two staffers and many volunteers create each week.
WORT invited us to be a part of the show late last year, and since then we’ve struck up an awesome partnership, creating dozens of interviews and reports on the arts in Madison. WORT’s news team cares about providing Madison’s community with independent, compelling local news reporting, and we care about having arts and culture conversations you often won’t hear anywhere else, so it’s a great fit. News director Molly Stentz and assistant news director Dylan Brogan have been incredibly generous with their time and willing to let us take chances in our segment, whether it’s a quirky report from the Comedy Club on State, a long conversation with CRASHprez, or a panel-style discussion about a film series. Dylan often has ended up working on our stuff after a long day of covering the state budget, the right-to-work bill, or the Judge Doyle Square project. And IOBY’s coverage of those things is some of the most energetic you’ll get anywhere in town, by the way. Going into WORT to do interviews and put these segments together is one of the most energizing and inspiring parts of my week, even when Dylan makes me use the cramped sweaty studio in the basement.
WORT is also rolling out a new website and is preparing to put out the different IOBY segments as podcast feeds, so we’ll be sharing more info about that soon on Twitter and Facebook. It’s exciting to see WORT build up its news programming, and it’s an honor to be a part of it.
