WGBH opening Worcester news bureau
Photo | Grant Welker
WGBH will open a news bureau at 27 Federal St. in Worcester.
The Boston radio station and news website WGBH will open a Worcester bureau to cover the city and Worcester County, it announced Tuesday.
The WGBH News Worcester Bureau, as it will be called, is scheduled to open in the spring with a fully equipped broadcast studio to create radio features for 89.7 FM and digital-first stories for wgbhnews.org. WGBH News said it plans to collaborate with local colleges to develop internship opportunities with the new bureau and will use the bureau as a convening space for local organizations.
The bureau will open at 27 Federal St. in a building just off Worcester Common also including Quinsigamond Community College’s Healthcare and Workforce Development Center.
The Worcester outpost will be the latest expansion across Massachusetts for WGBH, which is a member of National Public Radio. WGBH also has partners WCAI on Cape Cod and New England Public Media in Springfield, which it launched last summer. The Worcester bureau will include a full-time reporter who will create stories both for radio and digital platforms, as well as worth with news interns.
WGBH News Director Kate Zachry said the move into Worcester is an effort to broaden the reporting that the station has been doing recently in the city and across Worcester County and to better engage with readers.
"We want to bring our audience the best reporting possible and an important way to do that is to make sure we have a presence," Zachry said.
Another factor, the station said, is ongoing stories in the city including the state's Cannabis Control Commission moving its headquarters to Union Station and the upcoming move debut planned for next spring of the Worcester Red Sox at Polar Park.
WGBH's expansion into Worcester comes as the news media business has been facing a contraction due to declining advertising and subscription revenue.
The Telegram & Gazette, now owned by Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper chain, has faced a series of staffing cuts in recent years, and recently moved into a consolidated newsroom. The newspaper used to be located on Franklin Street on the same block as where WGBH will go. The Telegram has also absorbed Worcester Magazine into a weekly product in its newspaper.
Last summer, Edible magazines launched a Worcester edition to join others in Massachusetts: Edible Boston, Edible South Shore & South Coast, Edible Cape Cod, Edible Berkshires, Edible Vineyard and Edible Pioneer Valley.
WGBH said its bureau is being funded in part by support from the C. Jean & Myles McDonough Charitable Foundation and The George F. and Sybil H. Fuller Foundation, both based in Worcester.
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