Passing by the loop to main campus, one can see a building that may look slightly out of place in comparison to the rest of the campus. Coming closer, a satellite dish can be easily observed on the side of the building in addition to a broadcast tower.
This building is no stranger to professional journalists and FGCU Journalism and Communication students alike.
The Myra Janco Daniels Public Media Center is home to WGCU Public Media. It does not only exist to provide the latest news coverage for Southwest Florida and beyond, but to also educate and immerse journalism and communication students in what the field has to offer.
“WGCU provides quality programming 24 hours a day serving all or part of 12 counties in south and Southwest Florida with five distinct digital TV channels, three radio services and multiple digital media platforms,” WGCU Managing Editor Michael Braun said.
WGCU has provided independently-owned television, radio and written communication programming to Southwest Florida for 35 years. The TV station holds the second highest market share of any public TV station in America.
It is affiliated with NPR and PBS which ultimately advises the network on how they can collaborate to create stories that are relevant for the community and the country.
“We are a public media station, not commercial. That means we are not beholden to advertisers such as commercial stations may be. We strive to dig deeper, find more about the why and how local issues and problems happen and are handled,” Braun said.
WGCU was previously known as WSFP-FM/TV, which was originally a repeater station. This means that it took the signal from the WUSF station in Tampa and re-broadcasted it for the Southwest Florida region.
“It had no local content at all,” WGCU General Manager Corey Lewis said. “The first president of FGCU thought it would be a really important thing for the university to have its own public radio and public TV station to serve the community as another way to show this community how invested the university was.”
The WGCU studio was the first building on the FGCU campus. As such, FGCU holds the station license and oversees the station. This means it must follow all university-wide rules and regulations.
“It’s great to have the university as the backbone and the holder of our licenses so that we can take advantage of the knowledge base and experience and size of the university,” Lewis said. “There are many thoughtful professors and educators who can be part of what we do on an ongoing basis.”
One way FGCU and WGCU remain directly connected is through the Democracy Watch program. It was created in 2022 by Professor Lyn Millner, the founder of FGCU’s journalism program.
“It was designed to give exceptional upper-level students real-world experience reporting in the field while also enhancing and expanding WGCU’s coverage of important local government actions that often go overlooked and unreported,” Braun said.
In the past, 10 students were chosen to participate in the program, and the three most promising students have their work featured in professional news stories.
Democracy Watch is undergoing some changes for the upcoming year. WGCU is assuming full responsibility of the program, when it used to belong to the university. It could also have a name change due to the more diverse content the students and station are interested in covering.
“There’s a lot more than just government reporting,” Lewis said. “We would make sure the students were more embedded in our reporter culture and that their work truly would have a better chance to be broadcast on radio and television stations.”
For aspiring journalists, having a public media station on the university campus provides real, accessible work opportunities to gain experience in the field. Some students have used the Democracy Watch program as a stepping stone to intern for WGCU. Alumni have gone on to fill full-time employee roles for the station.
“I would like WGCU to be the crown jewel of FGCU’s communication program,” Lewis said. “My goal is that our prominence and success as a radio and television station and our national reputation helps attract students from all over the world to FGCU.”
