Northern Public Radio is the public radio service of Northern Illinois University, broadcasting WNIJ news and Classical WNIU from DeKalb and Rockford to northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin.
Northern Public Radio is the public radio service of Northern Illinois University (NIU) and the NPR member for the Rockford market. Its stations are licensed to NIU and broadcast from the NIU Broadcast Center on the university's campus in DeKalb, Illinois, with a second facility at Riverfront Museum Park in Rockford. It serves Rockford, DeKalb, Sterling, LaSalle, Freeport and communities throughout northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin.
The network runs two full-power stations and three repeaters. WNIJ (89.5 FM) is the news station, carrying local, national and international news from NPR and its own newsroom, plus jazz, blues and weekend entertainment; it is simulcast on WNIE (89.1 FM) in Freeport, WNIQ (91.5 FM) in Sterling and WNIW (91.3 FM) in LaSalle. Classical WNIU (90.5 FM, with a translator at 105.7 FM in Rockford) is the area's only 24-hour classical music station. The Northern Illinois Radio Information Service (NIRIS), staffed mainly by volunteers, broadcasts daily readings of newspapers, magazines and books for listeners with print impairments. Local programs include Sessions from Studio A, The 21st and Perspectives, and WNIJ Hola produces Spanish-language content.
WNIU signed on in 1954 as a 10-watt campus station and in 1971 became a charter member of National Public Radio. WNIJ signed on in 1991, when the programming split into a news service and an all-classical service, and the repeaters in LaSalle, Sterling and Freeport followed in 1998 and 1999. WNIJ's 10-person newsroom covers beats ranging from education and community policing to arts, culture and spiritual expression, and the stations take part in journalism collaborations with Report for America, America Amplified and Illinois Public Radio.
Staff are Northern Illinois University employees. The stations employ reporters, hosts and news producers, multimedia producers, corporate support (sponsorship sales) staff, development and events staff, and engineering and IT staff. Northern Public Radio also offers unpaid internships in news, classical music production, promotions and events, development and marketing, and archives, with preference for NIU students earning academic credit.
