Cox and Friends Pulls Out
After 10 years of airing on Atlanta’s NPR stations, and just days after befriending Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution decides to end its show on WABE.
On Presidents’ Day, Atlanta public radio station WABE posted a scheduling change:
“WABE and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution have agreed to end daily live broadcasts of Politically Georgia on WABE 90.1. The final broadcast of Politically Georgia on WABE will air on Friday, Feb. 28; after that date, the AJC will continue to produce the program as a standalone podcast.”
One of the show’s co-hosts, the AJC’s political columnist Patricia Murphy, tweeted (or X’d if you prefer) a screenshot of the announcement adding “Thank you to everyone at @wabe for an amazing run for @PoliticallyGa show and the chance to check ‘radio host’ off my bucket list! I’m super excited to take PG back to its roots as a go-anywhere podcast.”
The AJC itself did not publish any statement or article about the change in any of its print/epaper issues this week or in its daily Politically Georgia newsletter.
The show’s hosts made similar “returning to our roots” statements on its Tuesday and Wednesday episodes, and again on Friday when it was “the question of the week” in its weekly listener comment segment.
“All right, last question and it’s the question of the week.”
Listener Voice Message” “I would like to know why is Politically Georgia leaving WABE.”
Greg Bluestein: “Well, politically Georgia is heading back to its roots, and we’re going to be available as a podcast only.
“So, Monday, March 3rd, the best place to catch your Politically Georgia team, really the best place to catch the three of us, will be on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform. Guys, we’re excited about the future.”
Tia Mitchell: “Yeah, I mean, I just think I know we’re not going to be live on WABE and we’re hearing from people who enjoy us being able to just turn on the radio and hear us.
So, we hear you. But it’s just a little bit of a change guys, instead of turning on your radio, you gotta crack open your computer or go to your favorite podcast app on your phone, but it’ll still be easy. And then if you come in a little late, you won’t miss anything because it starts when you start it.”
Greg Bluestein: “Exactly guys and we’re still going to keep our favorite features…”
“Returning to our roots” uses the fiction that Politically Georgia on WABE began solely as an AJC podcast when it was very much a “return to the airwaves” for Bill Nigut and the show he hosted on GPB beginning in 2014.
AJC reporters and editors were regular guests and co-hosts from the start.
But ending its WABE broadcast now comes as public radio faces numerous threats to its funding including FCC investigations, calls to defund it by President Trump and Elon Musk, and a March DOGE subcommittee hearing chaired by Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Greene made her first ever appearance as a guest on the show just this month at a live event in Washington D.C. Also on the show, in a separate segment, was NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday anchor Ayesha Rascoe. Rascoe was announced as a guest only after Greene’s letter to NPR’s CEO Katherine Maher.
Lawyerly Statements
The full scheduling update added:
“While we are disappointed that Politically Georgia will no longer be heard on WABE, we express our profound appreciation to the Politically Georgia team for their phenomenal coverage of Georgia politics, the historic 2024 presidential campaign and the transition to the second Trump administration. Our partnership with the AJC on Politically Georgia began in October 2023 and was a cornerstone of the comprehensive political coverage we delivered to our listeners in 2024.”
In an email response to my asking who made the decision, WABE’s Chief Marketing Officer Sherri Daye Scott wrote that it was the AJC:
“The AJC has decided to sunset Politically Georgia as a live weekday radio show on WABE 90.1. However, it will continue as a podcast available through AJC’s channels and other podcast platforms. For any questions about this decision, I’d recommend reaching out to the AJC team direct.
“Meanwhile, starting Monday, March 3, WABE will welcome back NPR’s 1A, airing weekdays from 10–11 a.m. We’re also excited to debut Plugged In, our weekly politics podcast hosted by Sam Gringlas and Rahul Bali, airing Fridays from 9:30–10 a.m. beginning February 28.”
My emails to the AJC went unanswered. Questions to NPR about Roscoe’s appearance at the D.C. event also went unanswered. An exchange with NPR’s Public Editor Kelly McBride was, uh, frustrating. Suffice it to say, McBride kept insisting the Public Editor’s office, mentioned in NPR’s statement in response to Greene’s letter, has no role in conflicts of interest involving NPR member stations and the AJC.
On the show itself, the change was first addressed at the end of its Tuesday episode with hosts Greg Bluestein and Patricia Murphy saying they were “flooded with feedback” but gave no reason other than “going back to our roots.” The statement sounded lawyerly and calculated:
Greg Bluestein: “Before we wrap up the show, we were flooded with feedback from our listeners yesterday following our announcement that we’re going to be leaving WABE starting in March. We’ve loved being live on the air at WABE over the past year, and our successful partnership helped us deliver essential political coverage and insights to Georgia audiences. Beyond and during a historic election year, we’ve interviewed presidential candidates and governors, senators, lawmakers, and tons of voters and advocates. Starting in March, we’re taking Politically Georgia back to its roots, and we’ll be available as a podcast only.
“Remember, on Monday, March 3rd, the best place to catch your Politically Georgia team will be on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. It’s been great, but we’re excited about Politically Georgia 3.0.”
Patricia Murphy: “Yes. As I said, I was able to check radio host off my bucket list of things to do in this life, but we’re going back to our roots as podcast only. It’s a little bit more rough and tumble. You can do it from anywhere. You can do it on the road. So, this has been a great opportunity, and we’re also looking forward to what’s next.”
The statements followed a discussion about Marjorie Taylor Greene going mainstream and her future electoral prospects.
At the end of its Wednesday episode hosts Tia Mitchell and Patricia Murphy again noted “getting feedback” about the change:
Tia Mitchell: “We are getting feedback from you guys following our announcement that we are leaving WABE starting in March. And we just want to reiterate that we love you guys, we’ve loved being live on the air for the past year. And we’ve had a really successful partnership that has helped us deliver, you know, really essential political coverage and insight to Georgia audiences. And we’ve done so much. And we appreciate that, right, Patricia?”
Patricia Murphy: “We do. It’s been an awesome opportunity. ABE is going to have great content going forward. And all of our listeners can find us on their favorite podcast platform. That will not change.”
Guests that Wednesday included Semafor Congressional reporter Kadia Goba and the hosts of the Crime in Congress podcast, one of whom is Rep. Buddy Carter’s Deputy Chief of Staff. The other was billed simply as working for a “D.C. Nonprofit.”
Semafor is a digital media company similar to Cox’s Axios in courting an affluent, audience with insider scoops, live events, and an insistence it’s restoring trust in media during polarizing times. It was co-founded by former New York Times media columnist Ben Smith and has a weekly media newsletter that has never covered Cox ownership in a critical way. Despite Cox’s purchase of Axios and its courting of Trump world.
Buddy Carter was most recently in the news for sponsoring a bill to rename Greenland as Red, White, and Blueland. In the AJC interview with his Deputy Chief of Staff, that was not discussed and the “D.C. Nonprofit” the other Crime in Congress host works for is Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, “a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization founded in 2013 to engage Republican policymakers and the public about responsible, conservative solutions to address our nation’s energy, economic, and environmental security while increasing America’s competitive edge.”
Promoting two Republican staffers’ podcast on the AJC’s own (and while it’s still on public radio) adds to the image of the paper actively courting Trump’s D.C. But the partisan aspect aside, it’s also evidence of an incestuous political and media culture built on access and promoting and protecting each other at the expense of outsiders, be they college radio DJs or non-AJC journalists.
The Thursday episode made no mention of leaving WABE but featured frequent guest Cody Hall, a top aide to Gov. Brian Kemp who served as his Director of Communications while Political Rewind was still on GPB.
During an attempted partisan cut to GPB’s funding in 2021, which the AJC never covered, Hall tweeted at a GPB reporter wondering why the AJC’s Bluestein was getting Covid updates seemingly ahead of other journalists. (Then, as now, any cuts to public radio funding threatens layoffs for its journalists, while the AJC’s star reporters enjoy the protection of its billionaire owners and insider friends like Hall.)
WABE held its quarterly board meeting just days before the announcement, but it was not mentioned in any programming updates. (An Executive Session did follow the public meeting.)
Board Chair Julie Salisbury opened the meeting acknowledging the current environment, “working in public media and working to support public media, has always been a very difficult” …
“We’re fortunate at WABE that 88% of our funding comes from the local community. For that we are very grateful.”
Still, WABE is about $650,000 behind budget for the fiscal year to date, and projects a $534,000 deficit for the end of the fiscal year. But emphasized they don’t want that to happen.
After layoffs last fall, CFO Sam Delaney claimed a bright spot was its CPB grant coming in larger than expected. Greene’s DOGE subcommittee could seek to cut or end the CPB altogether and the Trump administration has made numerous, if constitutionally questionable, moves to cut federal contracts and jobs.
This could impact public radio stations both directly and indirectly as impacted workers cut their own donations or others shift priorities to things like food banks and mutual aid organizations or political groups and activists directly challenging Trump and MAGA.
For all the charges of political bias, public media is required to be non-partisan. In the second Trump era that can mean appearing to appease or normalize authoritarian politics while not doing enough to counter lies and right-wing propaganda.
An increasing number of voices on the left, even NPR’s traditional moderate to liberal audience, think of the media as asymmetrical with the urgency being to build up more progressive outlets and voices, or just have elected Democrats do more of their own media, than try to refight the “save public media” fights of the past.
There will still be a need for fact checking, and especially alternatives to corporate or billionaire-owned outlets like the AJC. WABE, and seemingly all public radio, has spent the last decade prioritizing the AJC over building a serious non-profit alternative to it.
Now their paths to a sustainable future may be in direct conflict.
GPB also had a board meeting scheduled for this month but postponed it until April 1st. An email asking why was not returned.
