WAMU 88.5

WAMU 88.5 is the NPR member station for the Washington, D.C. region. It serves listeners in the District, Maryland and Virginia with local, regional and national news and programming on 88.5 FM, online at wamu.org and on demand. The station is licensed to American University and operates as a department of the university, with the university's Board of Trustees as its governing board, so WAMU staff are American University employees. Its studios and newsroom are at 4401 Connecticut Avenue NW in the Forest Hills neighborhood of northwest Washington, near the AU campus.

WAMU began in 1951 as a campus carrier-current station and signed on at 88.5 FM on October 23, 1961. It was a founding member of National Public Radio in 1971 and has been Washington's primary NPR news station since 2007. Its stated mission is to connect Washingtonians with each other and the world, and it follows NPR's ethics guidelines and the Public Media Code of Integrity.

The WAMU newsroom covers the region on beats including politics, education and transportation, and the station airs the weekly Politics Hour. WAMU also produces 1A, a daily national program heard on public radio stations across the country, along with the 1A podcast and 1A Plus versions for member stations. Weekend programming includes The Big Broadcast and Hot Jazz Saturday Night. From 2018 to February 2024 WAMU published the local news site DCist, whose archive remains online.

WAMU hires reporters and editors, producers for 1A, WAMU Mornings and podcasts, video and platform producers, program leadership, and fundraising staff such as major gifts officers, along with student assistants. Positions are posted on American University's careers site. Some newsroom and production roles are part of a bargaining unit represented by SAG-AFTRA, and recent staff postings have been hybrid, with three to four days a week on site.