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WBOI Presents: 2019 News Roundup

City of Fort Wayne, Greater Fort Wayne Inc. and WIKICOMMONS

It’s officially 2020 as our news teams starts the year off with a deep dive into stories we covered throughout 2019. A busy time for the newsroom was highlighted by municipal election coverage, downtown development, and an ever growing arts scene bookending our year in review.

 

Credit Tom Henry for Mayor

One of the biggest stories of 2019 was Mayor Tom Henry’s election to a historic fourth term. At the end of 2019 he sat down for interviews with both WBOI’s Zach Bernard and Julia Meek.

 

 

Credit Rebecca Green, WBOI News

WBOI News Director Rebecca Green spoke with our own Zach Bernard in the studio to look back at the stories he covered in 2019 and where they could go in 2020.

 

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Credit Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne

  One quote we heard on WBOI Presents last year came from Andy Downs, Director of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana politics. Andy was quoting his dad, Mike Downs, when he said, “a politician goes to data for the same reason a drunk goes to a lamppost, not for enlightenment, but for support.” While some pick and choose the data points they see as supporting their arguments, we wanted to take a look at some of the trends we saw in our region in 2019 with Rachel Blakeman, Director of the Community Research Institute at Purdue Fort Wayne.

 

1219ru_4_andy_downs.mp3

Credit WIKICOMMONS

Andy Downs also joined us for a look back in the year in politics. He joined WBOI News Director Rebecca Green to discuss the impacts of local elections throughout our region, changes and possible changes coming in state government, and the legacies of two former senators we lost in 2019.

 

1219RU_5_NCAA.mp3

Credit Grant Halverson/GETTY IMAGES

In 2019, the National Collegiate Athletic Association opened the door for student-athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness. A lot of the discussion focuses around high-profile stars, but that's a small fraction of student athletes affected by NCAA rules. The proposed change by the Indianapolis-based organization would go well beyond endorsement deals.

 

1219RU_6_Arts.mp3

Credit WBOI News Team

It’s hard to cram a year’s worth of Julia Meek’s arts and culture coverage into a single picture or a single conversation, but Julia joined Ben Clemmer in the studio to bring our 2019 News Roundup to an end with a year in the arts.

Special thanks to the entire news team for making this roundup possible. Our music is by Mark Waldick and Noah Campodonico. Our web producer is Loyal Vandenburg. Our production assistants are Monica Blankenship and Mikaela Veltum.