Wisconsin on the Air: 100 Years of Public Broadcasting in the State that Invented It

By Jack Mitchell

Peek behind the microphones of Wisconsin Public Radio in this history of public radio, Wisconsin on the Air. The new Wisconsin Historical Society Press broadcasting biography deftly maps the nation’s 100-year public broadcasting journey, begun in 1917, by charting the transmissions and transitions of the Wisconsin broadcasters who invented and transformed the media. Author Jack Mitchell, who developed National Public Radio’s All Things Considered before becoming the head of Wisconsin Public Radio, centers this public broadcasting history around the implementation of the "Wisconsin Idea” philosophy that drove its development and still sets its course. Along the way, Mitchell introduces readers to the personalities and philosophies, funding challenges and legislation, and original programming and pioneering technology that gave us public broadcasting.