Kentucky’s Real People Radio

肯塔基真实人物广播电台

The Documentary Podcast

2026-02-12

26 分钟
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单集简介 ...

For Word Radio Day 2026, we visit WMMT in Whitesburg, Kentucky, one of many small community radio stations in the US threatened by cuts to government funding. At a moment when news has become increasingly polarised, these stations are even more needed, often providing communities with their only source of essential information and emergency warnings. WMMT was founded in 1985 with a mission to “be a voice of mountain people’s music, culture and social issues.” Known to listeners as "Possum Radio" or "Real People Radio," WMMT broadcasts to the coalfield communities of eastern Kentucky and neighbouring Appalachian counties, home to people whose voices are among the least heard in the United States. Station manager Jared Henderson, is scrambling to raise funds to keep it on the air. At this critical moment in America's history, could the common ground of traditional local culture help to bridge America's gaping political divide?
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  • Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

  • I'm Maria Margaronis, visiting a community radio station in Whitesburg,

  • Kentucky that challenges all the stereotypes of Appalachian people.

  • You go rolling mountains as far as I can see up here.

  • It's the only place in eastern Kentucky where you can like watch the sunset and it'd be like really really beautiful,

  • you know You can't see it from the valleys like you can't up here In the morning sometimes it looks

  • like you're in heaven Like there's fog down there and you're above the clouds up here.

  • This is WMMT-Whitesburg Broadcasting to horse pen cranes nest and little wild dog Creek We've pulled off the road high up in the Appalachian Mountains.

  • The sky is clear,

  • the air is crisp and down below miles and miles of billowing hills bristle with bare trees like needles.